Doctor Who - The Keys of Marinus [UK Import] [2 DVDs]

Following their adventures in Marco Polo's China, the crew of the TARDIS lands on a new planet where they meet an old man called Arbitan who is attacked by a race called the Voords. He possesses a machine that can control all intelligent life on the planet and so give peace and justice for everyone. But to start it he needs five keys that are distributed around the planet. All other people he has sent for them haven't returned and so he forces the Doctor, Susan, Elisabeth and Ian to go on the quest to find them. And so they go to a city full of wish-fulfilment, to a whispering jungle, to icy mountains and slither into a murder-mystery.

Again this story-arc is divided into six episodes:

1 . The Sea of Death

Arrival and being blackmailed by Arbitan

2. The Velvet Web

The wish-fulfilling city

3. The Screaming Jungle

The name is the program

4. The Snow of Terrors

Aliens looking like knights in armour and a suspended bridge remind a lot of Indiana Jones here

5. Sentence off Death

Murder-Mystery cum court-drama. Nicely done.

6. The Keys of Marinus

Bringing it all together in the end.

The many quite different sets quickly led to money-trouble, as we can hear in an interview with the set-designer who is mightily dissatisfied with this story on an artistic level. Apart from this we get English subtitles, production-subtitles, Cadet Sweets cards to "Doctor Who and the Daleks" for the PC, a commentary, a photo gallery and a trailer for the "Dalek War"-box.

The production-value is a bit iffy in this case and the whooshing TARDIS looks far to much like a model to big for its surroundings. And knights in armour in two episodes is a bit ridiculous. But the stories and the resulting story-art are fine, as is a lot of the acting, even though Susan develops to much into a scream-queen for my taste. But all in all it is nice to see.