Snakedance

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

Kinda

‘Kinda’ is a very different story in a season of different stories. However, it works on so many levels unlike ‘Castrovalva’, and that is because, purely and simply, good writing. Good writing, good ideas and good characters. Good exposition, a good mix of action in there with it, Christopher Baily’s first Doctor Who story is the first Peter Davison story I have liked.

There is a point to the story, unlike Bidmead’s rubbish which is a scientific concept gone awry. It has its fault, principally in production values and the fact that the giant snake at the climax of the story is rubbish, and that is a major issue because it’s the resolution and end of the show and that needs to convince your audience. The CGI version on the DVD is obviously a much better rendition of a giant snake, but perhaps they were asking too much of the production team initially. Still, it doesn’t seem unreasonable to expect a better effort than what they originally gave the viewers.

The Doctor enters the dome.

But let’s forget that. The script is complicated without being convoluted, which is very important for Doctor Who because once you’ve got a convoluted script the amazing production values will simply not get you out of that hole. Baily’s script has the two stories combined really. That of the Mara coming, and ancient force which comes to the Kinda world via Tegan’s dream. The ideas of collective dreams are great, the strength in collective dreaming is what prevents the Mara from coming through. Janet Fielding gets some great stuff as well.

Simon Rouse is brilliant as Hindle.

In the dome we have the plot of two men who have gone completely mad. The Doctor but principally Adric have the job of humouring them both. Hindle is wonderfully portrayed by Simon Rouse,

who would go on for a very many years in ‘The Bill’. His madness is not underplayed at all, but you never get the sense of over-acting. In fact it’s an incredibly believable performance. Richard Todd as Sanders loses his mind when he opens the kinda box, but it’s a very different kind of looney to Hindle. It’s great that someone with such a resume as Richard Todd threw himself into the role so wholeheartedly.

Mary Morris as the 'Old Woman'

Nerys Hughes was great support as Todd, and Mary Morris played the old woman Panna, and her look was absolutely amazing. Peter Davison’s performance is his strongest yet. Mathew Waterhouse finds Adric in distressing situations again, as he always seems to week after week. I feel quite sorry for the guy to be honest. I think he did his best but his character appears to written just to whine, complain and get into stupid situations. This story is no exception sadly and it would have been nice for a writer to take his character and develop it!

The Doctor shows the fool a trick,

Having said that it’s better than Nyssa – who was written out of this story at the start and only reappears once the whole thing is dealt with. This linked in apparently with her fainting at the end of the previous story. She uses a machine called a ‘delta-wave augmenter’ to give her some proper sleep. Very weak pointless bizarre stuff.

The sets were as good as you could hope for when doing a jungle for video in a small studio. They weren’t great and it would have been much better if they used filming and Ealing Studios, but this one was completely studio bound, as was ‘Four to Doomsday’. The dome sets were good, but you never really believe you’re on an alien world. The Kinda, the locals, also don’t exactly

This is NOT the CGI snake.

convince. Their costumes are a bit too nice and uniform – they all sort of look the same. Perhaps a lack of water of mud is another contributing factor.

‘Kinda’ though is an engrossing, interesting, at times funny story. It’s offbeat in some ways, larger than life in others and easily the best story since Peter Davison took over.

8.5/10