The Mind Robber Episode 5

The one where Jamie and Zoe become fictional characters...

POP! That's the sound of my little brain trying to cope with the mind-twistingly meta idea that Jamie and Zoe, two fictional characters from the BBC Television series Doctor Who, have just been turned into fictional characters within the fictional universe of the programme. They're doubly fictional - fictional for BBC viewers, and fictional in-universe too! I love it; I love the devil-may-care courage this script has and the bracing cavalcade of ideas that spill out of it. Peter Ling really should have been employed again by Doctor Who; it's s shame he wasn't.

There may be a good reason for why he wasn't though - the production office was in turmoil at the time, as commissioned scripts were falling through hand over fist. This explains why The Dominators was reduced from six to five episodes (gawd, imagine another episode of The Dominators!), why The Mind Robber had a fifth one added (written uncredited by script editor Derrick Sherwin), why you suddenly had longer serials (an eight-parter and a ten-parter), and why newbie Robert Holmes was commissioned twice in five months!

The Mind Robber Episode 4

The one where the Doctor meets the Master of the Land of Fiction...

The cliffhanger is basically resolved in the same way as the previous one, by our heroes convincing themselves that the creature threatening them isn't real. There's a nice twist here in that the Doctor is almost tricked into accepting Medusa by using the sword to vanquish her, but he realises at the last moment that he cannot kill that which is not real (an idea which is quite disturbing in itself). It just goes to show how unimaginative the cliffhangers have been on the whole in Season 6 so far. The Mind Robber episode 1 aside, they've all been formulaic and repetitive (especially The Dominators). Let's hope better is to come...

Ooh, that sound the robots make when they approach tingles my spine! That metallic scraping noise that signals their arrival, it's fantastic! We haven't seen the mute white robots since episode 1, so it's great to have them back, this time blending in with the futuristic surroundings of the computer room, and later standing in contrast to the gloom of the Master's domain. I adore that robot design, and think they're one of the best robots Doctor Who's ever had (even though they were Out of the Unknown's first!).

The Mind Robber Episode 3

The one where the Doctor meets a Minotaur, Medusa and Lemuel Gulliver...

So unicorns don't exist in the Doctor Who universe, hey Doctor? They're legends, are they? Well, tell that to your eleventh self, who claimed he was a unicorn in the 2011 book Borrowed Time! Joking apart though, I find it very difficult - and rather depressing - to think there are no unicorns in the Doctor Who universe, no alien creatures that resemble them. I mean, if purple horses with yellow spots can exist (as stated in Frontier in Space), then surely unicorns can?

Anyway, I digress... Episode 3 of The Mind Robber is chock full of padding, sadly. After two episodes of weird and wonderful mind-bending imagery and crazy goings-on, the middle episode crumbles into an underwhelming, repetitive stop-gap. It even looks terribly dull, thanks to it being largely set in either a labyrinth of cave tunnels, or against black drapes.

The Mind Robber Episode 2

The one where Jamie changes his face...

Now let's get this straight from the start - this episode is totally bonkers! If episode 1 was like a feverish cheese dream, then episode 2 is like a feverish cheese dream while high on magic mushrooms after having read Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. It's gloriously crazy!

It's so full of moments which pull the rug from under you (the viewer and our heroes!) that you're never sure of anything. It definitely has the maddest opening three minutes of any Doctor Who episode to date, which sees Jamie shot at by a Redcoat and turned into a cardboard cut-out, and Zoe encountering the Official Creakiest Door Ever and falling down a whacking great hole.

The Mind Robber Episode 1

The one where the TARDIS leaves reality and turns white...

The first thing to strike me about this episode is that the TARDIS walls are simply blown-up photographs of the real walls! I realise this is not new or unique to The Mind Robber, but it's been some time since we last saw inside the TARDIS, and as this episode is set almost entirely inside the Ship, it seems much more grating. Back in 1968 of course, people were watching on tiny, scratchy little 625-line black and white TVs with about as much definition as a burnt dictionary, so it wouldn't have been as obvious to them. But in 2018, thanks to it being beautifully restored and issued on shiny DVD... well, those photo blow-ups are really bad!

