Sarah -
I have to admit that I was on the edge of despair after the last two stories. Had I completely mis-remembered the Fifth Doctor Era? Fortunately, "Snakedance" has come along to set things straight. What a cracking story!
Harry -
Fun Fact: "Snakedance" was the last remaining classic Who story that I had never seen before. Thirty-two years after it first aired, I just watched it for the first time. There were no warm and fuzzy memories to influence my viewing or cloud my reactions. Instead, I let the dreaminess of it sweep over me.
Sarah -
I'm fairly certain that the last time I saw it was in the late 80s, so the story was quite fresh for me, as well. There were only two things I remembered – Tegan's possession by the Mara and Martin Clunes' marvelous performance. But more of those later.
This may be my favorite Davison performance so far. To be fair, he had a tough act to follow, but sometimes Davison's Doctor can be a bit too low-key for me. In "Snakedance", he's manic and alien and wonderful! I love how we see him through the eyes of others in the story and he looks like an absolute lunatic.
Harry -
Once again we see this Doctor being led by events, rather than leading them -- and it's starting to get to him.
Sarah -
This story feels different from the opening scene between Nyssa and the Doctor. Nyssa appears in a new outfit, which was probably necessary after all the running around she did in Amsterdam. It's a hideous ensemble, but the Doctor doesn't notice the change -- even when she throws herself in from of him, trying to make him comment on the clothes. He finally mutters a confused, "You look different." For a Doctor who has been perhaps a bit too solicitous of his companions in the past, this small moment reminds us that he is a Time Lord more effectively than anything in "Arc of Infinity".
Harry -
I'm going to run with the "dreaming" metaphor throughout our discussion, because it felt like we were watching everyone have a bad dream in this story.
Not being in control must be one of the things the Doctor hates most, in any regeneration. Right off the bat, he's lost control of the TARDIS. They have unintentionally landed on the planet Manussa, and he asks Nyssa to help figure out what's gone wrong with the coordinates.
You have referred to it above, but Nyssa's change of clothing is a nightmare unto itself. Like one of those dreams where you find yourself wearing something bizarre and nonsensical.
Sarah -
One can almost imagine JNT thinking, "The clown look really worked for a companion, I wonder how one might look on a Doctor." And what's with the heels? She looks so uncomfortable for the entire story.
Harry -
Costuming is a big let down throughout this one.
Sarah -
Meanwhile, how great is Janet Fielding in this story? Tegan's second possession by the Mara is even more frightening than the first.
Harry -
Tegan literally kicks things off with a bad dream, and it only gets worse for her.
Sarah -
She's pretty much possessed from the first scenes of the story, when the Doctor realizes the TARDIS has gone off course. She tells Nyssa and the Doctor about her dreams and Nyssa, trying to be a good friend, tells her that they're only dreams and not to worry. The Doctor suspects they're something more.
Harry -
Tegan describes how she found herself back on Deva Loka, the Kinda planet, in that dark place of the mind where the Mara lurks. The Doctor wants to study Tegan's dreams, fearing that she is still possessed. He rigs up something that looks like an ipod for her to wear as they step out to explore the village where they have landed.
Sarah -
It’s clearly a walkman, Harry. Get with the times!
I quite like the village. For a relatively small set, it packs a lot in. And look, there's Brian Miller, husband of our beloved Elisabeth Sladen, as Dugdale, the carnival barker!
Harry -
Had you not pointed that out I would never have realized!
Nearby, in a set that someone who watched too many Hartnell episodes must have dreamed up, we meet the local aristocracy. Well, "aristocracy" might be too grand a word. Amid cheap furnishings and tacky potted plants, Lom sprawls out on a chaise longue in boredom. His mother, Lady Tanha, tries to rouse him by arranging a kind of spelunking excursion with Ambril, the Director of Archaeology.
Sarah -
Oh, that set! According to the featurette on the DVD, it was borrowed from A Song For Europe, which was the former name of the show used to select the UK's Eurovision entry. You can almost imagine Bucks Fizz bopping about.
Lom just screams over-privileged douchebag, doesn't he? And what does every one of those need? An over-indulgent mother, of course! I find Ambril to be an interesting character.
