The Mind of Evil Episode Five

The one where UNIT storms HMP Stangmoor...

Dudley Simpson's score for The Mind of Evil gets on my nerves a bit. It manages to swing from quite pleasantly melodic passages, to outright cacophonous assault. There were moments in earlier episodes where the music sounded like a demented trimphone, it's often so shrill and "parpy". I remember particularly disliking his score for a couple of the Troughtons (The Underwater Menace), but while his work isn't quite as nails-down-a-blackboard as Tristram Cary's score for Doctor Who and the Silurians, Simpson's best work is definitely ahead of him, I feel. I realise it's quite experimental, but it's also pretty mental.

My personal star of this episode is Major Cosworth, played by Patrick Godfrey with a splash of wit which gives the Major and the Brigadier quite an amusing double act routine. It's lovely when Cosworth appears to get quite excited about Stangmoor's dungeons ("Rather like making a film, isn't it, sir?") and the Brigadier shoots him an astonished glare! Cosworth also congratulates his superior on his plan to attack the prison, which puts the Brig's back up a bit too. Lovely little repartee. Cosworth should have stayed on!

While much of this episode is treading water, there are some lovely character moments, such as that mentioned above, which lift it considerably. The scene where the Master visits the Doctor and Jo in their cell, but they make him wait while they finish their game of draughts, is lovely, and later, when the Doctor begins to regale Jo about the time he was in the Tower of London with Sir Walter Raleigh. It's gorgeous stuff, and really shows off the chemistry between both the characters and the actors. This little scene, which sadly fades out, makes you realise what a wonderful raconteur the Third Doctor can be. He must be full of stories like this (as Pertwee himself was) and it helps to soften this incarnation's otherwise quite spiky persona. I also love how Jo insists on sharing her water and breakfast biscuit with the Doctor. The girl really cares.

I also like the little exchange between the Brigadier and Benton, who discharges himself from hospital, despite suffering from concussion, so that he can join the UNIT raid on Stangmoor. Reading between the lines, he's obviously still feeling sore about the carpeting he got from the Brigadier about losing Chin Lee's trail in episode 2, and wants to make amends. Lovely character moments like this pepper the episode.

However, there is one characterful scene which I think goes a little too far, where I believe the chemistry between the actors takes control of that of the characters themselves. When the Master forces the Doctor into helping him bring the Keller machine under control, the Doctor dons his white lab coat and sets about constructing an inhibitor which should calm, if not tame, the machine. The exchange of dialogue between the Doctor and the Master just before they tackle the machine drips with familiarity and overt chumminess which is more indicative of the actors than the characters. I realise the Doctor and the Master are old friends, but it all seems far too genial and matey, as if they're working on a scientific exercise at the Academy. "Is there anything I can do to help?" proffers the Master, suddenly the helpful assistant rather than the psychotic aggressor.

I just don't like the "warmth" of that scene, considering so many people have died (this is a very violent story all round). A little earlier, the Doctor dismisses the idea of helping the Master so that more inmates don't die by saying that those who perished were merely "hard cases". It seems quite callous of him not to equate the lives of these men with, say, Jo just because they are convicted felons. You wouldn't get the Fifth or Thirteenth Doctors making such judgements.

The storming of HMP Stangmoor is staged very well by director Timothy Combe, making UNIT appear capable and formidable once again. A fair few soldiers die in the crossfire of the battle, but so too do the inmates. Years before the grit of series like The Sweeney and The Professionals, Doctor Who was staging an armed military assault on a prison under siege and showing people getting shot dead, often at point blank range. However, I feel uncomfortable with UNIT men shooting down prisoners at point blank range when they could just as easily be disarmed and tied up/ captured. Killing them outright cannot be right. There's a lot of death in The Mind of Evil, and most of it is at the hands of humans, not the Keller machine.

The final scene sees Mailer appear to shoot the Doctor at point blank range, and although viewers might assume it was another gun we saw in close up, and not Mailer's, it's a pretty violent and uncompromising thought to end on for younger viewers. At least it's a cliffhanger not involving the bloody Keller machine again though...

First broadcast: February 27th, 1971

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: All of the lovely character scenes lift this episode.
The Bad: The chumminess between the Doctor and the Master feels wrong to me.
Overall score for episode: ★★★★★★★☆☆☆

"Now listen to me" tally: 12
Neck-rub tally: 1

NEXT TIME: Episode Six...

My reviews of this story's other episodes: Episode One; Episode Two; Episode Three; Episode Four; Episode Six

Find out birth/death dates, career information, and facts and trivia about this story's cast and crew at the Doctor Who Cast & Crew site: http://doctorwhocastandcrew.blogspot.com/2014/04/the-mind-of-evil.html

The Mind of Evil is available on BBC DVD. Find it on Amazon - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Who-Mind-Evil-DVD/dp/B00BPCNNXS