I am currently waiting for Keys to come out on DVD in a few months before I start to review the Serials/DVD's themselves, so that I can have a long run up to The Ark or something like that. But until then, this is one of the Serials I have never seen.
It was however, one of my Dad's collection of Targets that I read as a kid, it was thoroughly enjoyable then, and it is still enjoyable now.
The Keys of Marinus is a string of great ideas held together by a wafer thin plot that Iris Wildthyme has driven through half a dozen times. So lets forget about that bit. It does no justice to a series of great little vignettes that are best appreciated individually. The alien worlds that are here are spectacularly drawn (The suggestion that so many extremes are from a single planet makes my head hurt, so let's just posit that Marinus is a collection of planets). Hinchcliffe brings each area to life and throws danger around every corner. It's well written without a doubt and overcomes the problems of the plot easily.
Where Hinchcliffe succeeds in this novelisation is with the characters. Each one of the travellers is, in turn, stranded and placed in mortal danger, and they must rely on each other for survival. As Ian rescues Susan and Barbara in the Icelands through strength, grit, determination and sheer machismo, he himself must be rescued from execution by the Doctor's cunning, intelligence and ingenuity. Yet Hinchcliffe does not bog down in character, he simply lets us see how close these four have become by showing us how far they will go for one another. Each have their flaws, but together, this Tardis Crew can overcome anything thrown at them. Something that was never quite true again after Ian and Barbara left and the Doctor moved to the forefront of the show.
6/10
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