Snakedance

You must find the still point.

Snakedance is the sequel to Kinda and there is usually a sharp debate among fans as to which is better as the two stories follow different narrative lines. Kinda is heavily influenced by Eastern philosophy and mysticism while Snakedance follows a more traditional storyline. It is somewhat surprising that in John Nathan Turner's planned Season 20 of classic villains, he encouraged the return of the Mara. Perhaps he just had a thing about snakes.

Plot Summary

As the TARDIS approaches the planet Manussa, the Doctor senses something wrong as he did not set the coordinates for this planet. Interrogating Nyssa, the Doctor figures that Tegan set the coordinates different that what he had instructed her. He and Nyssa also learn from consulting a field guide that Manussa was the center of the Sumaran Empire. They are interrupted by Tegan screaming herself awake from a dream where she entered a cave through the mouth of a snake.

Concerned over her dreams, the Doctor sets Tegan into a hypnotic state, regressing her back until she is outside the cave of her dream. She walks through it but when she looks down, very reluctantly, a very different voice cries out for her not to look. The Doctor pulls her out of the hypnotic state and gives her a device that will suppress her dreams, though it blocks her ears, preventing her from hearing. They then land on the planet to look for this cave of her dreams.

On Manussa, the son of the Federation leader, Lon, is bored. Manussa is holding the annual festival celebrating the defeat of the Mara but Lon views it as silly mythology. His mother, Lady Tanha, encourages him to walk with her among the people. They are taken through the streets to the cave of the Mara by the director of antiquities, Ambril. They enter and Ambril begins to detail the history of the Mara, boring Lon further.

The Doctor, Nyssa and Tegan make their way through the crowds and find the cave. Tegan refuses to go in, her fear becoming too strong. She waits outside with Nyssa while the Doctor goes inside. He finds the private tour and talks with Ambril about the legend of the Mara's return. Lon, finally interested in something, encourages the Doctor and wants to see Tegan whom they think they might be able to help.

Outside the cave, a seller of snake trinkets approaches Tegan and Nyssa. The image of the snake so frightens Tegan that she runs off into the crowd and passes out. The locals pull her into a fortune tellers tent to recover. Nyssa meets the Doctor as he returns to the entrance and tells him of Tegan's flight. The two run off to look for her, leaving a disappointed Lon to return to the lecture.

Tegan wakes in the tent of the fortune teller, who has removed the dream blocking device to allow her to talk to her. As Tegan wakes up, the Mara grows stronger and takes over Tegan's mind once again, manifesting a snake skull in the woman's crystal ball. It bursts from the ball and kills the fortune teller.

Nyssa and the Doctor try the TARDIS first but when Tegan isn't there, they split up. Tegan surprises Nyssa but resists coming with her to see the Doctor as her mind and the Mara fight for control. Tegan runs off and hides in a hall of mirrors, the Tegan part of her mind hoping to remove the Mara again. But with the mirrors only providing distortion and not in a circle, it manages to reassert itself over her mind. Nyssa meanwhile runs past but finds the discarded dream suppression device in the fortune teller's tent.

The Doctor heads to the palace to find Ambril who reluctantly tells the Doctor of the festival celebrating the banishment of the Mara and the Snakedancers who practice rituals to reinforce it's exile. The Doctor tries to convince him to call it off but Ambril dismisses him. His assistant, Chela, gives the Doctor a charm with a miniature crystal that the Snakedancers use in their ceremonies. Nyssa finds the Doctor, informing him that she found Tegan but lost her in the crowd.

The two head back to the cave to further examine a set of pictograms showing the Mara's defeat. They also notice that the large focusing crystal is missing. The Doctor determines that the crystal acts as a means of focusing mental energy and that was how the Mara was dispatched before. He heads back to the TARDIS to test his theory on the mini-crystal and successfully manages to focus his thoughts into energy manifested by the crystal. The Doctor attempts to crash a dinner party hosted by Ambril to discover where the primary crystal is but Ambril has him arrested, thinking it an elaborate hoax.

Tegan is found in the hall of mirrors by the man who runs it, Dugdale. Thinking her voice alterations and snake talk a trick, he offers her a chance to partner with him. Instead, she imposes her will on him and sends him to the palace to summon Lon. Lon is amused at the man's request and follows out of curiosity. When he meets Tegan, she extends her arm and the power of the Mara comes over him. The three walk to the caves where Tegan opens a hidden chamber, revealing ancient artifacts. Dugdale tries to collect the artifacts for sale but Tegan and Lon hypnotize him with the Mara's power.

