Day 299 — October 26th 2021
Snakedance Parts Three and Four
Snakedance — Part Three
Sometimes I just don’t have very much to say about an episode, and this is one of those days. It’s not a bad episode — although I’d say it’s not grabbed me as much as yesterday’s two did, so I’ve dropped to a 6/10 on the score — it’s just that there’s nothing in here which jumped out at me as a talking point. Part Ones are usually pretty easy, because you’ve got a new setting, with new characters and sets, a change in the writing and direction. Loads to latch on to. Part Two of this story was easy too, because both Martin Clunes and Janet Fielding gave brilliant performances which deserved to be celebrated. I try to avoid these posts simply being a list of things which I’ve liked in an episode, but I think that’s going to have to be my approach today because otherwise I’ll just be repeating myself a lot from the first half of the story.
So, three things I’ve liked about this episode;
- The prison set is brilliant. It feels really unique with the angled bars, and I’m impressed to get something like this appearing for the first time so late in the story.
- The scene between Lon and Ambril, when he uses the man’s curiosity against him is brilliantly done, building up to his breaking of the final artefact;
Lon: ‘Now listen to me. If you don’t cooperate, I promise you you’ll never set eyes on any of these trinkets ever again. You’ll always know that they existed somewhere, that you discovered them once, held them in your hands once, and then lost them forever. It’s up to you…’
Ambril: ‘All right, I agree.’
- The Mara puppet as part of the Punch and Judy show is brilliant, and it’s clearly been based on the Mara prop from Kinda, which surprises me because they’ll be using a different one later in this story.
And two things I wasn’t so keen on;
- We don’t get to add anyone to my list of ‘guest cast in the TARDIS’ in this story (so far, at least, and I can’t remember anyone else going in there before the story is through) but it does highlight another issue I have with the series at this point — they spend a lot of time in the TARDIS. There’s an awful lot of going back to the ship for things. Castrovalva spends the first episode and a half in there, Tegan moves the ship in Four to Doomsday, Nyssa spends ages building her vibrator in The Visitation and they use it to convince the police in Black Orchid. Earthshock’s a particularly bad offender — Adric spends the entire first episode inside the ship, and Nyssa doesn’t get to leave after the half-way point in Part Two. The pilots and the Master get to fly the ship about in Time-Flight and there’s loads of back-and-forth in Arc of Infinity. In this story our regulars spend a fair chunk of Part One cooped up, and Doctor Who and Nyssa have both gone back to the ship in parts Two and Three. We’re spending so long inside the ship and I want to be outside, exploring new worlds!
- Then there’s the snake tattoo coming to life on Tegan’s arm. I think it’s a far worse effect than the giant snake at the end of Kinda, probably because it’s the size of an actual snake, so it stands out as more artificial. I’d love them to have just gone with a real snake for the scene instead, and think it would have made it a genuinely better moment.
Snakedance — Part Four
I think of the two Mara stories — Kinda and Snakedance — as being very much Tegan stories, but actually she doesn’t play a massive role in either of them. In Kinda she’s the vessel through which the Mara escapes the Dark Places of the Inside through her dreams, and here she’s the person who brings the creature back home to Manussa, but beyond being a plot device she doesn’t have much impact on the stories themselves. It’s surprised me this time around how little she features in this story — she’s absent from large stretches of these final two episodes.
That’s one of the major reasons that I’ve not enjoyed this one quite so much. The final defeat of the Mara feels like it needs Tegan to be more involved. Oh sure she features prominently in the climax, with the images of her and the snake cutting together quicker and quicker until their faces merge, but she’s entirely passive throughout the whole thing, just waiting for Doctor Who to save the day. I can’t help feeling that Tegan needed something to actually do — the Mara’s been infesting her mind for all this time, so she needs to be the one who casts it out once and for all. Possibly the crystal can smash as a result of her ability to resist the creature’s baneful influence? I don’t know, but I’d love her to do more than just stand around.
I’m also a little let down by the very end of this one. We get a nice scene between Doctor Who and Tegan (it’s the most wholesome interaction they’ve had in the entire series together so far) but then the episode’s over just like that. Day saved, the end. It seems a pity to have a cast of such rich guest actors who don’t get any kind of farewell. Even Chela, who’s been acting as a surrogate companion for these last two episodes, is just gone. I’d love there to be a moment of the sun coming out and the world rejoicing at the defeat of the Mara.
I’m dropping to a 5/10 for this one. It’s filled with great moments and ideas, and I think you could happily spend longer exploring a world as well-realised as this one, but in the end it’s missing something.
