🙏🏼62% = Okay = Skippable!

Thworping through time and space, one adventure at a time! This time: the quest for the Key to Marinus, creepy supporting characters, and bad disguises.

STORY:

The Keys of Marinus boldly tries a new concept for the show by setting each of the six episodes in different places, connected by one common narrative. It's an interesting approach, not used very much on the show since (and mostly in other Terry Nation-penned stories, such as The Chase, 1965).

Part 1 effectively establishes the alien setting by returning to the sense of mystery from Part 1 of The Daleks (1964).

Part 2 features a good idea with an execution that only goes halfway, but it's the concept that works the best in this story.

This is a very narratively flimsy story, with the framing narrative fairly weak and the separate smaller stories in each episode very uneven in quality. The Keys of Marinus shows some of Terry Nation's lazy qualities as a writer: he's starting to repeat himself in terms of plot structure and ideas (a pretty feat considering this is only his second contribution to the show!). We didn't need another sluggish cave-climbing sequence, for instance.

To be fair, Nation plays around with some interesting concepts and themes, such as mind control, pacifism, and distrust towards machines, that give the adventure a small narrative edge. I also have to give Nation some credit for cleverly writing the main cast members' vacations into the story by splitting up the group and focusing on each half in separate episodes.

Part 6 very hurriedly brings the story to a close, mostly because half of it deals with the fallout of the previous episode, leaving the ending of the serial very unsatisfying.

POPULATION:

Here, Susan is at her peak level of irritation and uselessness.

Yartek is a trashy villain. He's supposed to be the big bad, but he doesn't show up until the end of the last episode and never poses a real threat. Who thought that disguise would fool anyone?

The Voord seem like a desperate attempt at recreating the success of the Daleks, and even though they look (slightly) cool, they remain too underdeveloped and underutilised to truly work.

PRODUCTION:

The sets and model work are the weakest on the show so far, probably because they change for every episode, so they look either overly simplistic or not very convincing.

ATMOSPHERE:

Part 3 is sluggish and feels like a very hastily put-together filler episode with ideas that don't come alive convincingly with the allocated resources. There's a whole "fake it till you make it" sensibility over that entire episode that makes it awkward to watch.

Part 4 has the strongest atmosphere; it's dark and unnerving and offers one of the more disturbingly memorable guest performances in Who history. These days, they would never create a character as brilliantly unnerving as Vasor, yet he is the epitome of terror and the sole genuine highlight of the narrative.

The second good episode is Part 5, which reinvigorates the story by essentially speeding through a courtroom drama (the first of many in the series!) and allowing William Hartnell to shine as Ian's defender. The episode showcases some qualities of Hartnell's Doctor that would later become defining features for almost every incarnation of the character.

RANDOM OBSERVATIONS:

This is one of the better stories for Hartnell's famous line flubs, such as the golden "If you would have had your shoes on, boy, you could've lent her hers!"

FINAL THOUGHTS:

Although Terry Nation offers an intriguing new concept filled with a variety of locations, characters, and ideas, along with a few highlights, its uneven pace and filler elements mostly let The Keys of Marinus down.