Lon leaves and heads back to the palace where he shows Ambril an artifact taken from the cave. Impressed, Ambril follows Lon back to the cave and is overwhelmed by the other artifacts there. Tegan emerges and demands the original focusing crystal. Ambril initially refuses but gives in when Lon threatens to destroy all the artifacts. After they leave, Tegan begins to manifest the Mara in physical form, separating itself from the image on her arm.

Nyssa sneaks into the palace to discover the Doctor in a cell. Lacking the sonic screwdriver, she has no way of getting him out. She hides when Chela comes in to speak with the Doctor and show him the writings of the prior head of antiquities, Dojjen. Nyssa sneaks into Ambril's office to get the key but she is discovered by Tanha and placed in the cell with the Doctor.

As the Doctor reads over the journal, he and Nyssa determine that the Manussan people created the original crystal hundreds of years ago. The crystal focused powers within the mind but the dark elements also unleashed the Mara who took over and destroyed the technologically advanced Manussan civilization. The secret is still known to the Snakedancers and that was Dojjen's main discovery.

Lon and Ambril return and Ambril is sent to collect the crystal. Lon informs his mother that he will play the role of the Federation founder who defeats the Mara and that he will use the real crystal in the ceremony, breaking tradition. This news alarms Chela and he takes the key from Ambril's desk to let the Doctor out. However, he is observed by Lon who orders the guards after them. When the three are cornered, he orders the guards to kill them but Tanha intervenes and has them brought into chambers instead.

As Ambril brings the crystal to Lon, the Doctor realizes that Lon has been infected by the Mara as well. Lon accuses the Doctor and his friends of attempting to assassinate him and Tanha orders them locked up again. The Doctor, Nyssa and Chela make a break for it while the guards are distracted and escape the palace.

The group heads to the cave but does not go in. Instead they climb to the rocks above where the Doctor uses the mini-crystal to ask for the help of Dojjen, sending out a mental signal like a radio beacon. Dojjen arrives and infects the Doctor with a measure of snake venom. Under it's effects, he forces the Doctor to focus his thoughts, drive away fear and become a point of calmness that can defeat the Mara. Their ritual ended, the trio heads down to stop the ceremony with Dojjen staying behind.

In full costume, Lon acts the role of the hero in the ceremony in the cave. However, near the end, he varies, pulling the fake crystal out of the snake puppet's mouth and smashing it. He then pulls the real crystal from Ambril's box and places it within the rock crevice as Tegan emerges. The crystal focuses the fear and hate of the populace within the cave and they collapse as though subjected to a terrible noise. The snake that Tegan had manifested from her arm begins to grow and become more corporeal.

The Doctor enters as Lon places the crystal in and both Nyssa and Chela are felled. The Doctor however pulls his mini-crystal and focuses his own mind, becoming a calm point in the chaos. The Mara, through Tegan is upset by this calm point and begins to lose control. Tegan breaks through briefly, begging the Doctor for help. The Mara reestablishes control and sends Dugdale and Lon to try and take the mini-crystal but when attempting to grab it, their hands burn and they collapse.

With the Mara in a critical state and it's two minions disabled, the Doctor grabs the crystal. Lon makes a lunge at him but the Doctor knocks him down. He pulls the crystal from the crevice and the loss of focusing energy causes the people to recover. With it's energy source depleted, the Mara thrashes and then falls over dead. Tegan and Lon come back to themselves and the Doctor comforts Tegan, assuring her that the Mara has indeed gone.

Analysis

I must admit that I was disappointed by Snakedance. I knew the story would be radically different in tone from Kinda and I was prepared for that. But I had enjoyed Kinda enough that I thought that Snakedance would work as long as I was prepared for the tone change. It has a lot of elements that help it and set it on a good path, but in the end it is just kind of there and doesn't grab the viewer like a better story should.

First the positive aspects. The acting was all quite good in this story. This was a nice broadening for Tegan. She didn't get much of a chance to play the villain in Kinda as she passed the Mara on fairly quickly after succumbing so it was nice to see her in full possession mode for most of the story. I actually would have liked to have seen more of her but perhaps that amplified my enjoyment of her performance.

This was one of the better stories for Nyssa. She was engaged, keeping busy and her concern for Tegan forced her to show more emotion than she ever typically registers in a story. She also made a nice contrast to the Doctor who was in more of a manic mode. The Doctor's excitement was tempered a bit by Nyssa's natural calmness while his excitement pulled her into emotional ranges not usually seen by that character. Even when the Doctor calmed down a bit, they worked nicely together as when both are locked in the cell in Episode Three and the Doctor goes on his exposition speech. Nyssa interjects here and there and the two of them bounce nicely off each other in a way that you would expect two scientific minds to feed off of each other. It wasn't quite as good as the Third Doctor and Liz Shaw, but it gave that similar feel.

