Snakedance

This is part of a series of reviews of Doctor Who in chronological timeline order.

Previous Story: The Edge of the War

I'm going to say it, I expected more from this story. After the absolute fever-dream that was Kinda, I expected a sequel to be just as surreal and trippy and while this story did hit some of those notes, it ultimately couldn't capture the strangeness of Kinda. That's not to say it wasn't good though, I think this story is the more effective usage of the Mara, I enjoyed it's presence here a lot more.

The reveal at the beginning that the Mara has been lurking within Tegan since her last encounter with it is definitely a terrifying one. It recontextualises a lot of the audio stories I listened to in that gap. Speaking of Tegan, Janet Fielding's performance as the possessed Tegan/the Mara was just fantastic. She puts her all into this low-budget 80s sci-fi TV show and I appreciate that a lot.

The fictional world of Manussa is very well-realised. The culture and mythology surrounding the Mara all feels like something that would naturally develop from the events of Kinda. It's something I've praised before about this era of the show, but the worldbuilding is consistently very good.

A problem I've been noticing recently, that I've been somewhat blinded to by listening to the Big Finish audios alongside the episodes, is that the Doctor and Nyssa feel very flat. Nyssa less so, as she has somewhat of a character in this story but the Doctor is especially hit hard by this. Davison is a great performer, and still brings a great energy to the role that makes him entertaining to watch but his version of the Doctor feels very one-note and boring compared to say, Tom Baker's take on the Time-Lord.

I have heard he improves in his final season, and I know for a fact he improves in the audio dramas, so this doesn't change my opinions on the 5th Doctor but it is something that I think is especially apparent in this story. Besides that though, this story has a strong cast, a mostly strong script and a great sense of worldbuilding. I can see why a lot of people like this story and may like it more than Kinda, alas I'm not one of them.

Next Story: Pursuit of the Nightjar

the mara is a very confusing creature. we first see it on deva loca but apparently it began on manussa? the snakedancers and the manussans and the kinda are similar but not releated i think? it is quite confusing. tegan is great but once lon gets infected we barely see her, which is a missed opportunity, because janet fielding is really great as the conflicted tegan/mara. i like when dr who uses an academic field quite a lot, like planet of the daleks being very biogeographical - here this is very anthropological, so i enjoyed that. lon is a charasmatic character indeed. so ultimately it is not a very good sequel to kinda and the mara but i like it more than kinda in its story elements (study of a society vs conflict between natives and colonists)

What a relief! This one is good. Very good.

Even though the title heavily indicates “SNAKES” I didn’t expect Snakedance to be a sequel to Kinda. Setting the new story thousands of years after the original is a master stroke which allows the Mara to have fallen into legend and provides a blank slate on which a renaissance society has developed out of their less developed ancestors.

Tegan does a good job in her various forms of possession, repeating the right cues from Kinda but elevating the performance further in certain particularly crazed scenes. The snake POV vision they deploy helps drive this state home to the audience, it’s affecting. The idea that she’s been carrying remnants of the Mara with her since last season is creepy!

Martin Clunes is a rare, highly familiar face and he plays the young, overprivileged, spoilt leader well. His lack of respect for ordinary people and sneering disregard for pretty much anything is a bold and interesting trait that stands out against the (for example) the bland Prince the Third Doctor met in Peladon.

The psychedelic elements of Snakedance echo those of Kinda but are channelled into a more useful force for the plot. It's great to see that Twin Peaks energy put to such expert use. It not only surprises but moves the story forward. I love the lore and world building. A mythology oddly made convincing through the scientific rigour it is dismissed with. I like that when people are taken over by the Mara they still inhabit different personalities, again, this makes the ridiculous premise feel more realistic.

This is the first story in a long while that both starts well AND wraps up in a satisfying way. The ceremony at the end of part four is a clever and mad idea, reflecting the farce of tradition and the events of Kinda in a warped and funny way. Martin Clunes’ outfit is very, very funny. The snakes in this story look tonnes better than the ones in Kinda too…! All of this is outshone by the brilliant, emotional character moment we get with Tegan, someone who has been plagued by the Mara for a full season by this point and finally gets respite after a full story of being frenzied.