E5 - Sentence of Death

Here we go - good old courtroom drama rears its head for the first time in Doctor Who, and the drama plays itself out for about 13 minutes. The episode starts off with Ian finding the final key in a relic room (along with the dead body of Altos' friend Eprin), but is conked over the head before he can procure the key. But who hit Ian in the head? And who stole the key shortly afterward?

Well, it's quite obvious that the guard who discovered Ian (name of Aydan) is implicated somehow. Aydan (played by Martin Cort who, like a few other actors in this story, appears as three or four other masked characters to help the acting budget on course) must also be renowned as The Worst Poker Player on Marinus, as he is so easily tripped up by The Doctor, Sabetha, Susan, even Arbitan, who died four weeks ago, and pretty much the entire population of the city of Millenius. Once Aydan's game has been rumbled, he is shot among a crowd of people, and falls dead. The crowd obviously agree with how useless he was, because not a single one them ducks for cover, confident that the weapon that was used to kill Aydan was set on "Kill Idiot" mode.

Anyway, it looks like Aydan's widow Kala is involved in this whole thing - not because she may have kidnapped Susan at episode's end, but because she just looks evil and there's no one else left in the story to blame...