Harry -
John Carson plays the petty, small-minded, self-interested Ambril perfectly. Everyone's performances are a big plus in this one.
Sarah -
I absolutely adore Carson's performance. Ambril is poised and collected, but just sleezy enough to do what's necessary to get what he wants.
My favorite moment in the whole story is when Ambril and the Doctor discuss The Six Faces of Delusion helmet. Ambril is dismissive of the legend of the Mara because there are clearly only five faces on the helmet. The Doctor asks Ambril to wear the helmet, pointing out that Ambril’s face is now the sixth. Ambril, unsurprisingly, does not take this news well.
Seriously, this helmet has been there for years and no one has ever put it on. The Doctor is the first person who realized where the sixth face would be?
Harry -
On Manussa, legends of the Mara are prevalent. There are some who believe it shall one day return. I was just hoping it wouldn't return as that hokey prop we saw in Kinda.
Sarah -
Oh, the horror!
Harry -
Frightened by a toy snake at the local bazaar, Tegan bolts and becomes separated from her friends. She ducks into a fortune teller's sanctum, where a refreshingly honest seer dwells. Cheerily, she confides that her work is mostly bunk, made up on the fly with nothing tangible behind it.
Sarah -
Hilary Sesta's fortune teller is just one of the many brilliant guest performances in "Snakedance".
Harry -
But in the grip of the Mara, Tegan causes a snake's skull to manifest itself in the seer's crystal ball, shattering it and scaring the bejeezus out of her.
Sarah -
I felt so bad for the fortune teller, after she was being so helpful and honest.
Harry -
All these years, I've been reading and hearing references to Janet Fielding's "Mara laugh," and there it was!
Sarah -
And it's quite epic, isn't it?
Harry -
It totally makes sense that legions of fanboys would have hounded her at every Who Con, demanding that she perform the laugh on the spot. I recall she said she finally snapped and refused to do it any longer.
Sarah -
I believe it was at a con in Chicago and she emphasized it by knocking a fanboy on the head with his rolled-up poster!
Harry -
Tegan dekes into the carnival barker's booth, into a hall of mirrors. Dugdale mistakes her erratic behaviour for a convincing performance and offers to work with her on a new attraction. Tegan-Mara instead sends Dugdale to Lom with a summons to meet at the cave. When Lom arrives, Tegan passes some of the Mara into him. "Not bored anymore," he declares as he begins to set the Mara's plot into action.
Sarah -
I love the scene where the Mara begins to inhabit Lom. The moment when Lom and Tegan join hands and command Dugdale to look at them is really quite terrifying, especially when they both do the Mara laugh. It's a spectacular finish to part two after the somewhat lackluster scream that ends part one.
Harry -
Meanwhile, the Doctor and Nyssa implore the Director for help finding Tegan. The Director is totally uninterested, and when Lom returns they whip up some false charges and throw the Doctor into a cell. A real man of action, this Doctor! He spends the entire third episode brooding in the cell, something that should be unimaginable on this show. If this was the Pertwee era, the Doctor would have escaped, been recaptured, escaped again and been recaptured again - all in a single episode!
Sarah -
In "Kinda", Nyssa was sidelined with nothing to do. Here, it's the Doctor who gets sidelined and has to wait for Nyssa to rescue him!
Harry -
Considering there's not much story here, it feels very pacey. The second half of Snakedance is essentially "get the crystal and bring it to the cave", but quick cuts between short scenes keep it moving along briskly.
Sarah -
It really does, doesn't it? Excellent direction by Fiona Cumming.
Harry -
Nyssa continues to play the role of Action Nyssa when she goes to search the Director's office for the key to the cell.
Sarah -
A favorite moment is when she goes to the Director's office and looks for the key in a stack of papers -- because where else would you look for a key? Unfortunately, she's busted by Ambril and Tanha before she can get the key back to the cell.
Harry -
When she ends up thrown in with the Doctor, they genuinely seem to run out of options for escape. The story remains watchable for its weirdness. It was so bizarre to see that image of the two of them sitting there in the cell. "In the meantime..." Nyssa asks, to which the Doctor replies, "We wait." Seriously?
