005 - The Keys Of Marinus

Broadcast:

11^th April - 16^th May 1964

Doctor:

William Hartnell

Companions:

Ian, Barbara, Susan

Adversary:

Voord

Written by:

Terry Nation

Director:

John Gorrie

Music:

Norman Kay

Script Editor:

David Whitaker

Producer:

Verity Lambert

Average Viewers:

9.07m (9.9, 9.4, 9.9, 10.4, 7.9, 6.9)

Summary: In a search spread across the land, the travellers face hallucinations, fast growing vines and booby traps, frozen knights, and an accusation of murder

Doctor Who was fast becoming a Saturday afternoon staple and The Keys Of Marinus was the first adventure commissioned after broadcasts had begun. Circumstances and shifts in thinking meant that existing commissions either weren't working or were no longer suitable and a replacement six parter was needed quickly. As a reliable writer and following the immense success of The Daleks, the job went to Terry Nation who completed the scripts in just four weeks, creating a different scenario for nearly all episodes.

In the news during the broadcast period of The Keys Of Marinus, Nelson Mandela made his influential "I Am Prepared to Die" speech at the opening of the Rivonia Trial, seven of the eleven Great Train Robbers were sentenced to 30 years in prison and the head of the Little Mermaid statue in Copenhagen went missing (Henrik Bruun apparently confessed to friends in 1997 claiming it to have been a protest). West Ham won the FA cup for the first time, ITV broadcast the very first Seven Up! documentary and Terence Conran opened the first Habitat. Meanwhile, in America masses of students staged protests against the war in Vietnam and the Beatles continued to dominate the with a record breaking 14 singles on the Billboard 100 and their second album was at number one. In the UK charts, their "Can't Buy Me Love" eventually gave up the top spot to "World Without Love" (Peter And Gordon) followed by "Don't Throw Your Love Away" (The Searchers) and the Rolling Stones released their first album. Play School became the first program broadcast on BBC2, following the channel's aborted launch the night before due to power cuts (and would go on to be the first program broadcast in colour three years later), while cinema releases included Nightmare, Woman Of Straw and The Bargee.

The Keys Of Marinus was a production challenge from the start, something that was becoming familiar territory for Doctor Who. Terry Nation may have cleared the first hurdle with his fast writing but the resulting script presented further challenges. Following discussions with David Whitaker, it was decided to create an episodic story as the regular cast of characters spend an episode to collect each of four keys, facing different challenges in a different location each time. Each location would require its own set and costume designs along with varying amounts of technical skills. Designer Raymond Cusick has said that The Keys Of Marinus is the most unloved story that he has worked on and its easy to see why. However, despite his dissatisfaction, there isn't a great deal for the viewer to complain about - there are a couple of sparse sets but they are handled well enough to go almost unnoticed.

The story opens with a long establishing shot of an island with a slow zoom in to the beach where we eventually see the TARDIS materialise silently. It's obviously a model but it is worth noting that this is the first time the TARDIS has been seen landing, all previous landings have been from inside the console room. As the Doctor checks the scanner screen there is a curious line from Barbara "Pity you don't have colour television" to which he explains that he does but it is "Hors de combat" - colour television was still in its infancy with only occasional broadcasts in America, Germany had only recently unveiled the PAL system and it would be another couple of years before colour television became regular. The Doctor's reply was an unscripted addition meaning "out of action", which is a shame because they could easily have shown delight at his advanced technology without the need to actually use colour! There then follows a couple of line fluffs and a stressful studio day starts to take its toll. When asked if it's safe to go out William Hartnell stumbles "Yes, I don't think... I don't see why not. There's nothing... no danger about" which is shortly followed by what must be another when Barbara asks if the sea is frozen (because it's so still) "Not at this temperature. Besides, it's too warm." While I'm on the subject of line fluffs and before I get to the cause of stress I will note two more occurrences in this opening episode... Ian has given Susan his boots to wear so she can return to the TARDIS for a new pair of shoes after hers fell in a pool of acid, the Doctor arrives on the scene and chastises him for just being in his socks "and if you had your shoes on, my boy, you could have lent her hers!" - the Doctors misunderstanding of the situation is one thing but the scripted line made more sense! Finally Hartnell stumbles on the word "submersibles" towards the end of the episode just before they head off on their quest.

