s01 e05 The Keys of Marinus

In which the TARDIS crew embarks on a series of loosely related high-concept adventures in an effort to collect all five legendary Keys of....ah fuck it: just watch this old cartoon intro which has exactly the same plot.

Review:
Anyone who actually watched Pirates of Dark Water back in the 90s will understand that this is easily the best episode of the first season.

Important Firsts:

• First shoes melted by a pool of acid
• First moral outrage from the old people of Great Britain.

Musings:

• Lower production values here, but they stretch it well to make a wide variety of cool landscapes.
• Why hasn't the Doctor done this in a while?
• I kind of like Hartnell flubbing his lines a little bit.  It makes it feel a little more realistic--like he's working through his thoughts.  It also adds to the impression of him as a doddering old man.
• The Doctor's companions ask him if he has color television.  He says that of course he does.  They demand to see it.  He awkwardly states that it is "temporarily hors de combat".
• Some aliens drive some pretty phallic submarines. 
• Susan's shoes get melted off by a pool of acid.  This plot point would end up being repeated some 47 years later with Matt Smith.
• It take all of 4 minutes and 27 seconds for someone to get separated. This time is particularly good seeing as Susan wanders off wearing Ian's shoes, leaving him barefoot on a rocky, acid-filled alien shore.
• The Voords are super cool-looking
• A Voord grabs Susan in a way that makes me feel vaguely uncomfortable. 
• Ironic that one of the most realistic alien costumes of the first few years turns out to be ACTUALLY a costume.  Or a wetsuit, more accurately.  The Voord look pretty much human underneath. Some more positively epic hand-to-hand combat from Ian.
• Barbara accidentally becomes a courtesan in some sort of brothel.
• And guess who runs the brothel? Easily the greatest monster in the history of Doctor Who.
• Barbara tells a fellow courtesan "I believe you are under a deep form of deep hypnosis."  
• How deep?  Pretty deep, apparently. Under the same hypnosis, the Doctor confuses a poop-covered coffee mug for a cyclotron machine.  I am not making this up.
• Barbara defeats the creepy brain monsters by smashing them to pieces with some sort of urn.  She would later repeat this performance in "The Dalek Invasion of Earth," except there she uses a firetruck to do the smashing. 
• The Doctor once again disappears for the middle 50% of this episode.  Poor Hartnell. 
• I just want to point out that the third segment of this episode is titled "The Screaming Jungle"
• In said jungle, an animated vine attempts to grope Susan...
• ...And no one believes her when she relates this experience.  This is pretty reasonable, given her track record.
• Moments later, Barbara is kidnapped by some creepy statue with four pectoral muscles
• The next segment takes places entirely in a snowy wasteland.  Unfortunately, I can't watch this segment without getting hungry given how much the snow looks like massive piles of parmesan cheese. 
• Barbara vigorously strokes Ian's arm to help with his frostbite.  I'm not even going to comment.
• Ian and Barbara nearly freeze to death, but are rescued by a creepy wolfman. 
• Fortunately, in this case, looks are deceiving, and he is actually quite sweet.
• Oh wait.  He tries to kill Barbara.
• Then when Ian comes back, the wolfman breaks down crying.
• The next segment features a panel of judges that look straight out of Monty Python, 
• The TARDIS crew teams up with a woman who was attractive enough that she caused a moral outrage amongst the old people of Britain, who felt that Doctor Who was becoming too sexual. This debacle would be repeated 47 years later when the Doctor teamed up with a stripper.
• After a pretty interesting twist where a bad guy dresses up as a good guy, the episode ends with a massive fiery explosion.  Television doesn't get much better than this.