Sarah -
Well, "Snakedance" is a Buddhist parable, after all...
Harry -
When they finally escaped with Chela's help, I couldn't help notice some more costuming issues. Chela was dressed like a Renaissance courtier, while the security guards wore some kind of futuristic looking armour and helmets.
Sarah -
I can't imagine how the actors saw enough to walk around in those helmets!
Harry -
Best of all were the aristocrats. Did you see the tiara on Lady Tanha? I mean, did you see it?!
Sarah -
I really couldn't help but see it!
Harry -
It's a wonder Colette O'Neil didn't fall over in every scene - that was the biggest tiara in the universe! And Lom! What in the hell was he wearing for the climactic ceremony in the cave? So much ridiculousness, from the silly gold helmet, to the tunic with the clouds on it. Oh my word how did the costume department get away with these horrors?
Sarah -
Everyone is so over the top. I laughed out loud when Lom walked in wearing his Sun God costume. I imagine that clip haunts Martin Clunes to this day. Speaking of Martin Clunes, thanks to Little Britain, I get this song in my head every time I hear his name:
Harry -
Holy wow, that clip. Remember how some folks are retroactively appalled at the Asian stereotypes and yellowface in "The Talons of Weng-Chiang?" What would they say to that?
Sarah -
I was shocked by the skit the first time I saw it. Having been a kid in the 70s, the casual racism of Talons surprises me not at all. The Little Britain skit made me wonder what they were thinking. Still, that’s a catchy song.
Harry -
Martin was probably flattered.
Sarah -
In the full clip, he gets off the plane and is more than a little bemused at the reception he gets. Meanwhile, back in "Snakedance"…
Harry -
...Lom makes a mockery of the cave rituals, and things get trippy for the Doctor when he, Nyssa and Chela slipped away to the convenient nearby desert. (Strange how it felt like all the various sets were within steps of each other -- the cave, the village, the desert, etc.)
The Doctor comes up with some mumbo jumbo about calling Dojjen with a crystal, and then the old man appears with simple words of wisdom. It's all about finding the still point. I like these little bits of Buddhism that are scattered throughout the classic series.
Sarah -
Exploring Buddhist themes was Christopher Bailey’s intention in writing both Kinda and Snakedance. It’s a heady brief for a Doctor Who writer.
Harry -
Aided by the Doctor, Tegan finally overcomes the Mara's possession, sending the snake monster to its green, bubbly death (naturally!)
Sarah -
Such an abrupt ending. Tegan snaps out of the spell, the Doctor reassures her and BAM – time to run the credits. It’s all a bit hurried, isn’t it?
Harry -
Yeah. I'm guessing any finale that would have involved spending too much time and energy on another giant snake prop was not viable. The one they ended up using was probably all they could manage.
And so ends Christopher Bailey's indirect Kinda-Snakedance two-parter. Both stories stand out for their trippiness, their themes of identity and existence, and their memorable characters. And the large goofy snakes.
Sarah -
On the DVD extras, our good friend Rob Shearman says that "Snakedance" is his favorite Doctor Who story. It’s an interesting choice.
Harry -
I would not have guessed that. Maybe he loved the costumes?
I'd give this one a higher ranking, but the costuming and sets were unforgiveable. Once can literally see the beginning of the show's long, drawn-out end becoming evident. Where the budget for this show should have been growing, it seemed to be shrinking.
Sarah -
We’re going to be doing a lot of grousing in the coming months, aren’t we?
Harry -
Best Line: Tegan-Mara's "Look at me" taunting of Dugdale. Not a great line, but hair-raisingly creepy.
Favourite Moment: the fortune teller scene.
Lasting Image: that tiara!
6/10
Sarah -
Best Line: Dojjen : "No. The still point is within yourself, nowhere else. To destroy the Mara you must find the still point."
Favorite Moment: The Doctor’s conversation with Ambril about the Six Faces of Delusion.
Lasting Image: Lom’s costume – wonderfully over the top, even by Doctor Who standards.
7/10
Our marathon continues with Story #125: Mawdryn Undead...
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