I just finished watching the DVD of The Key to Marinus, which was the fifth storyline from the first season of Doctor Who, and I didn't actually care for it that much. I felt it was too ambitious a story for a studio-bound show, for one thing, plus the storyline, the script -- except for the second last episode and the first half of the finale I found it really boring. I couldn't believe this was written by Terry Nation!
(Spoilers follow)
The good:
- Great performance by William Hartnell in the last 2 episodes. During production he took a 2 week holiday (so he was not seen in 2 episodes) and he came back refreshed and this showed in his performances. After failing to overturn Ian's murder conviction, there's a moment where a defeated and downbeat Doctor is sitting in a waiting room that is just as good as anything we saw during Tennant's era.
- George Coulouris, a veteran of Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre and Citizen Kane, in what might be Doctor Who's earliest example of stunt casting.
- The series' first example of one-off companions, Altos and Sabetha, who join the TARDIS grew on their quest for the keys.
- A hilarious blooper that was left in where one of the Voord trips over his own flippers!
- The Sentence of Death episode (#5) and the first part of the final episode (both dealing with Ian's trial) were excellent and should have been the main story, maybe expanded to 3 episodes.
- Remembering that this show was completely produced in one of Lime Grove's smallest studios, there are some impressive camera tricks used in Episode 2 to suggest an illusionary dream world.
- The show's first attempt at showing the TARDIS materializing and dematerializing, using a model.
The bad
- Perhaps the most obvious-looking cardboard sets the early series ever offered. Ian nearly pulls a wall down at one point and that stumbling Voord almost pulls a sliding door off its track.
- Carole Ann Ford as Susan was always hit and miss with me. She was rather annoying except in the Sentence of Death episode where she briefly becomes an intergalactic Nancy Drew.
- I generally liked the classic series' multi-episode format, but agree there are a few stories that did not work well being dragged on for 6 weeks. This is one of them. This would have been a much better story at 4 episodes, or with the Key to Time...er...Keys of Marinus plotline dropped in favor of a 2 or 3-part story about Ian's trial which was the only part of the thing I found interesting (except for the camera tricks in "The Velvet Web").
- Even the vidFIRE reprocessing (converting the filmed archive copies of the episodes back into their original videotape appearance) didn't seem to be as impressive as in other episodes.
Normally I find myself blowing through classic Doctor Whos almost in one sitting (even big boys like The War Games), but this one held so little of my attention it took me nearly 2 weeks to get around to watching all 6 episodes.
You can tell 2 Entertain had little enthusiasm for this one, as they best they could muster for DVD extras is a little featurette of one of the designers complaining about how hard it was to create multiple alien worlds, and some DVD-ROM goodies including an early trading card-based adventure. They did get the director and some surviving cast members to record a commentary, but I can't imagine sitting through this again to listen to it. Even the standard (and always welcome) trivia subtitle track seemed to have less to say than usual.
I've now seen 4 of the first 5 stories: An Unearthly Child was better than I expected and had a Twilight Zone-worthy first episode (and most of its faults can be forgiven as opening night jitters); The Daleks could have been a couple episodes shorter but was still fantastic; The Edge of Destruction is one of my all-time favorites and was the "Naked Time" equivalent for Doctor Who. Story 4, Marco Polo, is lost right now except for some recreations and the 30-minute condensed audio version on the DVD. But I'm taking people's word for it that it was a classic.
So that leaves the Keys of Marinus. I think it was Doctor Who's first bona fide dud of a story (they can't all be classics). Anyone else agree with me?
PS. It looks like back in 1964 a LOT of UK viewers agreed with me. According to the Tardis Index File wiki, episode 4 had 10.4 million views, episode 5 had dropped to 7.9 million, and the finale was seen by a mere 6.9 million. Ouch! Any story that loses nearly 4 million viewers over its run is a flop by any means. And the next story, The Aztecs, also suffered for it, remaining low.
Alex
(Spoilers follow)
The good:
- Great performance by William Hartnell in the last 2 episodes. During production he took a 2 week holiday (so he was not seen in 2 episodes) and he came back refreshed and this showed in his performances. After failing to overturn Ian's murder conviction, there's a moment where a defeated and downbeat Doctor is sitting in a waiting room that is just as good as anything we saw during Tennant's era.
- George Coulouris, a veteran of Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre and Citizen Kane, in what might be Doctor Who's earliest example of stunt casting.
- The series' first example of one-off companions, Altos and Sabetha, who join the TARDIS grew on their quest for the keys.
- A hilarious blooper that was left in where one of the Voord trips over his own flippers!
- The Sentence of Death episode (#5) and the first part of the final episode (both dealing with Ian's trial) were excellent and should have been the main story, maybe expanded to 3 episodes.
- Remembering that this show was completely produced in one of Lime Grove's smallest studios, there are some impressive camera tricks used in Episode 2 to suggest an illusionary dream world.
- The show's first attempt at showing the TARDIS materializing and dematerializing, using a model.
The bad
- Perhaps the most obvious-looking cardboard sets the early series ever offered. Ian nearly pulls a wall down at one point and that stumbling Voord almost pulls a sliding door off its track.
- Carole Ann Ford as Susan was always hit and miss with me. She was rather annoying except in the Sentence of Death episode where she briefly becomes an intergalactic Nancy Drew.
- I generally liked the classic series' multi-episode format, but agree there are a few stories that did not work well being dragged on for 6 weeks. This is one of them. This would have been a much better story at 4 episodes, or with the Key to Time...er...Keys of Marinus plotline dropped in favor of a 2 or 3-part story about Ian's trial which was the only part of the thing I found interesting (except for the camera tricks in "The Velvet Web").
- Even the vidFIRE reprocessing (converting the filmed archive copies of the episodes back into their original videotape appearance) didn't seem to be as impressive as in other episodes.
Normally I find myself blowing through classic Doctor Whos almost in one sitting (even big boys like The War Games), but this one held so little of my attention it took me nearly 2 weeks to get around to watching all 6 episodes.
You can tell 2 Entertain had little enthusiasm for this one, as they best they could muster for DVD extras is a little featurette of one of the designers complaining about how hard it was to create multiple alien worlds, and some DVD-ROM goodies including an early trading card-based adventure. They did get the director and some surviving cast members to record a commentary, but I can't imagine sitting through this again to listen to it. Even the standard (and always welcome) trivia subtitle track seemed to have less to say than usual.
I've now seen 4 of the first 5 stories: An Unearthly Child was better than I expected and had a Twilight Zone-worthy first episode (and most of its faults can be forgiven as opening night jitters); The Daleks could have been a couple episodes shorter but was still fantastic; The Edge of Destruction is one of my all-time favorites and was the "Naked Time" equivalent for Doctor Who. Story 4, Marco Polo, is lost right now except for some recreations and the 30-minute condensed audio version on the DVD. But I'm taking people's word for it that it was a classic.
So that leaves the Keys of Marinus. I think it was Doctor Who's first bona fide dud of a story (they can't all be classics). Anyone else agree with me?
PS. It looks like back in 1964 a LOT of UK viewers agreed with me. According to the Tardis Index File wiki, episode 4 had 10.4 million views, episode 5 had dropped to 7.9 million, and the finale was seen by a mere 6.9 million. Ouch! Any story that loses nearly 4 million viewers over its run is a flop by any means. And the next story, The Aztecs, also suffered for it, remaining low.
Alex
I wanted to say something similar (I didn't think The Chase was boring). Actually, 23skidoo, Terry Nation has a reputation for writing slow-moving, somewhat dull serials. See The Daleks as prime example. His serials improve a lot, pacing-wise, though, over the course of the series.
