Kinda, Maybe, Sort Of.

So, not so long ago I finally got around to watching Kinda. It's an episode I've been interested to see for a while. I'd heard interesting things about it. That it was a bit odd, that it was a great story for Tegan, that it had a rubbish snake at the end.

And in many ways these are all true. It IS a bit of an odd story, with the Doctor and company pushed to the periphery whilst the script desperately tries to analogise a great profound SOMETHING. It's clearly meant to be about something, but I'll be buggered if I could say what.

Now, I have to confess I've always found the character of Tegan a little.... grating. She seems to just sort of hang around complaining a lot but never really doing anything. Like Martha in the new series I get the impression that nobody ever really knew what to actually do with the character. So, I was intrigued by the possibility of a piece that does something with the character. I have to say though that it wasn't quite what I was expecting. Rather than all the interesting possession stuff I had been led to believe they basically just put her to sleep for most of the story. Which, baring in mind that Nyssa already took one look at the script and went back to bed does leave us with an awful lot of Adric to contend with. The scary possession part is reduced to throwing apples at a man in a sarong (draughty) and 15 minutes of....

Which I admit is quite atmospheric and creepily staged, but I really did think the poor girl would have something more to do.

Then of course, we come to the Mara itself. Now, I know that the story has taken some flak for the realisation of the snake, but frankly I think that's rather unfair. As giant snakes on an 80s Doctor Who budget go I think it's actually pretty good.

SNAAAKE!! Snake! It's a Snake!!

No, the problem with the Mara is what a totally ineffectual monster it is. It achieves absolutely NOTHING, and is about as involved with the actual threat as Nyssa. Who, if you'll remember is enjoying some quite time alone in the TARDIS with the Doctors sonic oscillator. To "help her sleep". Draw your own conclusions on that.

Pass me the Phallic Screwdriver. Now go away.

Anyway, so The Mara possesses Tegan for about 5 minutes and gets lipstick on her teeth. Then it possesses sarong boy and gets lipstick on his teeth. Then it enacts it's evil plan to build a pretend robot out of sticks and get shot.

BY ADRIC.

I'm sorry, but when bloody ADRIC is kicking your ass you really need to rethink your career choices. Maybe try something in accountancy instead. Oh, wait, he'll kick your ass there as well. Anyway, the point is that for all the building up of the Mara as a big scary threat monster it doesn't actually present any danger at all. I mean, we're shown terrible visions of what will happen if the Mara is let loose, but how do they go?

Ummm..... 'kay?

The point is that the monster is completely irrelevant to the story, except as a distraction to pad things out to 4 episodes. The real danger is inside the dome as Hindle goes TOTALLY BATSHIT. He's the one that's planning on killing everyone. And that's all FANTASTIC. He's properly scary as he looses his grip on reality and becomes a steadily increasing danger to himself and everyone around him. But he does it all on his own. The snake isn't involved. There isn't even the merest hint the Mara had the slightest input. And the couldn't be, since he starts cracking up long before the Mara even bothers to turn up.

I guess what I'm driving at is that existentialist performance theatre isn't really much of a galactic threat.