Inspirations - Snakedance

As you are no doubt fully aware, sequels were as rare as hens' teeth back in the Classic Era of the programme. Snakedance is one of those rarities. Kinda had concluded with Tegan apparently free of the Mara which had inhabited her body - first passing it on to the Kinda native Aris, before it was seemingly sent back to the dark places of the inside. Tegan was noticeably still troubled in the scene which opens the following story, which might just be an indication that there was more of this story to tell. Snakedance opens with the dormant Mara reawakening in her and causing her to unconsciously pilot the TARDIS to the planet of Manussa, where the Mara was first created. An ancient civilisation here experimented with their minds, focusing them through special blue crystals, which resulted in the unintentional creation of the creatures. In trying to develop inner peace, calm and harmony, all the negative emotions were shunted off to become the Mara.

Despite having a dreadful time with the development of his first story, Chris Bailey was encouraged to produce a second Mara story for the following season. The production team had liked the first effort, having more of a psychological menace (even if it did eventually materialise as a big pink snake). Bailey went into Snakedance much happier, being familiar now with how the scripting process for a show like Doctor Who worked. He was more comfortable working with Eric Saward, and felt with his new story that he could shape it more as he wanted it - better understanding the limitations of what could be realised.
Once again, his story was to be entirely studio-bound, with just a small amount of filming (the scenes in the wilderness featuring Dojjen). The director chosen was Fiona Cumming, who had helmed the metaphysical Castrovalva in Season 19. She had specifically asked JNT not to be offered any hard Sci-Fi robot / monster stories.
Mention to any fan a story with strong Buddhist inspirations, blue crystals with strange mental properties, and monsters based on common terrestrial creatures which people were particularly phobic about, and they might think you were talking about Planet of the Spiders. Saward would probably have been familiar with that story, but we can't say if Bailey was.

Snakedance continues the Buddhist theme, but adds some other religions into the mix. The Snakedancers sound like they might be Hindu or Jain sadhu, who have turned their back on worldly ways to live an ascetic lifestyle, and there are fundamentalist Christian sects which involve snake wrangling (subject of The X-Files Season 7 episode 'Signs and Wonders').
The whole notion of the Mara being born of the mind, and of how focusing the mind could then relegate them back into the dark dimensions seems to derive from Buddhist fables. The Doctor basically meditates them into defeat.
Buddhist references abound in the names once again - Tanha meaning "thirst, craving or desire" for instance. This is a little odd, as Tanha is Lon's mother, who shows no indication of such cravings, preferring instead to just show up and do her duty as the Federator's wife. It's Lon himself who is best described by these desires, greedy for anything which will relieve his boredom. Dojjen derives from Dogen - who was a 13th Century Zen Master.

Colonialism is another inspiration for this story - especially that of Raj-era India. Cumming seems to have picked this up for the look of Manussa and its inhabitants. The Federator is an off-worlder - a colonial governor. Tanha and Lon are obliged to visit and show an interest, which the Federator apparently lacks, in this place and its people and their quaint superstitions. EM Forster's A Passage to India features a trip by colonials to visit some caves, in which a young woman has a nightmarish experience.
Looking at the relationship between Lon and his mother, I'm also reminded of that between the Roman emperor Nero and his mother Agrippina. Hopefully his experiences on Manussa will cause Lon to become a better person, and thus a better Federator when his time comes, but you can imagine - had he experienced no life-changing event - he would have been plotting some bizarre fatal accident for his mum once as soon as he was in power.
Another inspiration is TS Eliot's Four Quartets poems. There are direct quotes from these - the repeated mention of the "still point" for instance - and aspects of the ritual Lon has to perform in the cavern. Eliot also liked to mix Christian imagery with that of other religions - borrowing ideas from Hindu texts such as the Mahabharata and the Bhagavad-Gita.
On a design point, we also have to look to the Star Trek episode 'The Apple'. That's the one which is also very similar to elements of Kinda, with a seemingly peace-loving tribe (one of whom is played by a young David Soul) on an idyllic planet. The tribe get everything from their god Vaal - who resides in a cave fashioned like the head of a snake, similar to what we see in this story.
Next time: the operatic start of another trilogy. A new companion tries to murder the Doctor, the Black Guardian adopts dead carrion as a fashion accessory, and we get two Brigadiers for the price of one...