Snakedance Part Two

The one where the Mara makes slaves of men...

Peter Davison really nails his Doctor in this story. He brings out the Doctor's eccentricity, something each of his predecessors managed to portray quite organically, but which Davison has to work at. He's not naturally eccentric, and his youth works against him in this regard, but here he plays the Doctor as a scatty professor, his mind racing as he tries to connect dots and make sense of what's going on. His little routine with Sarah Sutton opening and closing the TARDIS doors is timelessly amusing. Davison really did find his mojo while making Snakedance.

I love how the Doctor comes across to everybody, including his best friend Nyssa, as a complete lunatic in this story. He races around from place to place making wild assumptions and demanding everybody agrees with him, but even the perception of the viewer is that this man is unhinged. It's the way Christopher Bailey writes it (he wrote similarly in Kinda) and the way Davison plays it: manic, desperate, breathlessly bonkers. Davison puts so much energy into his performance, hurtling about the screen with poor Sarah Sutton trying to keep up. Her frequent eye-rolling exasperation at the Doctor's dotty activities speak for the viewer!

Although the Doctor doesn't achieve very much in this episode, he is vitally present. The scene in the TARDIS where he tries to focus his and Nyssa's mental energies on the little mind's eye crystal is endearingly eccentric, until he manages to knock up a hearing aid device to shut out all external influences, and finally transforms his thoughts into energy using the glowing crystal. Seeing the Doctor sitting cross-legged on the TARDIS floor attempting to meditate is marvellously mad.

And then there's the wonderful scene at Ambril's place, in which John Carson humours the Doctor's ramblings, which he sees as total bunkum. The Doctor manages to get Chela to tell him the legend of the Mara, which apparently was not destroyed, only banished to the "dark places of the inside". In time, so legend has it, the Mara will return, in a dream, to regain power over men.

The routine with the Six Faces of Delusion is inspired, with the Doctor bursting Ambril's pomposity by pointing out that the "missing" sixth face is that of the wearer. It's pretty obvious that is the meaning of the head-dress, but it's amusing to see stuck-up Ambril get a taste of his own medicine! Johnathon Morris's Chela is a lovely foil for the Doctor, and Morris plays Chela as a gentle, thoughtful, reasoned chap who can see where the Doctor's coming from, even if he's not sure he believes everything he claims. He'd have made a fantastic companion.

As an aside... it's interesting how many stories after Earthshock feature a young male character who you could see working as a replacement aboard the TARDIS, whether it's Time-Flight's Bilton, Arc of Infinity's Damon or Snakedance's Chela. When we finally get Turlough in Mawdryn Undead, these "roads not taken" peter out, although you still have Olvir in Terminus and Will in The Awakening.

By the end of the episode, this demented Doctor has gate-crashed Ambril's dull dinner party (I love Tanha's stifled yawn!), raving about the return of the Mara, which to the people of Manussa is nothing but a legend in their ancient history. We last see him being dragged away by the arms!

While Davison knocks it out of the park as the Doctor, Janet Fielding also gets plenty to chew on as the possessed Tegan. Despite everything that happens to and with Tegan in Kinda, Fielding didn't actually have very much to do, but here she really gets to stretch her acting chops, and is genuinely disconcerting as Evil Tegan. At first she is girlishly giggly when she is reunited with Nyssa outside the fortune teller's booth, crouching down and hiding like a naughty schoolgirl, but also coming out with unsettling lines like: "When she screamed you could see right down her throat!" And when the real Tegan reaches out to Nyssa for help from within ("Nyssa, help me!"), it's heartbreaking.

Later, when confronted with her own reflection in the Hall of Mirrors, the possessed Tegan becomes darker, more dangerous and deadly. The image of Tegan reflected in the mirror with the head of a snake skull is truly scary, and when Fielding is seen talking to herself/ the Mara, it's a genuinely unsettling moment. She stares malevolently at the gibbering Dugdale, who the Mara takes control of and sends to summon Lon. "It's not something I'm accustomed to," says the bewitched Federator's son, "but here I am." Lon is your typical bored teenager, unimpressed with the pomp of his charmed lifestyle, but all he needed was a distraction, something new and intriguing, to rouse him from his langour. Being summoned by a strange young woman is just the lure he needs.

Tegan shares her possession with Lon, and both get the dreaded snake mark on their arms. They are both slaves of the Mara, but interestingly the Mara stays within Tegan this time, and does not transfer into the supposedly "stronger" male, as it did on Deva Loka. On Manussa, the Mara remains female, intent on regaining its "power over men".

That final shot of the episode, with Tegan looking demonic and red-eyed, is a disturbing parting image for younger viewers, and proves just how adult and horrific Snakedance is. As with Kinda, this is the most adult Doctor Who has ever been.

First broadcast: January 19th, 1983

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: A nod to lighting director Henry Barber, who lights Ambril's dinner party, and the fortune teller's booth, so beautifully (he was good for Doctor Who, drenching The Visitation in gorgeous greens and reds, and working wonders on The Greatest Show in the Galaxy and Ghost Light).
The Bad: Nothing!
Overall score for episode: ★★★★★★★★★★

NEXT TIME: Part Three...

My reviews of this story's other episodes: Part One; Part Three; Part Four

Find out birth/death dates, career information, and facts and trivia about this story's cast and crew at the Doctor Who Cast & Crew site.

Snakedance is available as part of the BBC DVD box set Mara Tales. Find it on Amazon - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Who-Tales-Kinda-Snakedance/dp/B004FV4R4K/