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"I don't believe that man was made to be controlled by machines. Machines can make laws but they cannot preserve justice. Only human beings can do that."
—The Doctor
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Back with science-based action this time, as the TARDIS arrives on Marinus, on an island of glass in a sea of acid. It turns out this island is the location of the "Conscience of Marinus", a mind-controlling machine that has been used for centuries to keep the peace. However, the villainous Yartek and his Voord warriors wanted to capture the machine and use it for evil, so the four eponymous Keys of Marinus without which the machine wouldn't function were scattered over the planet in secret locations.
Now Arbitan, the "Keeper of the Conscience" has rigged the machine so the Voords can't use it and the Doctor and companions must go and retrieve the Keys of Marinus so it can be switched back on again.
After adventures in a series of inventive locations including a building under attack by ambulatory plants and a city in which Ian is accused of murder and finds that here, you are guilty until proven innocent, the travellers return with the Keys, only to find that Yartek has killed Arbitan. Yartek forces them to hand over the keys, but Ian passes him a fake one and the machine blows up in his face, killing him and the other Voords.
Watch it here.
Tropes[]
- Absentee Actor: William Hartnell doesn't appear in the third and fourth parts.
- Adventure Towns
- Bound and Gagged: Susan in Episode 6.
- Brain In a Jar: The Morpho of Morphoton.
- Brainwashing for the Greater Good: Interestingly, not presented as an inherently evil idea. The Conscience Machine did keep the peace on Marinus for ages.
- Chekhov's Gun: The fake Key.
- Crap Saccharine World: Morphoton.
- Death World: Marinus. Sea of acid, beach of glass, frozen tundras, bizarre alien slave drives.
- Department of Redundancy Department:
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The Doctor: No. Impossible at this temperature. Besides, it's too warm. |
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- Depending on the Writer: The Voord. Are they native to Marinus with "Voord" just being a political alignment or are they aliens? For what it's worth, Terry Nation intended for it to be the latter but everyone else has been very inconsistent in what the Voord are.
- Descending Ceiling: Barbara is nearly done in by a spiked one.
- Dismantled MacGuffin: The Keys of Marinus that control the Conscience Machine.
- Fakin' MacGuffin
- Flanderization: Susan may have always been a screamer but the attitude is taken Up to Eleven here. Stories like this were ultimately why Carol Ann Ford decided to leave.
- He Knows Too Much: Ayden
- I Never Said It Was Poison: How one of the conspirators in episodes 5 and 6 slips up.
- Kangaroo Court: Ian's trial.
- Lotus Eater Machine: Morphoton
- Memetic Mutation: Yartek, LEADER OF THE ALIEN VOORD! is a classic one, stemming from a description of the story in tie-in material.
- Multicultural Alien Planet: Each area of Marinus has its own biome and culture, unlike every other planet in Who.
- Shifting the Burden of Proof: Jurisprudence in Millennius. The defence has to disprove the prosecution.
- Special Effects Failure: In the first episode a villain falls to their death and its very obviously not a real person but looks like a figurine of some sort.
- Trouble Magnet Gambit: Vasor.
- The X of Y