Day 587: Snakedance Part 4

One of the best patts of Snakedance, for me, is the ending. After Tegan is freed of the Mara's influence, the Doctor goes to comfort her. In tears, she asks if the Mara has been truly defeated. The Doctor says that it has, and then we cut away briefly to the Mara's rotting corpse, at which point the episode ends. There's no wrap up, no moment for everyone to say what a wonderful job the Doctor has done, instead we just focus on the moment, on the fact that this traumatic experience is finally over, which makes the overall story feel far stronger as a result. This is because it keeps the focus squarely on the Mara and how to defeat it, and it knows that once the Mara has been defeated, everything else is just padding.

But that completes Snakedance. I'd love to write more about it, because it is really an absolutely fantastic story. My only problem with writing about it, however, is that it's a massively dense story. Every scene, every moment, every character means and represents something, and it's impossible to get all of the meaning out of the story after watching it once or twice. This story, along with Kinda, is a story that is designed to be savoured, to watch over and over again, and notice more and more as you find more meaning in the tale that is being told. It's Doctor Who for a new age, an age where the audience now has access to video recorders, and can readily watch stories over and over again, getting more enjoyment out of them every single time.