The Doctor soon tumbles into a state of panic as he seems unable to dematerialise the TARDIS as the Dulcian volcano spews its hot lava towards them. The effect of the TARDIS in the lava is actually very good, even if it does look more like porridge than molten rock. Before we know it, the TARDIS's fluid links are playing up again and start leaking mercury vapour. The last time this happened, the Doctor disconnected the time vector generator (The Wheel in Space) and they had to evacuate the Ship as the inside dimension was separated from the outside shell. That seemed drastic at the time, but perhaps not quite as drastic as removing the TARDIS entirely from reality, as he does here!

The Dominators Episode 5

The one where the Doctor blows up the Dominators' ship...

Surprise, surprise! Rago steps in to stop Toba's bloodthirsty threats, just like almost every other cliffhanger/ resolution in this sorry tale. Did the production team really think the young viewers of 1968 were that stupid? It's the same ending every week! Why would they keep coming back for more of the same? What a lacklustre way to launch a new season!

The one positive thing about this story, and particularly the last couple of episodes, is how strongly written Jamie is. Too often he's by the Doctor's side just to ask questions and be the light relief, but The Dominators shows him to be resourceful and determined, teaming up with Cully to blow up Quarks and cause as much disruption for the Dominators as possible. He's a man of action again, and it's great to see the character shine here.

The Dominators Episode 4

The one where the bad guys have a right old ding-dong...

Right at the start of this episode there's a close-up of a Quark as it burbles something or other, and you can actually see the little boy operating it inside, peering out and looking from side to side. It's very hard to capture it in a screengrab, but just take a look, and you'll see the little lad!

The Dominators are arguing again. It's handbags at dawn as Rago calls into question whether bloodthirsty Toba has the necessary intelligence and detachment it takes to be a Dominator, which suggests to me that a Dominator is a role or position, rather than their race. The Dominators are masters of the ten galaxies, apparently (which ten, we don't know), and they've not achieved that by employing what Toba accuses Rago of: "unnecessary softness". These two chaps really are the most mismatched pair of warmongers I've ever seen, spending most of their time arguing with each other and never really getting anywhere. In their own way, they're just as bad as the ponderous Dulcians!

The Dominators Episode 3

The one where Jamie blows up a Quark...

Episode 3 begins by refusing to admit that it is episode 3, as the production team forgot to put an episode number caption up. Perhaps it reflects the general feeling of apathy and embarrassment about this story displayed by most of the people making it?

It's getting very predictable now that every time Toba tries to kill or destroy, Rago will pop up and stop him. Rago is very mindful of wasting energy on piffling things like killing Dulcians or blowing up buildings, so as an exploratory crew, these two are entirely mismatched. All Toba wants to do is demonstrate their might as Dominators; all Rago wants to do is run experiments and tests. The warmonger and the scientist!

The Dominators Episode 2

The one where we don't find out that the Doctor has two hearts...

I love the Dominators' spaceship interior! It's crazy and mind-bendingly Sixties, but look at the attention to detail by the ever reliable Barry Newbery, there's so much to see, so much depth to the controls and displays. The display screens we see the Dominators viewing at the very start of the episode are swirling, pulsing and spinning with migraine-inducing psychedelic images, while parts of the set are laced with little mini Quarks in bas relief. Despite everything that's cheap about The Dominators, Barry Newbery's set for the ship is supreme, and reflects his consummate professionalism and talent in the face of everybody's else's apathy.

The Doctor and Jamie are lured inside the ship (I'm puzzled as to how Toba can already be inside the ship when we just saw him outside with the Quarks) and subjected to a series of tests to see how intelligent, or otherwise, they are. This is all quite nice fun, allowing for the rapport between Patrick Troughton and Frazer Hines to shine. Jamie is placed under some sort of sunbed, secured by the Quarks' force units (and the Quark gets a front row view up Hines' kilt too!), and has his physiological make-up probed by Rago, which is where things get tantalising...

The Dominators Episode 1

The one where aliens land and take away all the radioactivity...

The episode opens with an attempt to be epic, with model spaceships that look like bin lids tumbling through space in formation, and then one separating from the group and coming in to land on a planet's surface (it's a sandpit, so it can't be Earth!). As Doctor Who model effects go, there's been much better, but what we see here isn't actually all that appalling. It's not exactly the opening to Star Wars though!

Two fearsome humanoid aliens step out of the ship, looking for all the world like Frankenstein's monsters with Richard III humpbacks! The Dominators look strange, but Sylvia James does a good job on the make-up, giving them a dark, morose, almost funereal look in their faces. They're called Dominators, and they look domineering. They don't look like they have much of a sense of humour! They're actually far from fast friends, and get quite bitchy with each other.