Snakedance is the 125th serial and it aired in January 1983. It was the second serial of the 20th season and like all the stories in this season it has the return of a villain from the Doctor's past. This serial has the Mara return to cause problems. The story is written by Christopher Bailey and it would be the last thing he wrote for TV. He had created the Mara for the Kinda serial. He only wrote the two Doctor Who serials. The director is Fiona Cumming, she had directed a previous serial and would direct a couple more.
The Tardis arrives on the planet Manussa. It's not where they thought they were going. Tegan put in different coordinates for an unknown reason. She's been having some weird disturbing dreams that the Doctor thinks are the Mara is somewhere in her head. He gives her a device to stop the possession. The Tardis had landed in the market place of a city. Young Prince Lon, played by Martin Clunes, is rather bored and he goes wandering through the market. The citizens are getting ready for a big celebration. It the 500th anniversary of the bannishment of the Mara.
The Doctor gets to meet the head of the museum and he can't convince him that the Mara is trying to come back. Tegan gets totally possessed and she passes the mark of Mara onto Lon. They gather the head of the mureum and toss the Doctor and Nyssa into the clink. The plan is to release the Mara so it can take over. There's the usual running around and getting caught. The Doctor and Nyssa gain a friend in the deputy curator. He helps them beat down the Mara and save the planet. Not a bad story that got helped by some odd camera work and effects. the sets were ok for the most part. I though the Mara a poor villain but there you go. It was interesting seeing Martin Clunes in his first role on tv. He was 22 at the time.
The commentary has Peter Davison, Janet Fielding and Sarah Sutton. It was ok. There's a couple of featurettes, info track, photos, Radio Times listings and a couple of other bits and bobs. I have to mention how awful I think that Sarah Sutton's costume is. She didn't like it either. Janet Fielding didn't much care for her costume either. It's not much of anything to look at.
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