The general hook is that several keys need to be collected by travelling to different locations. Since these locations each take an episode, it feels fair to take them as standalone episodes, as the narrative between them basically doesn’t exist.

The first is ‘the velvet web’ in which people are held under a guise of luxury and happiness, while being actually being poor and suffering. It is an interesting take and allows for some good moments with Barbara. It is generally intriguing, but the actual confrontation and consequences of destroying the illusion are left unclear, which is a shame. (7/10)

Next is ‘The screaming jungle’. This one is not all that interesting. Just a lot of wandering around the location. Some people are lost, then found again. Not all that different from the introduction episode. There are tidbits of interesting ideas in the actual screaming of the jungle and the scientific formula that gets used later on, but these don’t really get any time to shine. (4/10)

After that we get to ‘The snows of terror’. A cold, barren land. The group meets Vasor, a dangerous man, who is portrayed quite well and actually fooled me with his kindness in the beginning. After that it moves to a rescue mission in a cave which isn’t all that interesting. The highlight here is Susan climbing on a shaky ice bridge. Which honestly leads to a bigger point about her character: For now, I still don’t see Susan as pathetic. The character is often talked about as weak, even by the actress, but I think she gets the most direct action scenes after Ian. She can be screamy and weak, but often shows bravery and initiative when no one else will. Maybe these moments drop off later and will only leave the blubbering mess, but for now, I don’t feel like it is that black and white (hehe). (5/10)

We move on to “Sentence of Death”. As an Ace Attorney fan, this premise is right up my alley, although that first court session that lasted less than a minute made me laugh out loud.

The episode shines quite a welcome light on the first doctor, who we’ve missed for a few episodes. He gets to show his smarts, have some fun investigations with Susan and Barbara, and is generally a joy to see on screen. It also reinforces his growth quite well. A few stories earlier, he would’ve left Ian there without a second thought.

This is one of the few stories which focuses on the characters first instead of the actual location. It also gives them more to do than the last few stories. It’s a breath of fresh air after some aimless location scouting. (9/10)

The last episode rounds it off pretty well. Locking Ian away allows for the rest of the cast to get more screen time, and the conclusion to the murder was actually pretty clever. It also includes the first namedrop in the show, with the Doctor boasting he has met Poirot. After that we get a rather hasty resolution to the Voord and move on.

In general the story lacks cohesion. It has a lot of moving parts and by the time the end was reached, I had forgotten what the keys actually did. The individual parts have clever ideas, but the ones purely based on environment don’t always land. If the characters interact and react to the environment in interesting ways, it gets miles better. Let’s hope future stories see this too.