The cause of the stressful day, in my opinion, is the clever use of limited sets and special effects. The main, if not only building on the island is a tall square pyramid (although different views suggest different heights and one makes it look light a straight up tower) built from precision blocks like those found in Central America (which previews Barbara's expertise that will be so useful in the next story) which means that all four sides are identical and could be represented by a single set. Only a corder of the structure was physically built and two back-cloths were used to present a false perspective to suggest a much longer wall than was actually present. These look really good and work reasonable well, although the camera angle is never quite low enough to complete the illusion, the actors walk right up to them as if they are about to continue walking to the far end. Unfortunately, the logistics of four characters on at least two different corners of the building being filmed without stopping lead to some slightly off timing whereby William Russell is seen coming into shot just after William Hartnell was pulled through a door, rather than not appearing until after the shot had changed to a different camera (to suggest a different part of the building) - that said, with television overscan and safe-frame cut-offs of the early 60s there is a strong chance that viewers would not have seen him. There is also a moment when a stage-hand is clearly seen operating another door when Susan goes missing. The final technical challenge of this opening episode comes at the end as the regular characters use their travel bracelets for the first time. They step onto the right hand side of the screen where they are curiously against a black background with no set at all and are faded out with a combination of split-screen and dissolve, very basic by today's standards and a little crude at the time, but the black background made life a lot simpler since it allowed for the scenes to be recorded continuously without "rollback and mix" or duplicate sets perfectly aligned (this is several years before blue screen techniques would be available of course) it did require the actors to move off their mark on cue and sadly their shadows weren't completely in the split screen area. On a show that was normally only allowed three or four edits and generally only featured one or two recording breaks, this episode faded to black no less than five times - though some could simply have been an indication of time passing and were not actual breaks in recording.

The technical challenges continued the following week as well as the travellers arrive in a building made of hallucinations! While everything appears opulent and perfect, the reality is later revealed with duplicate but ragged costumes and a less well dressed set, inter-cutting between the two. Exactly how this was produced is unclear since the production subtitles on the DVD suggest that the episode was the first to be deliberately recorded out of sequence, but also that Jacqueline Hill was on a separate set. It is possible, of course, that a combination of these techniques was used as there is a definite POV shot where the camera is in her place and the others look straight down the lens. Apart from this double world effect, this episode is most memorable for its use of brains-in jars as the lead source of evil with their snail-like antennae eyes. This is the set which is most sparse as there simply isn't a room around them, lust a door in a portion of wall and a set of black drapes. Rather than the advanced laboratory/control-room desired by Ray Cusick, this blackness actually added to the mysterious alien feel and enabled the brain-jars to stand out - even if their flashing lights weren't as effective as he wanted. It's a shame that Jacqueline made a hash of destroying them (perhaps deliberately in case retakes were needed) There are two shots where the camera moves in for a closer shot of the brain-jars and on both occasions it bumps into the set! Apart from this and despite the dual-world technicalities, this episode seems to have gone much smoother with the only line fluff coming from a guest actor towards the end and frankly, his lines are pretty poorly written and hammed up throughout. The final scene in particular feels very rushed though and the fact that it includes the Doctor going on ahead of the others is an indication of why. During pre-production of The Keys Of Marinus it was agreed that William Hartnell would have two weeks off - having been working solidly for six months, all four of the regular cast would take time off over the coming adventures. Consequently, the Doctor was written out of episodes three and four with his lines being distributed to other characters accordingly and the end of episode two being adjusted to send him on his way.

Curiously, the Doctor's absence is barely noticeable thanks to the ensemble style of the show at this time. It doesn't feel wrong that Ian and Barbara take the lead. Episode three sees further technical challenges as it features several traps and fast growing vines (the reason I like to refer to the episode as "Jeepers Creepers") Beyond that, there isn't a great deal to say. Everything looks pretty good apart from the giant idol's human arms (used because it was easier than trying to make mechanical ones) and the show's first major set wobble - As Ian bangs on a large door and says "It's pretty solid", it clearly isn't! Jacqueline Hill evidently had a bad through this week as she is heard coughing off screen early on and then seen coughing a little later. Finally, rather than having the characters vanish as they move to the next location, there is a jump cut as we travel with them and the whole scene changes.

