Doctor Who Television Story: Snakedance

Title: Snakedance
Story Number: 124
Season: 20
Screenwriter: Christopher Bailey
Director: Fiona Cumming

Thoughts:

Two of the highlights of the Peter Davision era are Kinda and it’s sequel Snakedance, both featuring the entity the Mara.  Surprisingly the Mara never returned, although I suppose if Russell Davies continues showrunning they might show up as a series finale surprise.  In this story, Tegan is once again haunted by the Mara as the TARDIS arrives on the planet Manussa in the midst of a festival celebrating 500 years of the banishment of the Mara.  I really love the world building in this episode establishing a culture with the Mara in its folklore.  Janet Fielding gets a chance to show her acting range going from scared when the Mara first reemerges in her mind, to evil when it takes full control. Guest star Martin Clunes (long before he became the voice of Kipper) is excellent as the spoiled son of the local royalty who is also possessed by the Mara.  The only downside to this story is that it kind of ends with a fizzle rather than a bang.

Rating: 8 of 10

#1980s #ChristopherBailey #FionaCumming #JanetFielding #Nyssa #PeterDavison #SarahSutton #Series20 #TeganJovanka #TheMara
Doctor Who Television Review: Kinda

Title:  Kinda Story Number:  118 Season: 19 Screenwriter:  Christopher Bailey Director:   Peter Grimwade Thoughts: First off, I always want to pronounce this serial’s title like the slang for…

It Is About Space and Time
Playful Lion Cub Kenya by Joan Carroll

Playful Lion Cub Kenya by Joan Carroll

Joan Carroll Official Website

A #FollowFriday to celebrate the arrival of my latest book #DoctorWho - The Black Archive #62: Kinda. https://obversebooks.co.uk/product/62-kinda/
If you’re interested in this smorgasbord: #Buddhism
#Jung
#VietnamWar
#Counterculture
#Trickster
#GreenMan
#Genesis
#Gilgamesh
#JosephConrad
#UrsulaKLeGuin
#Archetypes
#Imperialism
#StadialTheory
#Tahiti
#Gauguin
#EmpireFilms
#Neuroscience
#FifthDoctor
#TeganJovanka
#TheMara …… then I think the book is for you!

I’ll be nattering about the book here too.

62. Kinda

‘Wheel turns, civilisations arise. Wheel turns, civilisations fall.’ With new input from writer Christopher Bailey, this archive examines how Kinda (1982) emerged from his background as a counter-cultural arts activist, a theatre and television writer, and his formative encounter with Buddhism. Searching the Dark Places of the Inside, Kinda is a richly layered allegory, inextricably linked, through the history and evolution of Buddhism’s teachings, with nineteenth-century European colonialism, fin de siècle literature, heritage cinema of the 1980s, Gauguin’s ‘noble savage’, acid trips and cutting-edge neuroscience.  

Obverse Books