The Keys of Marinus

The TARDIS materializes on a beach made of sharp glass surrounded by an ocean of acid. Welcome to Marinus, a planet where violence and agression has been outlawed for thousands of years through use of a machine called the Conscience. But there will always be usurpers, and a race of men called the Voord have found a way to resist the power of the machine and now seek to control it themselves and enslave the people of Marinus to their will. To stop this, the five micro keys to the machine have been removed and hidden in secret places around the planet, and having deprived them of access to the TARDIS (two adventures in a row for that plot device now) a man named Arbitan sends the Doctor, Ian, Susan and Barbara off to find the keys for him so the machine can be reactivated and the Voord stopped.

So here we go on another epic, a 6 part adventures this time. Through use of travel devices disguised as wrist watches our crew journey to an idyllic city where all is not as it seems, a jungle where time is moving too fast, an icy mountain complete with a grubby trapper with lusty ambitions towards Barbara, and the city of Millennius where Ian is wrongfully accused of murder. For the time the series was made this was a very ambitious adventure, involving a large cast, even drafting the characters of Altos and Sabetha in episode 2 as temporary companions. And the different settings required would make many demands on the props and sets departments. Terry Nation provided the script, and elements of his previous story, The Daleks, can be spotted in episode 2 with a bunch of disembodied brains in glass cases.

The companions are all working well together, growing closer every episode, with the Doctor immediately leaping to defend Ian from the charge of murder in episode 5. The Doctor is absent from episodes 3 and 4 of the advnture as William Hartnell was on vacation or asleep or something, and we see the Doctor trusting Ian and Barbara to take Susan with him on their adventures to recover two of the keys while he journeys ahead to locate the final one. Or maybe he was hoping they would lose Susan somewhere, because I am starting to wish they would. For an alien with the same roots as the Doctor one would expect Susan to be a bit more together than she is; after all, Ian and Barbara should have bee reduced to gibbering wrecks by now from what they've been through. Susan has travelled with the Doctor for some time now and freaks out at least once every episode:

episode 1 - The Sea of Death : freaks out and needs a hug after her shoe falls into a pool of acid
episode 2 - The Velvet Web : goes all loopy wierd over a silk dress
episode 3 - The Screaming Jungle : freaks out because a vine touches her
episode 4 - The Snows of Terror : freaks out and needs a hug after seeing some frozen dead men yet marveloussly recomposes herself to crawl across a brittle bridge made of ice stalagtites to get away from them
episode 5 - Senetence of Death : doesn't do any freaking out and is part of a mob who swarm a guy as he tries to flee court
episode 6 - The Keys of Marinus : freaks out and needs big hugs after being held at gunpoint

Okay blame the times I suppose. As the series progresses the roles of the companions will change somewhat and thankfully the girls will get a bit more backbone and even arm themselves on occasion (or in the case of some, as a matter of routine). But for now here we are stuck with this girl who seems to trip and hurt her ankle every time things are going well and has to be carried or pampered or consoled. It's too much. Marry her off and leave her behind somewhere.

NEXT EPISODE : THE AZTECS