Snakedance

Tegan is once more a member of the TARDIS crew, but she still carries the evil of the Mara inside her mind. The evil sentience diverts the TARDIS back to its homeworld of Manussa during the festivities that commemorate its banishment, leaving the Doctor and Nyssa to piece together the legend of its return and battle local aristocracy's indifference to the threat they face. While the Doctor and Nyssa try to make contact with the Snakedancers, the Mara uses Tegan to gain influence over the very people sworn to defend Manussa from the Mara's return.

It's sequel time! Anyone who watched Kinda will remember there was a point when the Mara was trapped in a circle of mirrors, but Tegan managed to peek through a gap and see it for what it really was. In that instant, the Mara retreated back into Tegan's mind and stayed there in hiding. Popular speculation amongst fans is that during her separation from the TARDIS, Tegan was still posessed by the Mara and was being manipulated by it to find a way to come back into contact with the Doctor once more and be free. I think that would make for an interesting audio series from Big Finish. But while we wait for that blessed day, here's the rematch that was.

The people of Manussa, from the street peddlers right up to the family of the Federator, do not take the Mara seriously anymore; it is viewed as supersition by some and a cash cow by others who sell merchandise around the festival. The only people who ever cared were ridiculed and more or less run out of town to live in the hills, so of course the Doctor is treated like just another crank. Only the fifth Doctor would allow himself to be treated like that, Jay and I surmised; we can't see Jon Pertwee's third Doctor scurrying out of a room because someone yelled at him. The Manussans themselves are a bit of an odd bunch, with the director, Ambril, all caught up in his history books while his androgynous assistant, Chela, (Jay and I called him Kelly - the guy's wearin a dress!) secretly believes in the Mara. We didn't think much of Lon, the son of the Federator. What the hell is he wearing in part four? How gay is that.

Tegan doesn't get much chance to be Tegan in this one; she spends a lot of her time either plugged into a dream machine or speaking for the Mara. Janet Fielding does get to pull some right evil faces though. "I hope she does the commentary for this DVD," Jay says. Yes, I'm sure she's just dying to share her thoughts on the production.

Nyssa finaly gets a wardrobe update, the velveteen trouser suit from Castrovalva having seen its last day in Arc of Infinity. Her new outfit sucks though. What were the stylists thinking? Okay it was 1982 but come on. There's this one bit where we hit pause, though, just at the end of part three, and Nyssa's hair froze in mid turn, and it looked like it was having more fun than she was. "She looks like Bjork," Jay said. Seriously, Sarah Sutton has to be one of the least expressive companions to date. Even K9 had a better range of emotion and he was a tin box. She lets a good scream go though, I'll give her that, and she takes out another armed guard. Careful around stairs, friends, Nyssa might just shove you down them.

This last bit is something I heard a lot of people say to me when I showed Snakedance to my grade 9 english class : the Doctor is hyperventilating. He is so eager to say what he has to say that it becomes this elevated squeak at times. Maybe the writers asked him to speak fast to avoid cutting lines. Either way it's like the man is all hopped up on crack, but Jay says they didn't have it back in 1982. Well, something funny was going on back then. If the funky porno music syntheizer score doesn't prove it then nothing will.

NEXT EPISODE : MAWDRYN UNDEAD