Day 111 — April 21st 2021
The Mind Robber Episodes Four and Five
The Mind Robber — Episode Four
During the Innes Lloyd / Gerry Davis era I argued that the production team absolutely thought that the lead character’s name was ‘Doctor Who’. It crops up in too many instances, from The War Machines to The Highlanders and The Underwater Menace to believe anything otherwise. I think it’s just as obvious that the current production team of Peter Bryant and Derrick Sherwin believe absolutely that the character’s name is not ‘Doctor Who’.
It’s most evident in the changes made to the script of this episode — where Jamie was originally to read theticker tape as ‘Doctor Who and Zoe were unable to find their companion’, and when our heroes came face to face with the Master he was to greet them with the line ‘Doctor Who! This is a great pleasure!’. Both of these instances were changed before the recording took place, and I think it’s a shame. I’d love to hear a villain, just once, greet our hero as ‘Doctor Who’ properly and unambiguously.
Another loss between the original script and the finished episode is Zoe mentioning where she learnt to fight. In the original script she refers to ‘lesson 17 from the Mind Training School’, but in the finished programme she simply mentions lessons 17 and 32. It’s a little thing, but once you notice it’s missing I think you really notice it’s missing.
When I was doing the photoshop covers for the Doctor Who comics at Titan — my main job between 2016 and 2019, when I put together over 150 of them! — I wrote up a pitch to do a one page comic strip of the Karkus at the back of some issues. It wasn’t just a whim, the comics always carried single page ‘humour’ strips alongside the ongoing narratives. I’m amazed that almost 55 years after The Mind Robber first went out we’ve never had any attempt at a Karkus comic. I mean maybe there’s just not a lot of interest, but I thought it would be fun.
Needless to say, smarter heads than mine decided against the idea.
On the whole, I’m afraid I still can’t claim to have enjoyed this episode. The Mind Robber is increasingly feeling like a real slog and a bit of a write-off. It’s a 2/10 for this one.
The Mind Robber — Episode Five
I feel like the plan to take over Earth comes a little out of nowhere in this episode. Until now the story hasn’t really been about anything, and the closest we come is in ‘the Master’ wanting Doctor Who to take over the control of the Land of Fiction so that he might retire from that position. All of a sudden today, there’s a greater purpose;
The Master: ‘And now perhaps we can get down to business. As you refused to take over my post at the controls, we have been forced to incorporate you into the computer itself.’
Doctor Who: ‘To what purpose?’
The Master: ‘To bring the whole planet Earth under our control.’
Doctor Who: ‘And it’s people?’
The Master: ‘We have no wish to destroy them. Merely adjust their minds to suit our purpose.’
Doctor Who: ‘Sausages. Man will just become like a string of sausages, all the same.’
The Master: ‘Man will simply vanish from the Earth and reappear here.’
Doctor Who: ‘Leaving the Earth undamaged and uninhabited for you to take over.’
The Master: ‘Precisely.’
I really don’t know where this has turned up from, and I’m not entirely sure who it is that wants to take over the Earth, or why. Is it the computer brain that seems to be controlling the master here? Does it want to fill the Earth with fictional characters? And if so then… why? Surely it’s no different than filling the Land of Fiction with them?
There’s a chance that it was all explained in the episode and I simply wasn’t paying attention, but it all went entirely over my head I’m afraid.
It doesn’t help that the final fight between all the fictional characters is so bloody dull, either. There’s absolutely zero energy to it, and everything just trots along at a leisurely pace. I found myself entirely bored throughout. I wonder if that’s partly because I don’t really care about any of the fictional characters involved, either? Gulliver… Cyrano de Bergerac… I really don’t care.
As a side note, I know Cyrano de Bergerac is now best known as a fictional character rather than a real person, but when the likes of Blackbeard show up, too it raises an interesting question about the line between reality and fiction.
I think if you were to do this story today, you’d try to fill it with more visual fictional creations. I can easily imagine characters from some other BBC programmes showing up, and that could be fun. When Doctor Who wishes Lancelot into existence at the end of this one I hoped for the briefest of moments that he might open his helmet to reveal William Russell inside the armour, but no such luck.
It’s another 2/10 for this one, and I’m thankful to be done with The Mind Robber. It seems clear to me now that the conversation I had with my friend a few years ago must have consisted of me saying that I liked this story and him pointing out that I hadn’t on my last marathon. I’m still avoiding checking my scores from last time around — I’m keen to wait and compare notes at the end of the year when I’ve watched them all again — but I’m betting I wasn’t a fan.
The fictional nature of the events in this story raise an interesting debate about whether the story really ‘happened’ for Doctor Who and his friends or not, and I think I’m right in saying that the next story offers the idea that this may have all happened entirely inside Doctor Who’s own mind. I think I like that idea, as it feels so out of keeping with almost everything else the series has ever given us.
