The Keys of Marinus

A common insult to hurl at the lesser of Doctor Who's foes down the years, perhaps even more damning than comedy monsters of the Nimon and Zarbi ilk, is that various of his enemies are "just another race of rubber suited monsters". It's a description that uncomfortably recalls that image of the series in the minds of the unwitting press and public who desire to place Who alongside Crossroads on the unworthy nostalgia wagon. The Voord in "The Keys of Marinus" have got away fairly lightly down the years critically speaking, for they don't just fulfil this remit totally, but actually and quite literally too.

The Voord are actually, without a doubt, the worst ever monsters to appear in Doctor Who. For one thing there is this fact that they aren't in fact monsters at all, but people in rubber suits. It becomes clear when the TARDIS crew uncover some 'vacated' rubber gear in Part 1 that the Voord are wearing wetsuits to traverse the sea of acid surrounding the island that it at this point claiming sole rights to the name Marinus. Indeed, the fabric of one has torn enabling the acid to seep in and quite horribly eat up the poor fellow inside.

Which makes it all the more strange to latterly discover that the Voord wear their underwater gear all the time, even when flopping about Arbitan's city. Their leader is even forced to don a hood later in an attempt to disguise his large, angular head. Why not just change into something more comfortable? Or perhaps the strange heads are somehow a natural component of the Voord creatures, but this would suggest they are robotic and therefore wouldn't need protective suits in the first place. It was presumably the strange metallic Voord heads and vulnerable, implied fleshy, bodies that inspired the Voords inevitable comeback in DWM's "The World Shapers" comic strip. In what may stand as the Granddaddy of all Fanwankery, the Voord are revealed to be... prototype Cybermen!

It's ground that possibly only the comics could get away with, as the medium touches just enough on the realms of spoof and parody to bring back a laughable "menace" like the Voord, while still staking enough claim to be a serious genre as to make the story credible. If the Voord or the Mire Beasts made a sudden re-appearance on TV, it would either end up being a Season 17 style hoot, or be so serious as to make the monsters evolve into something completely different from their original premise anyway. If it were in a novel, it would be post-modern. In a comic, it's allowed because the genre solely belongs to the fans so much that you almost expect it, yet you are forced to take it seriously because you know they do.

But there is something a bit comforting about a medium that embraces the more murky corners of Doctor Who's canon and claims them as part of its Universe. Although the Doctor always faced returning foes like the Master or the Cybermen on screen, there was always the sense that THEY were coming back to face HIM, and not that he was simply exploring a Galaxy filled with all the strange and diverse creations he encounters. In the comics, the Doctor could walk into a bar and pass an Ice Warrior and a Nimon playing cards, yet when on TV there was an attempt made to (shock! horror!) introduce the Sontarans in long shot, because they just happened to be there, we complained. Do we believe that everyone significant we reacquaint ourselves with in life arrives via a crash zoom and a cliffhanger? Apparently so.

It would be nice, eventually, if we learned to love a slightly less rigid Doctor Who Universe where the Doctor can have a Kroton for a companion or keep encountering a Cyberman with a soul; anyone whose dipped into it on the graphic page will testify that it's often more endearing, less predictable and even less silly than waiting patiently for the grand entrance of this weeks chosen returning villain who was heralded in the opening credits 25 minutes before anyway. But until that happens, the chances of us meeting a Voord again, and perhaps discovering anything whatsoever about them, seem fairly remote.