Who Review: The Mind Robber

To escape the rising lava on Dulkis (see “The Dominators”), the Doctor has to make an emergency departure, taking the TARDIS outside of time and space. When the TARDIS lands, the Doctor, Jamie, and Zoe find themselves in a void, surrounded by a white nothingness. Or are they in a void? Jamie hears bagpipes, and sees pictures of Scotland on the TARDIS scanner. Then Zoe sees The City, her home. Despite the Doctor’s warnings to stay inside the TARDIS, Jamie opens the doors and runs out to find his homeland. Zoe, concerned for Jamie’s safety, follows after him. What they find isn’t home, but white robots, and a world where, it seems, anything can happen. Can the Doctor rescue his companions and find a way back to reality…?

SPOILER ALERT!! My comments may (and likely will) contain spoilers for those that haven’t seen this serial. If you want to stay spoiler-free, please watch the story before you continue reading!

“The Mind Robber” is one of the more interesting Classic Who stories. It’s certainly an unusual premise for the show, and perhaps in-keeping with the trippy atmosphere of the late 1960s. Written by Who newcomer Peter Ling, it was originally a four-part story, but Script Editor Derrick Sherwin expanded it out to five episodes (after cutting the previous story, “The Dominators” down from six to five episodes), by writing episode one. This enabled him to not only set up the premise for the story, but also link this story with the previous one. However, the production team still only had a four-episode budget. Sherwin was able to eliminate costs on the first episode by using an empty set (which fit with the story), and recycling the robot costumes from another show. Extending the story also resulted in reduced episode lengths. At only 18 minutes long, episode five is, to date, the shortest Doctor Who episode ever.

The world our heroes end up in is one of fantasy and fiction, where they encounter a minotaur, a unicorn, Gulliver, and other characters from novels and comic strips. But they are not there simply to entertain: they serve “the Master,” who, it turns out, is a writer from Earth, kidnapped and forced to write stories to keep this world going. He wants the Doctor to take over from him, and hence his efforts to capture him and his companions. The Doctor has other plans, and manages to thwart the Master’s overlords, and return everyone back to reality.

This premise gives the writers and production staff a large imaginative palate to work with. And work with it they do! Some find the characters and situations a bit abstract, nonsensical, and even silly, but I think there’s a sinisterness to them. The oddness makes things that much more unsettling, which lends to the overall atmosphere of the story. The part where Jamie gets shot, resulting in him turning into a cardboard cutout with no face, is a little perturbing. The Doctor then has to reassemble Jamie’s face from a series of possible cut-out eyes, noses, and mouths, which he inevitably gets wrong, giving us a different Jamie for an episode. (This sequence was actually added due to actor Frazer Hines contracting chicken pox and having to be substituted for an episode. It works remarkably well with the story.) And, of course, there’s the unforgettable episode 1 cliffhanger where the TARDIS explodes in space, leaving Jamie and Zoe clinging to the console, Zoe’s screams fading into the credits. Spine-tingling stuff!

This is a bit of a weird Who, but worth watching. The “Master” here is not supposed to be the evil Time Lord we’ll encounter later, but there’s food for fan fiction in that possibility! Again, Jamie and Zoe show themselves to be capable companions, using common sense, and even fighting skills (e.g., Zoe’s hand-to-hand combat with “Karkus”). And, of course, the Second Doctor is simply wonderful. As always. 🙂

The DVD comes with extras, including a “making of” feature, and a fascinating retrospective on Frazer Hines’s (Jamie) time as a Who companion. The story’s audio and video have been lovingly restored to better-than-ever quality, which alone makes the cost of the DVD worthwhile.