Welcome to The First Eight – The Roarbots’ classic Doctor Who watchthrough. We’re going through the 50+ year history of the Doctor Who franchise in chronological order. This is not a “rewatch”; I’m watching these shows fresh. For the first time. I’ll do my best to leave preconceptions at the door, but I have no baggage at all that pertains to pre-Ninth Doctor reboot.

Want to watch along or catch up on classic Who on your own terms? Check out BritBox, which has every existing episode available for instant streaming.

I’m not here to write an authoritative history or connect all the dots among the characters, planets, and eras of the franchise. I’m simply here to correct one of my most flagrant Geeky Blind Spots. And I hope you’ll join me on the journey. There’s only 26 seasons and 8 Doctors to catch up on. Easy peasy.

I was warned about this one in advance.

Is it bad that I had to go online to read a recap of this story immediately after the last episode in the serial ended? As soon as it was over, I had forgotten pretty much everything about it. Needless to say, I’m not even going to attempt a plot (such as it is) synopsis.

I hate to be such a Negative Nancy in these reviews, but the first season of the First Doctor is pretty rough going. Coming off the relative high of “Marco Polo,” we’re rewarded with this mess. This one’s all over the place . . . literally.

“The Keys of Marinus” is composed of the following episodes:

• “The Sea of Death” (April 11, 1964)
• “The Velvet Web” (April 18, 1964)
• “The Screaming Jungle” (April 25, 1964)
• “The Snows of Terror” (May 2, 1964)
• “Sentence of Death” (May 9, 1964)
• “The Keys of Marinus” (May 16, 1964)

Over the course of its six episodes, the story takes our characters through at least five major set pieces – each of which might have been sufficient for a self-contained story. We begin on a glass beach beside a sea of acid, move to the interior of a mysterious tower, take a side trip to a screaming jungle with mutant man-eating plant life, then zip on over to a desolate snowscape before escaping to a series of ice tunnels. Finally, we end up in the middle of a courtroom drama.

Whew!

Theoretically, all this jumping around is because the gang has to round up the five keys of Marinus. In reality? It makes almost zero sense and is frustratingly difficult to follow. By the time Ian is put on trial in the last episode, it feels inconceivable that everything that preceded it was actually part of the same story.

Still, there are elements of this story that I like a lot. I know; I’m just as surprised as you. The alien designs are unique and memorable. While the gang is on the glass beach, they’re attacked by a bunch of guys in full-body rubber wetsuits. They remind me a lot of the lizard men in the first episode of Jonny Quest. (That’s just how my mind works.) And anything that makes me think of Jonny Quest is A-OK in my book.

The Brains of Morphoton are the first alien designs that don’t look human. They’re basically two antennae eyes sticking out of a brain in a jar. Not very menacing but still a cool idea, so I’ve got to give the creative team props for that. And the Big Bad of this story, Yartek (along with his Voord warriors), wears a way cool helmet/mask that looks totally out-of-place and ahead of its time here.

I also like that Ian wears his Chinese robe from “Marco Polo” throughout the serial. It’s a nice little bit of continuity that I appreciated.

Barbara and Susan continue to be mostly useless, especially when faced with the slightest hint of peril. However, when Susan is taken captive by the trapper is the first time I’ve actually felt like she could be in serious danger. Yes, yes, I know the Daleks and, well . . . all those other bad guys she faced were dangerous, too.

But I actually shuddered when the hulking giant of a man locked the door, touched Barbara on the shoulder, and said, “We’re alone now.” That guy is bad news.

What’s not to like here? Awful acting for one; everyone panics at the drop of a hat – even Ian, who’s normally rather stoic. He literally breaks iron bars to escape from a jail but then freaks out when a weed wraps itself around Barbara’s leg.

The convoluted story is what really dooms this one for me, though. They just try to cover too much ground without a strong enough story to hold it all together. Plus, we’re beginning to see the “Professor X Dilemma” at play. The writers need come up with plausible reasons for why the gang doesn’t just go back to the TARDIS and leave as soon as trouble pops up. Just as Professor X must be put out of commission (because he’s too powerful), the Doctor’s gang must be cut off from the TARDIS. Even if it’s artificial and forced.

Unfortunately, the ways this is accomplished in these early stories is just far too implausible.

Ah well, fingers crossed our road takes an upward turn as we head toward “The Aztecs.”