The Doctor was also good in this one. He was all energy in this story, reminding me very much of the Eleventh Doctor. It made the few quiet moments he had all the more impactful because we could see how on edge he is for most of the story. It did get a bit manic at a couple of points and it would have been nice to see the Doctor in a calm point figuring out what was going on a little more than we got, but it was still a good performance.

The guest cast was all pretty good. Chela was a good pseudo-companion, providing the local information needed to develop the story while not taking away from Nyssa's natural role. Lon's portrayal was done well perhaps even too well as I found myself getting annoyed with everyone's indulgence of his indolence. I understand he is the heir apparent but it would have been nice if someone would have put him in his place now and again. I guess that's a knock against his mother, who was still well acted. She was just a bit annoying as a character as I would have liked to have seen her drag Lon about by the ear at a couple of points just to show him some manners.

Ambril was quite good as the pompous academic, so conflated with his ideas about things that he dismissed other points of view. It was also an interesting take on the character that he was so obsessed with the archeological history of the Mara that he valued them over potentially greater hazards. Of course, his natural dismissal of the mystical made him a perfect pawn for that role and he played it well, although a bit of consequence at the end for him would have made for a nice payoff.

I thought the setting looked quite good. It never quite lost it's studio feel but it was much more expansive and you got a much more developed world sense than you did in other stories. It was also nice to see little cutaways in the festival where you could see how the battle between the Manussans and the Mara evolved into stories told through Punch and Judy shows or play ceremonies. It gave the culture more depth and made the society seem that more real.

As much as I liked the atmosphere of the story, that underscores one of the main problems of the story: it's pacing. There are several moments in this story where the story just comes to a dead stop. Those moments are filled with glimpses of the culture and world building or sometimes character development. I appreciate those but there should have been a way to incorporate them without killing the momentum of the overall story.

I also wouldn't have minded those stops as much if Episode Four didn't feel like such a rush job. Dojjen is the first person seen at the beginning of Episode One and his legend is built up throughout the story. However, instead of joining for the epic finale, he simply walks the Doctor through his own spiritual journey and then fades into the background again. Likewise, the battle with the Mara is over in three minutes with the Mara undone by such a simple thing as removing the crystal. Even after that, we are given no period of recovery. It's simply the Mara dies, everyone comes back to their senses and Tegan sits in shock next to the Doctor. I think even if Tegan had been shown a little while later coming back to her normal self with the Doctor reassuring her or someone else that the Mara had indeed gone, it would have given a better sense of balance to the ending.

The other significant problem with this story is one that it less control over and that is it's references back to Kinda. As a sequel, it doesn't have much choice in the matter, but the references back to the first story cause the viewer to remember that story and as a result, contrast the two. Because the style of the stories are radically different, it sets up the contrast between the two where if you like Kinda, Snakedance becomes diminished and vice versa. From my point of view, I really enjoyed Kinda and Snakedance just never seems to stand up to that. In a vacuum, I can handle that, but the story takes pains to remind me how much I liked Kinda and Snakedance suffers for it.

Even with the contrast and the pacing, I think this story could have been better if had developed itself a bit better and given a proper resolution. But it leaves a lot of things up in the air and unanswered. The Doctor actually states that he doesn't know why Dojjen didn't destroy the crystal, banishing the Mara forever and this is never answered. We are given no evidence at the end that the Doctor, Dojjen or anyone else took steps to destroy the crystal after the Mara was killed either.

Similarly, we are also never given resolution to what the purpose of the Snakedancers are apart from this one moment or why they are dismissed by the society. We are also never given proper resolution as to whether the Mara is a creature that existed and was unlocked by the Manussans or if was actually created by the hatred and fear of the Manussans and gained sentience. We are also never resolution as to whether the Kinda are related to the Manussans and if so, how did they get to Deva Loka since the Mara destroyed the technological achievements of the Manussans, yet the Kinda were aware of the Mara enough to lock it away in the darkness in their own way.

In the end, Snakedance was put in a very difficult position from the start. That being said, a few more rewrites and a proper ending would have gone a long way to elevating this story. I doubt it could have become as good as Kinda but it would have been much better in it's own right. It's a harmless little adventure story but it leaves so much in the air and ends on such a puzzling note that it is just hard to enjoy for it's own sake. Watch it again for the atmosphere and the acting but the nature of the story is such that I can't imagine myself being that interesting in digging it up for another viewing. I'd rather watch Kinda again and that is probably the most damning critique of any sequel.

Overall personal score: 2 out of 5