The third key is located within a cold mountainous area and the story is focussed more on drama and suspense. As such, there is little to talk about apart from slightly comical knights that are frozen guards of the key. It is unclear why the keys and travel dials are left at the hunter's hut rather than taken to the mountain but it does mean that everyone has to escape from the knights rather than just teleporting out. Like The Daleks, there is a ravine crossing scene which lends itself to two dodgy set moments... giant stalactites are used as a bridge which are clearly chunks of polystyrene (although, to be fair, with lower quality televisions could very well have still looked like icy rock) and when the old rope-bridge is pulled, the wall it is anchored to wobbles! It also doesn't help that the scene disappears into instant blackness. Interestingly, the walls are made to look icy by being coated with cellophane and it works nicely here, unlike those in Dragonfire nearly 24 year later - such is the difference between black & white and colour as well as the harsh lighting employed in the 80s. It's also an indication of how the budget suffered in the face of inflation

The final part of the story before the travellers return the keys, is centred around a murder mystery. Episode four ends with Ian arriving at the final destination, seeing a dead body on the floor and the key in a glass cabinet, then getting struck from behind and falling unconscious while his assailant plants the weapon in his hand... This all takes about a minute to unfold and is then repeated at the start of the next episode. Like many reprises at this time, the whole thing is re-enacted rather than played in on film, which is a shame because it worked so much better the first time and since both ended with a fade to black it would have been possible. Re-enacted recaps often make use of larger sets or slightly differing camera angles and flow into the first scene (albeit with a pause for the title caption to appear) but this one was set to be directed exactly the same, only the camera failed to show the key clearly as it was obscured almost entirely by the frame of the cabinet! While on the subject, it's also worth noting that this one minute recap was generally longer than most that had featured until now and was in stark contrast with all the rest in The Keys Of Marinus since all the rest were extremely brief and for the first time there was no feed in from the previous adventure and none into the next.

I've never been a fan of courtroom dramas and find murder mysteries better if they are aimed at finding out who was responsible and how they did it. In contrast to that, and losing my interest slightly, this murder mystery is focussed on Ian being wrongly accused and there not being much evidence to prove otherwise. Over all, it's not a bad story and there was enough to stop me dropping off completely, even when it spilled into the next episode, but it is as much about corruption in a society that holds a man guilty until proven innocent as it is about solving the mystery and finding the final key. Fortunately, although he is left a little helpless, the Doctor is back in this episode and William Hartnell's performance is much better following his rest. That said, there is a curious fluff which the production subtitles claims was scripted yet sounds implausible, as if the producers wanted him to look incompetent. A character stutter or fumble is one thing but to actively script him to say "I can't improve at this very moment... I can't prove at this very moment that Chesterton didn't hide it in its present location." doesn't sit right with me and Jacqueline's reaction doesn't look like it was a rehearsed fumble.

The travellers return the keys half way through episode six and what remains is fairy standard Doctor Who. There is still suspense and mystery as well as cunning and whit. We hear that the Doctor met the ancient philosopher Pyrrho as he wrote about scepticism, Susan refers to the TARDIS as simply "TARDIS" and one of the Voord trips over his own flipper as he walks into a room! Interestingly, as everyone enters the TARDIS we see that the left side door is open rather than the right, which means that the right has to be opened before it can be properly closed and there didn't seem to be any real reason for it to be that way. While talking about the TARDIS, I'll also mention that everyone was referring to it as "the ship" in the first episode and when it was shown in extreme close up it had the strange effect of looking like a model when it evidently wasn't. It's also worth noting that the TARDIS was placed within a force barrier in the first episode which may leave you wondering how the Doctor managed to get to it at the end (it certainly confused Richard Molesworth when he wrote the production subtitles) in the first episode, Arbitan states that he will switch it off once they set out on their quest. Yet, just moments after they have gone, he is seen to be killed by a voord having barely touched the Conscience Of Marinus... we can only assume, however unlikely that this was the source of the barrier!

The Keys Of Marinus has the highest count of fluffs, bumps and wobbles so far (I counted 15) but it is the content rather than production categories that let it down in my scores which resulted in 63% The music is great in places but sometimes absent where it is needed but the sheer achievement in the face of adversity through this stories production means it will always hold a higher value in my hart than my analytical mind.

In fully rounded and self contained way, The Keys Of Marinus ends with the very same film sequence which opened it, but this time in reverse. The TARDIS dematerialises silently and the camera pulls out and away from the island... up next, "The Temple Of Evil" (opening episode to The Aztecs) and it will be Carol-Anne Ford's turn to take some time off...