Written by Terry Nation, Sydney Newman, and Donald Wilson
Directed by John Gorrie

Doctor Who is a British science fiction television series that has been around off and on since 1963. The main character is just known as “The Doctor” and is a Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey. This means he travels through time to various places. One of his favorite places to visit is Earth. Typically, he has a companion traveling with him, usually female, sometimes male, sometimes one of each. He travels in a time machine known as a TARDIS, which is disguised as a British Police booth. 

A Time Lord can regenerate if fatally wounded, which has accounted for all the different actors who have played The Doctor throughout the years. In this story-arc from the first season ever, the Doctor is portrayed by William Hartnell. He is traveling with his “grand-daughter” Susan (portrayed by Carole Ann Ford) as well as Ian & Barbara (portrayed by William Russell and Jacqueline Hill), who have come along with him from Earth.

The TARDIS lands on the planet Marinus, which seems to have a beautiful sea. They soon learn all is not what it seems on the serene planet.  Soon, they were captured by Arbitan (portrayed by George Coulouris), one of the planet’s inhabitants, and cajoled into searching for the Keys of Marinus, which control a machine known as the Conscience of Marinus. It maintained order on the planet and dispensed justice at one time, but was dismantled. Now it would seem control of the machine is about to fall into the wrong hands.

For those who have never seen the Doctor this early in the run, it’s a bit of an adjustment.  He’s not the savvy, smooth operator we are used to seeing nearly fifty years later.  Here, he is more the addled but wise grandfatherly type.  It works, though, in quite a different way than it does now.

The story formats were different back then as well.  This is a six-part story-arc that continues the overall story of restoring the Conscience of Marinus, but each individual episode is sort of an independent segment, taking the travelers to different parts of the planet on a different adventure.  It’s foreshadowing season-long story-arcs that would be an ambitious part of the series nearly twenty years later.  The stories are interesting and fun as the four travel to places such as the City of Morphoton, a screaming jungle, and a snowy, barren land.  Each location is fraught with peril and drama.

In some ways, it would be easy to dismiss The Keys of Marinus as hokey.  The sets are obviously cheap, especially compared to the CGI sets that can be constructed today.  At times, it seems like it was filmed cheaply, as flaws in the production process are apparent.  However, this has more to do with the quality of the restoration than the quality of the original production.  Flaws that weren’t apparent on a murky videotape format are now quite evident on the digital restoration.  For many years, The Keys of Marinus existed in video-tape format; however, this was incomplete either due to intentional cutting down or necessity due to damage to the prints that could be located.  This is one of those story-arcs where the restoration team does an admirable job, even if it does make some of the flaws that happened while filming more apparent.

The story itself is a lot of fun.  I enjoyed it, but then I am someone who grew up on the series when it was midway through its original run.  I can appreciate it the same way I appreciate so many of the television shows I grew up with on reruns.  The production values of the late 1970s and early 1980s might have been better in some ways, but there is value in doing so much with so little.  After all, you can’t compare Gilligan’s Island with Lost, now can you?  That is what it is like comparing the current Doctor Who with the first season ever.

The acting is good.  Hartnell is still fresh here and made a great first Doctor.  In later years, he wasn’t quite as spot-on as the wizened, slightly-off time traveler (although talk of the “slightly off” part did seem to intensify).  Carole Ann Ford is good, although her role seems to be more the damsel in distress who can do little but scream at the slightest provocation.  It’s Jacqueline Hill as Barbara who really seems to be the woman of strength here and more in line with the stronger companions we would see alongside the Doctor in the future.  One of the brighter spots is William Russell as Ian.  I always had mixed feelings about the men who traveled with the Doctor, mainly because it seemed a more difficult mix.  Ian here actually works quite well, perhaps because of the dynamic of having an older Doctor.

The DVD release is good.  The Keys of Marinus doesn’t have all of the extras that other DVDs of Doctor Who have had, mainly due to the fact that this is a six-part story arc.  There’s an interesting commentary with some of the cast and crew who remain from that time, including William Russell and Carole Ann Ford.  I would have been more interested in the restoration process and a more in-depth featurette on that for this story-arc would have been nice.

As first-season story-arcs go for Doctor Who, The Keys of Marinus is pretty good, especially considering the air date is nearly two years before I was even born.  Kudos to the restoration team for bringing this to us, and I hope we’ll get more lost story-arcs like this in the future.


SPECIAL FEATURES:

• Commentary with Clayton Hickman, Designer Raymond Cusick, Carole Ann Ford, William Russell, and Director John Gorry
• Information Text
• The Sets of Marinus
• Photo Gallery