Day 13 — January 13th 2021
Sentence of Death and The Keys of Marinus
Sentence of Death (The Keys of Marinus — Episode Five)
The default thing to say about Sentence of Death is that William Hartnell is back from his holiday and he’s looking so much more refreshed than he’d been when he left. Certainly, in The Sea of Death he’s tripping over himself all over the place, and is clearly tired, and he is back on form again today. And then he fumbles a line and does a very obvious correction;
‘I can’t improve at this very moment… I can’t prove at this very moment that Chesterton didn’t hide it.’
In fairness, he remains calm and the correction is very carefully and clearly delivered. And then a friend explained why; ‘it was scripted that he should fluff that line’.
What? Nonsense. Surely not? I checked the Fact of Fiction in Doctor Who Magazine for the story, and sure enough they mention that yes, it was in the script that Doctor Who should deliver the line incorrectly and then correct himself.
I still didn’t believe it. It sounded like such a bizarre story. So I dug up a copy of the camera script and… it’s there! Clear as day!
It seemed like the most unlikely thing in the world, but it does sort of tie in with a notion I have that certainly some of Hartnell’s ‘mistakes’ were entirely intentional on the part of the actor himself. Oh, he was certainly not a well man, and he definitely struggled with his lines to the point that some — most — of his fluffs are entirely genuine, but I can’t help but think some of it is all part of his act as Doctor Who. When he pops up on things like Desert Island Disks (which I’ll take a listen to later on in the marathon, closer to it’s broadcast date in Season Three), he feels far more ‘in control’ than the stories would have you believe. Maybe it all depends on the day?
In any case, on this occasion at least, it really wasn’t a mistake — he was told to get it wrong!
As for the episode itself… well, I want to like it more than I do. I love a good murder mystery, but I spent a lot of time today wondering about the mechanics of it all. We were told in The Sea of Death that the Conscience of Marinus effectively deals with moral decisions for the people of this world, and that ‘Robbery, fear, hate, violence were unknown among us’, and crime therefore was also alien. Indeed, Arbitan says ‘Marinus was unique in the universe.’
So I spent ages today wondering why then even had a legal system in place. Sure, the Voord can overcome the effects of the machine, but surely they’re rare enough as to make having a tribunal of three judges and an entire security force in place a waste of money? They even repeat — twice — that murder is so rare here.
This then opened up other questions in my mind. The Brains of Morphoton could well be aliens, so they’re able to exploit and enslave. That’s fine. The jungle is presumably able to resist the Conscience. Makes sense. But what about our sex pest in The Snows of Terror? Surely he wouldn’t have been able to attack Barbara?To even consider it?
Reading back a transcript today to get the above quotes, I’ve finally realised how it works. Violence and crime were unknown on Marinus, for seven centuries. And then the Voord came and Arbitan had to remove the keys so that the people of Marinus could fight back. And that’s how it works — the Conscience of Marinus isn’t operational at all now.
That probably seems really obvious to all of you — I feel I was being slightly think in not realising it — but it was genuinely stopping me from engaging with a lot of the episode today. So that’s my fault rather than the story, but it’s going to end up with a pretty average 5/10.
The Keys of Marinus — The Keys of Marinus — Episode Six)
‘I don’t know how you watch this,’ said my wife, about five minutes in to today’s episode. My wife is a Not-We; not really a fan of Doctor Who. It’s unfair to say she’s not into it at all — she watched and enjoyed a lot of the Eccleston and Tennant eras, and she’s seen odd bits here and there of the eras since those, but she’s very much not keen on Old Testament Who. Early in our relationship I tried to watch Remembrance of the Daleks with her, and by the end of Episode Two accepted that she’d given it a go and we could switch it off.
On New Year’s Eve, when I decided fairly last minute to undertake this marathon throughout 2021, I asked her if she would watch the occasional episode with me. Not all of them — I didn’t want to try and do a clone of the brilliant Wife in Space — but the odd key episode here and there. She agreed, and the next day we sat down and did An Unearthly Child. When it finished, I asked what she thought. ‘The title sequence looks better these days,’ she concluded, and that was that.
No, of course I didn’t decide she should watch The Keys of Marinus. If anything, this is thw kind of episode you hide away from the Not-We. God, no! Don’t look at Creature From the Pit! Here, isn’t The Curse of Fenric marvellous? No, our son had gone down for a nap, it was the perfect time to get today’s episodes in, and she was having a cup of tea in the living room at the same time.
I tried to claw it back by telling her — as if she would care! — that Fiona Walker would return to the series 24 years later playing a fabulous witch called Lady Peinforte. ‘Yeah, I’m in bloody pain watching this,’ she replied. Ho hum. You can’t win them all…!
Something that surprised me watching this one, which I’m not sure I’ve ever really noticed before, is that the Voord are actually in The Keys of Marinus surprisingly little. They pop up at the very start and the very end, but that’s it. You hear a lot of talk about how they were hoped to be the next big thing, just like the Daleks were, but I’m not sure that’s actually true. Surely if that had been the case they’d have made a greater attempt to push them?
It’s probably for the best that they don’t show up much, because they’re fairly useless. I quite like the design — the head is a good shape, and the idea that they look like men in wetsuits because they are, in fact, men in wetsuits is clever. But they never get to do very much of interest, and the attempt of Yartek to disguise himself at the end… well, the less said about that the better, I think!
I’d like to end on a positive, so I’ll say here that I really like the design of the keys themselves. They look suitably alien and scientific while also having that brilliantly 1960s aesthetic to them. There’s not a huge number of props I’d love to own from Doctor Who, but I would very much like a Key of Marinus. I wonder if any still survive?
A few years ago I did a little bit of photoshopping for an issue of the brilliant Nothing at the End of the Lane, for an article about surviving props and costumes from the series, and among them was one of the Voord submarines from the start of this story, so it’s not impossible to think that there’s a Key out there somewhere…!
We’ll be leaving Marinus with a 4/10.
