User Reviews

The Keys of Marinus is a story written by Terry Nation, who also penned the second serial of Hartnell's first series, The Daleks. This serial is sadly not The Daleks. The plot starts with The Doctor, Ian, Barbara, and Susan landing on a planet called Marinus. (NOTE: I love the first episode of this serial. Really sets up some intrigue, and the planet is pretty cool. Definitely one of Mr. Nation's strong points, as Skaro was also an interesting planet.) It's here they come upon a man called Arbitan who is the keeper of a great machine which once made Marinus a sort of utopia. But of course, things went wrong, and they had to turn the machine off, removing the five key micro-circuits (i.e The Keys of Marinus) and scattering them all over the planet, for which the Doctor and his band of companions must help retrieve in order to gain access to the Tardis.

This is where the story takes off, and we end the first episode. The next two episodes, "The Velvet Web" and "The Screaming Jungle" are fantastic. What I love about this serial, and also what kind of kills it, is that the search for these keys takes our Tardis crew all over the planet of Marinus. The constant changing of environment does tend to keep the story interesting, and I wish more serials would have followed suit. I won't go into detail on all the environments, and episodes, but I will say that the changing of sets and story of the episodes (there's a little mini story in each episode) really brings an adventurous quality to the story, except when it doesn't. This occurs midway through "The Snows of Terror" and "The Sentence of Death". The Keys of Marinus is NOT a story to watch in one sitting. I've seen the serial three times now, and this conclusion has become quite apparent to me; the first time, which I watched over the span of a week, I loved it. The second time, I watched in one sitting, and it started to reeaaaally drag, mainly on parts four and five and six. The third time I again chose to spread it out, and I came away better for it.

Episode 6 was also very disappointing for me. I felt little interest in the plot after about the first 10 minutes, which I can say is certainly not a positive. But apart from that episodes 1, 2, 3 and partly four, I guess, were all quite enjoyable.

So in conclusion, you can get a lot worse with Doctor Who then The Keys of Marinus. It was an enjoyable First Doctor Era story, mind you he is not in episodes 3/4 (dang Doctor light stories!). It may not have been one of the high point in his first series, and it may drag, but The Screaming Jungle was great, and so was The Sea of Death. So I'd say, if you can handle slow paced and kinda padded Doctor Who, give The Keys of Marinus a go. It's got a pretty cool concept, which was sadly let down by budget and resource.

The criminals kidnap Susan to stop Barbara's investigations, but she soon discovers the murderer of Ayden.

"The Keys of Marinus" is a satisfying finale. The stuff set of Millennius is still dull, but there's a good performance from Fiona Walker.

As a story, The Keys of Marinus remains one of the most entertaining episodes of the first season. It's well paced, and the regulars are all great. There are various problems, such as bad writing and writing, but overall, it's a good 'un.

It's fair to say that The Keys of Marinus has some real variety, each story has a really different flavour, some more successful then others.

This sixth part is a classic, it's pretty much split into two halves, we get the conclusion of events from the previous episode first, before we get the conclusion to the story in general.

As for the first half, Fiona Walker is a revelation as Kala so beautiful, but so deadly, she was marvellous. I love how the story unfolds. The second half is great also, a very satisfying conclusion. I wish they had spent the whole episode concluding events on Marinus, my only minor gripe.

They really made great use of their budget, overall it really is a triumph. 9/10

This was the next story within the first season I was able to watch as all episodes of Marco Polo had long since been lost/destroyed and I wasn't interested enough to hunt down fan-recreations with audio over still photographs. In terms of following the plot it didn't make too much difference apart from understanding why Ian is dressed as he is. This story sees the group land on a planet in an area of acid and glass, where gimp-mask style aliens called the Voord are the main danger. The group are forced by an old man to obtain the missing keys for a machine which for time has controlled the populace of the planet by suppressing evil thoughts. These keys are scattered across the planet and, using devices to help them jump to the rough area, the group get into a series of different scrapes in their hunt.

This 6-part story started really well with an interesting world and characters. The acid and glass and large buildings were suitably otherworldly and, although they seem to just move slowly with knives raised dramatically over their heads, I did like the Voord for their design and look. The concept also offered interest as well since this planet has been essentially fully controlled by this central machine – a morally dubious concept and one I thought would be given more time. Unfortunately the Voord are mostly just topping and tailing the serial and the whole idea behind this machine isn't really touched on apart from a quick line of dialogue at the end, which is delivered as if suggesting you shouldn't keep tomatoes in the fridge rather than suggesting a machine isn't the best way forward. The idea of the machine also doesn't seem to affect the creation of the rest of the planet since it's influence doesn't make sense in context; eg one part of the story is a legal trial – not sure why such a structure would exist if the machine was controlling evil thoughts? Anyway, this isn't what this story is about because mostly it is a series of detached stories.

The four keys are in four different environments so it allows mini- adventures rather than one sustained story. I guess this is easier to write and it also allows the Doctor to vanish for 2 or 3 episodes; a vanishing so obvious that I had to Google to see if he had taken ill or something (he hadn't, apparently he had booked vacation and couldn't be there for filming because his manager had already approved it – or something like this). The mini-stories mean that the overall flow does feel fragmented and we don't really have time to get into any one part of Marinus that we are in. It produced OK little stories with action and events and I suppose it deserves credit for the difference things it did (chased by demons in the mountains one episode, in the dock the next) but as a whole it just seemed a little bit too fragment and fleeting.

The cast are OK. The Doctor is a bit too chipper compared to his more effective playing earlier, while Russell's Ian is a bit too cleancut and heroic – I preferred the earlier tension these two had between each other. Hill's Barbara is OK but Ford has little to do but scream and run – her Susan had been more confident that this before. The supporting cast are mostly decent enough, but nobody really has too much time to do much since they are mostly fleeting characters within the mini-stories. The different areas are nicely designed but it is a shame that I wasn't as taken by any of them as I was by the first place they landed.

Keys of Marinus is still an OK little serial but it's fragmented structure worked against it, although I guess it allowed Hartnell to use up his annual leave by dropping him from some episodes. Would have liked more meat on the ideas and maybe one less key to be able to spend more time within each sub-story area.

Review for all 6 episodes:

This story from Dalek creator Terry Nation begins with the episode the Sea of Death. It is in my view an excellent opening episode. It features an intriguing, well written plot with the TARDIS crew searching a strange planet. The design of the planet and its Voord creatures is very good indeed, ideas such as seas of acid and beaches of glass are cleverly used to create a truly interesting and exciting alien planet. The Voord look good, there is menace and suspense, an excellent alien landscape and building design, a proficient script and quality acting all round which gives a 10/10 opening episode to the story.

However, episodes 2-4 are a little disappointing in comparison. The idea of the story means each episode of the first 5 takes place in a different location with a self contained adventure searching for the hidden Keys of Marinus. This really would be a great idea for a story but is a pity when the original world in the opening episode is so well designed. Episode 2 has a hugely different location and features the crew suffering mind control. This second episode is very good in most aspects but a few less impressive aspects such as a minor plot hole cause its quality to suffer. This plot hole is that Barbara is meant to travel, via a kind of teleportation device, just a minute before the rest of the travellers and yet in that minute before they join her numerous things are meant to have happened.

Episodes 3 and 4 are not as interesting or well executed as the first part either with episode 4 the weakest. Episodes 5 and 6 return to a higher standard and are like a murder mystery. Very good but they still are not a match for the top quality first part.

My Ratings: Episode 1 - 10/10, Episode 2 - 8/10, Episode 3 - 7.5/10, Episode 4 - 7/10, Episode 5 - 9/10, Episode 6 - 9/10