Martin Clunes as Lon with Collette O'Neil |
‘Snakedance’ is Christopher Bailey’s sequel to ‘Kinda’, and
although it’s not as thought-provoking or skilfully crafted as the first story,
it’s a decent piece with some lovely characters and superb acting, which makes
it generally enjoyable even if it still suffers from unconvincing snakes and a
very confusing ending which really needed to be explained but wasn’t
John Carson (second from left) |
Martin Clunes heads an all-star guest cast as the son of the
Federator who wears quite the most ridiculous costume I’ve ever seen – a sort
of short white dress with blue clouds on it. Hmmm, yes very fetching. His
mother, Tanha, is played by Collette O’Neil, also a very good performance but
special mention must go to John Carson as Ambril, whose reactions to the Doctor
and general disposition are a real hoot.
Janet Fielding gets to do a bit more of the evil voice and
evil acting, even if she comes across as a whining wimp in the first few scenes
at the thought of the Mara returning. I thought Adric had left? Maybe she was
filling the breach. I like the ideas, and
some of the sets too. The image they went for was Morocco inspired like a huge
bazaar. Tents and colours abound.
My issue is seriously with the lighting.
It’s always hard to
light for exterior when shooting multi-camera on a set, but this is very poor.
I always feel like it’s a set. Even the cycloramas on the stuff that was filmed
belies the actual location of filming – they are white! The set is a bit
polystyrene too. The inside of the palace or wherever the Federators’ wife and
son are staying is good, and I LOVED the six faces of delusion mask (brilliant
moment in the story).Manussan street |
Snake finale with Janet Fielding |
So it was a real mixed bag. Some stuff is downright creepy,
the scenes in the hall of mirrors are some of the best from a writing and
directing point of view. And then we hit the end. The Doctor communicates in
the middle of a supposed desert with Dogon, the old high priest or some
telepathically and goes back to the cave. The Mara appears, the Doctor holds
out a small crystal and does something unexplained with his mind and he kills
the Mara. In the next story he explains the Mara can only be killed between
stages of its becoming or some waffle like that, but I was just left wondering
why the Mara lost.
Costumes are a bit much really. Lots of layers, yet
apparently we are close to a desert. Also, everything looks clean and new. Much
as I like the colour purple, perhaps tan and brown would have given a better
sense of the location? It’s just so… so… so studio. And you get no concept of
the full town, where the palace is or anything, or how far from the desert the
town is either.
But it’s a lot of fun but it really is like watching a play.
The designer Jan Spoczynski was very wrong for the show it seems. Enjoyable
story thanks to the cast.
6.5/10
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