First up, a really weird blurb. Tying in with the confusion in the novelisation itself, Marinus here is specifically the ‘remote force-shielded island’, not the planet, which makes the Conscience’s maintenance of ‘the gentle life of Marinus’ sound like everywhere the travellers visit in search of the keys is on this one island. Does that mean the Voords are just evil continentals?
Then there’s the Conscience itself, ‘the ultimate computer’, which sounds even worse than in the Doctor’s final verdict because it not only limits people’s actions but ‘rules’ them. Mind you, the people of Marinus sound a very dangerous bunch now it’s clear that, without the Conscience’s guidance, what’s unleashed isn’t simply messy free will but absolute ‘evil’.
Meanwhile, Arbitan isn’t simply misguided or desperate, what with his daughter lost and Voords at the door, but ‘ruthless’, which certainly makes sense of his edict to the Tardis crew that they retrieve the keys ‘OR DIE!’.
But enough fun. The bit in the book where Vasor ‘leered […] lasciviously’ at Barbara got me wondering… Is Barbara the most letched over companion until Peri?
Off the top of my head, Jamie, with just one glimpse at her portrait, fancies Victoria in ‘The Evil of the Daleks’, but he never really pursues her; King Pel, or whatever he’s called, has the hots for Jo, but that seems more romantic (as well as Oedipally fuelled by his mother having been from Earth); Condo fancies Sarah in ‘The Brain of Morbius’ but in such a Lennie from Of Mice and Men way that it’s more dangerous than lascivious; and Marriner can’t leave Tegan alone, but doesn’t seem to even know what sex is. Meanwhile, Ganatus clearly holds a flame for Barbara (‘The Daleks’), Vasor plans to rape her in ‘The Keys of Marinus’, the prison warden makes approaches to do much the same in ‘The Reign of Terror’ (and the same story sees a definite spark between her and Leon Colbert), Nero spends an episode of ‘The Romans’ literally chasing her and El Akir puts her in his harem (‘The Crusades’). Come Peri, Sharaz Jek starts stroking his screen soon as see her (‘The Caves of Androzani’), Shockeye’s desperate to taste her (‘The Two Doctors’ – alright, this is a bit of a stretch and he’s frankly keener on Jamie), the Borad wants to mutate her so she’ll go out with him (‘Timelash’), Jobel’s eyes light up on first glance (‘Revelation of the Daleks’), Katryca’s got plans to give her many husbands (‘The Trial of a Time Lord’) and even Sil’s disgust for her betrays an obsession with her body (‘Vengeance on Varos’ and ‘The Trial of a Time Lord’).
Why’s it so awful when the programme does it to Peri but, at least to me, not so bad with Barbara. Part of it, I think, is that the list for Barbara is a bit disingenuous: both Ganatus and Leon are mutual attractions, and there’s clearly a relationship between her and Ian as well; none from the list for Peri are mutual, and not even her marriage to Yrcarnos feels like she has completely free agency. Part of it is their respective ages: Barbara represents maturity – and those men are sometimes pointedly not expressing the same interest in Susan – and so the lechery doesn’t feel wholly physically motivated; Peri is not only
younger, her suitors frequently wax lyrical on her physical charms and on them alone. Thanks to the way Peri’s often dressed, the programme feels complicit in the lechery; Barbara wears a nice jumper. That Peri stays with the sixth Doctor so long after her strangles her in ‘The Twin Dilemma’ and it never even comes up again sets her up as a victim; her departure, even if it later turns out to be a lie, reinforces that sense, abandoned, alone, tied up, her body taken by Kiv and her personality erased. Okay, this ends up being more about the problems of Peri than the brilliance of Barbara…
Maybe the more interesting question is why romance and lust were such a recurring aspect of the first era of the show, why they were then ignored for so long and why, when they sort of returned, it was seemingly via the mind of an adolescent misogynist? I suspect it’s because you never again get two female companions (I won’t count River as she comes and goes and, despite being the daughter of the other female Tardis crewmember, takes the mature role of the two) and the role of the female companion became the ‘girl’, as I think Susan was labelled in the early paperwork. There are at least now two women aboard the Tardis again, but the thirteenth Doctor has yet to elicit any explicit romance or lust.
And now, with everyone from the future furiously shouting about the deeply developed romantic relationship between the Doctor and Yaz in Series 13, let’s turn our eye back to Doctor Who and the Keys of Marinus…
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