Day 11 — January 11th 2021
The Sea of Death and The Velvet Web
The Sea of Death (The Keys of Marinus — Episode One)
I should start today by acknowledging that as great as Marco Polo’s script is, and as lovely as it looks in tele-snaps and production photos, there’s a chance that if the episodes were ever recovered we’d be bitterly disappointed by a story which actually looks awful. I have to say that because of my next thought;
The Sea of Death might be the most shoddy episode of Doctor Who that ever made it to air, and it feels like such a comedown from the last few days. Honestly, I’m watching this one and genuinely wondering how anyone involved ever worked in television again.
I’m not really talking about the script here, if I’m honest. Sure, it’s lacking all the little touches and character moments that shone so brightly in Marco Polo, but the dialogue is decent enough if functional. It feels like a typical Terry Nation affair — 24 minutes of television written as an adventure serial for children, with no depth beyond that. But it works well enough, sets up the new world for this story, introduces some mystery and the quest. I can’t claim to love it, but I can’t complain massively either.
No, it’s in every other part of the production that this feels so incredibly shoddy. The whole thing feels incredibly cramped. While our heroes are exploring the beach, there’s countless moments of someone turning around, pointing two feet to their left and saying ‘look over there!’. There’s no sense of scale to this place at all.
Even worse is the moment one of the Voord inspects the TARDIS, hears Susan coming, wanders out of shot… and Susan wanders in about a second later! How on Earth did she not see him? That, to me, feels like a fault in the direction; if you’d had the Voord sneak off the other way, they wouldn’t have crossed paths. Heck, if you’d had him sneak around the TARDIS rather than casually strolling off it would work better!
The attempt to make the building seem huge is admirable, using two sides and some perspective paintings, but again it’s shot so incompetently that any chance of the effect working is shattered. Take the moment Doctor Who stumbles through the hidden door, for example, and either William Russell enters the set too soon, or the camera cuts away too late, completely destroying the idea that he’s actually on the other side of some huge building.
While I was thinking about how badly that bit had been done, I was distracted by the shadow of the boom mic hovering over Barbara’s head!
Add to that the fact that the entire cast feel under-rehearsed. People talk a lot about William Hartnell fluffing his lines, but we’ve not really seen much of that before today. Here, though, I think almost every member of the cast slip up somewhere. Although I do have to laugh at one of my favourite ‘Billy Fluffs’;
Barbara: [The sea is] frozen, isn’t it?
Doctor Who: No, impossible in this temperature. Besides, it’s too warm.
I’ll admit to quoting that bit whenever we visit a beach.
If I sound like a really miserable bugger today then it’s because I am. I always think of The Keys of Marinus as starting off well enough, dropping into being a bit rubbish in the middle, then perking up again for the end. So I’m gutted to watch this one and spend all my time distracted by how half-baked it all is, especially when we’ve seen already how much they can achieve under the pressures of their schedule, space and budget.
Anyway, shall we end on a happier note? Today marks the first time we ever see the TARDIS materialise on screen. We’ve seen it depart before (In The Firemaker, The Rescue and — as far as we know — Assassin at Peking) but we’ve never seen it fade into existence in a new location befoe the opening of this episode. I think there’s decent enough reason to suppose that the little TARDIS model used on the beach for this effect is the same one from Marco Polo, and it’ll pop up in the series a few more times after this.
For being something of a disappointment, I’m sorry to say that I’m gonna have to go with 3/10 for today’s episode.
The Velvet Web (The Keys of Marinus — Episode Two)
You’ll be pleased to know, coming on the back of such a negative rant, that The Velvet Web is my favourite episode of The Keys of Marinus, and I’m feeling a great deal more positive towards it than I was to The Sea of Death.
The difficult thing with a story that changes setting every episode is that you have to create a new world each time, and make them distinct and interesting in their own right. It’s done with relative ease here, and it feels like a fairly traditional ‘Science Fiction’ idea — only one of our heroes being able to see the truth of this city, while the others are slowly absorbed into the fantasy.
It would probably stretch the idea to breaking point, but I reckon you could get away with a full four-part story based on this episode, and it would probably work better than The Keys of Marinus does as a whole. In Episode One, the travellers would arrive, find themselves in the lap of luxury, but perhaps they encounter someone who’s seen through the lies themselves, and are concerned when that person is captured and taken away. The cliffhanger would be Barbara having her fit in the middle of the night when the disc falls off her forehead.
In Episode Two, Barbara would be able to see the truth of the place, and spend her time trying to convince the others, before running off and hiding. She’d meet a band of rebels and team up with them, and we’d end on the Brains of Morphoton ordering her capture. Episode Three would have to be a generic runaround — how very much like an Episode Three — ending with Ian capturing Barbara, and then she’d have to smash the jars early in Episode Four, leaving the last 20 minutes of the story free to stage a revolution.
Look, I’m not saying it wouldn’t drag a bit, and thinking about it there’s some real undertones of The Macra Terror in there, but I reckon I’d enjoy it.
Anyway, the Brains of Morphoton are brilliant — and this is the first time I’ve ever noticed that they actually pulsate in their little jars, which looks brilliant. I don’t know how well that would have shown up on screen in 1964, so extra points to the team for trying it.
And I’m pleased to say that the production of this episode is several times more competent than the last one. There’s some very clever use of recording breaks and out-of-sequence recording in the early stages as Barbara starts to see through the lies, and it makes for compelling viewing.
I don’t think it’s ever going to be an out-and-out classic, but it’s entertained me, and I’m glad the whole of today’s entry isn’t going to be me whining!
7/10
