History Recap / DoctorWhoS20E2Snakedance

* AmbiguouslyGay: Lon. He wears a single ear-ring for christ sake.
** Tegan and Nyssa, and for ''some'' time, though Nyssa's gentle fretting in this episode really brings it to a head.

* ShoutOut: Takes place in a very {{Gormenghast}}-like kingdom

Uh-oh. Looks like Tegan isn't ''quite'' over her encounter with the Mara, the mind-controlling snake god from "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS19E3Kinda Kinda]]": not long after they land on the planet of Manussa, she starts having sinister snake-themed dreams.

Possibly these were inspired by her environment. Manussa used to be ''controlled'' by the Mara until they kicked the evil snake god to the curb some 500 years previously, an event commemorated by a festival that the TARDIS crew has landed smack in the middle of. Could the Mara be attempting a comeback?

Of ''course''. It's a good time for it, too: Manussa's currently under the control of vain and weak-willed Lon, and no one in the palace believes the Doctor's warnings of incoming doom. Except one token guy, who gives the Doctor a crystal and tells him about an old scholar, who ''also'' believed in the Mara and later left society to wander around in the desert and be a monk. Or something. It takes the Doctor roughly five seconds to deduce that the Mara came to Manussa when the ancestors of the Manussans made some kind of giant [[strike:magic]] molecularly-engineered crystal that fed off everyone's hate and fear and thus allowed the Mara to enter. Either he's ''really'' good, or someone's been showing him the scripts.

Lon, meanwhile, proves easily susceptible to the Mara's charms, especially when they come Tegan-shaped. Now he's trying to rejigger the Ceremonial Ritual Commemorating Having Kicked Out The Mara into a ceremony to allow them reentry.

* RetroactiveRecognition: Lon is Gary from ''MenBehavingBadly'' and the titular ''DocMartin''

* RetroactiveRecognition: Lon is Gary from ''MenBehavingBadly'' and the titular ''DocMartin''

* ReptilesAreAbhorrent

* RetroactiveRecognition: Lon is Gary from ''MenBehavingBadly''.

* ImpossiblyTackyClothes: The redicoulous Ceremonial Costume that Lon wore during the climax of the story. Justified in as much as it was a part of the theme of the threat of the Mara being transformed into myth, tradition and spectacle that was abundant during the rest of the story.
** NeverLiveItDown: Martin Clunes, the actor who played Lon and who went on to be a sucessful star, is being quoted on the dvd for never quite forgiving director Fiona Cumming for putting him in [[ImpossiblyTackyClothes that ceremonial costume]], since whenever he now appears on a talk-show they ''always'' show that clip in order to make fun of his earlier jobs pre-stardom.
*** IWasYoungAndNeededTheMoney: Sarah Sutton cheekingly said during the dvd-commentary when the Costume showed up that "You can only make the young wear something like that, anyone with some experience and confidence under their wings would take one look at it and flat-out refuse."

** NeverLiveItDown: Martin Clunes, the actor who played Lon and who went on to be a sucessfull star, is being quoted on the dvd for never quite forgiving director Fiona Cumming for putting him in [[ImpossiblyTackyClothes that ceremonial costume]], since whenever he now appears on a talk-show they ''always'' show that clip in order to make fun of his earlier jobs pre-stardom.
*** IWasYoungAndNeededTheMoney: SarahSutton cheeklngly said during the dvd-commentary when the Costume showed up that "You can only make the young wear something like that, anyone with some experience and confidence under their wings would take one look at it and flat-out refuse."

* ImpossiblyTackyClothes: The redicoulous Ceremonial Costume that Lon wore during the climax of the story. Justified as much as it was a part of the theme of the threat of the Mara being transformed into myth, tradition and spectacle that was abundant during the rest of the story.

*** IWasYoungAndNeededTheMoney: SarahSutton cheeklngly said during the dvd-commentary when the Costume showed up that "You can only make the young wear something like that, anyone with some experience and confidence under their wingswould take one look at it and flat-out refuse."

* NeverLiveItDown: Martin Clunes, the actor who played Lon and who went on to be a sucessfull star, is being quoted on the dvd for never quite forgiving director Fiona Cumming for putting him in [[ImpossiblyTackyClothes that ceremonial costume]], since whenever he now appears on a talk-show they ''always'' show that clip in order to make fun of his earlier jobs pre-stardom.

* NeverLiveItDown: Martin Clunes, the actor who played Lon and who went on to be a sucessfull star, is being quoted on the dvd for never quite forgiving director Fiona Cumming for putting him in [[ImpossibleTackyClothes that ceremonial costume]], since whenever he now appears on a talk-show they ''always'' show that clip in order to make fun of his earlier jobs pre-stardom.

http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/TeganMara_1188.jpg

* FetishFuel: Cages, possession and lines like "You've disappointed me Doctor. I should have you punished."
** This troper gets squiggly feelings when the Doctor is bitten by the little snake.

* JamesBondage: Once again, the Doctor spends almost an entire episode locked up in a cage! And this is the same writer wrote "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS19E3Kinda Kinda]]"--does he have a fetish or something?

* NightmareFuel: Just about everything involving Evil!Tegan - her body with a snake's head, her head ''inside'' the Mara's mouth, her eyes glowing red as she intones "Look at me...''LOOK AT ME...''", and that incredibly creepy "Mara Laugh" that Janet Fielding now refuses to perform at conventions...

--> '''-- The Doctor'''

!Tropes

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<<|Recap/DoctorWho|>>

* CassandraTruth: For once the Doctor has trouble getting people to believe him. The other characters think he's mad largely because he keeps bursting into rooms and spewing panicked monologues about the Mara.
* CliffHanger: Naturally; Part 3 gives us a particularly stereotypical PrepareToDie moment, complete with a rare Nyssa scream.

Of ''course''. It's a good time for it, too: Manussa's currently under the control of vain and weak-willed Lon, and no one in the palace believes the Doctor's warnings of incoming doom. Except one token guy, who gives the Doctor a crystal and tells him about an old scholar, who ''also'' believed in the Mara and later abdicated to wander around in the desert and be a monk. Or something. It takes the Doctor roughly five seconds to deduce that the Mara came to Manussa when the ancestors of the Manussans made some kind of giant [[strike:magic]] molecularly-engineered crystal that fed off everyone's hate and fear and thus allowed the Mara to enter. Either he's ''really'' good, or someone's been showing him the scripts.

Of ''course''. It's a good time for it, too: Manussa's currently under the control of vain and weak-willed Lon, and no one in the palace believes the Doctor's warnings of incoming doom. Except one token guy, who gives the Doctor a crystal and tells him about Lon's father, who ''also'' believed in the Mara and later abdicated to wander around in the desert and be a monk. Or something. It takes the Doctor roughly five seconds to deduce that the Mara came to Manussa when the ancestors of the Manussans made some kind of giant [[strike:magic]] molecularly-engineered crystal that fed off everyone's hate and fear and thus allowed the Mara to enter. Either he's ''really'' good, or someone's been showing him the scripts.

*AllMythsAreTrue