The Mind of Evil Episode Three

The one where Jo overcomes a prison riot, but the Master just goes ahead and starts another one...

The Chinese dragon costume really isn't all that bad. Its saviour is director Timothy Combe, who quite rightly decides to shoot it as ambiguously as possible, using extreme close-ups, quick cuts, fades and blurring. You don't get to see the whole thing very clearly at all, just a second or so in long shot when the Brigadier fires his pistol. But the close up of its head before it merges back into Chin Lee shows what a lovely sculpt it was. At the time, the production team laughed at it, labelling it Puff the Magic Dragon, and if it hadn't have been shot as judiciously as Combe did, it would have been the laughing stock of the Pertwee era. As it stands, it remains pretty effective.

But the dragon's manifestation continues to smudge my understanding of exactly what the Keller machine is doing. I struggle to follow whether Chin Lee actually turns into a dragon, or just appears to do so in Alcott's imagination. The fact the Doctor, Brigadier and Fu Peng physically see the dragon too is explained away as a "collective hallucination", which means the machine's power is affecting them too, and isn't targeted solely on Alcott (by the way, full marks to Tommy Duggan for acting his socks off during the dragon's assault!).

Jo Grant, who up until now has had next to nothing to do other than save the Doctor's life (but get scolded for doing so) and visiting Barnham with some Dairy Box, manages to do one of the bravest things a Doctor Who companion has done to date by overcoming a prison riot and holding the culprits at gunpoint. This is a remarkable feat for a girl of Jo's stature, but we do know she is a trained UNIT operative, and we saw how strong she is in Terror of the Autons when she managed to floor Captain Yates. I love the fact Don Houghton allowed Jo to save the day here (and not, say, Dr Summers), because it makes sense that she'd try. It adds so much to her character. Sadly, her overpowering of the riot doesn't last very long at all...

The Master - every inch the fat cat businessman, in his astrakhan coat and leather gloves, sitting in the back of a black Rolls Royce (driven by a black chauffeur!), puffing on a fat cigar and reading the Financial Times - gets an awful lot done in these 25 minutes. Returning to HMP Stangmoor as Professor Emil Keller with a briefcase full of weapons and explosives (which is not checked at the gate!), he manages to stir up the second prison riot of the day by arming nasty Harry Mailer, who proceeds to shoot dead at least four prison staff in the space of 60 seconds. One of these is the prison governor (unusually known only by his first name, Victor), who appears to react to being shot several moments before Mailer actually fires his gun!

As the episode progresses we're reminded once more that UNIT has been tasked with the transportation of a nuclear-powered missile, the Thunderbolt, which has been referred to casually since the story began, but never actually happens. It still doesn't happen in episode 3, but at least we get to see the missile this time, albeit as a jarringly obvious CSO backdrop. We also learn that the Master plans to capture the missile from UNIT and use it to wipe out the peace conference, thus sparking World War Three. Why he wants to plunge the Earth into war isn't made clear, perhaps it's just for the fun of it.

Side note: I'm not getting into the messy timeline of the Master's machinations in Season 8, but the fact he set the Keller machine up in Stangmoor 12 months ago - before the events of Terror of the Autons - suggests he expected the Nestene invasion to fail. Unless he intended to use the Keller machine on the Nestene. Let's just not go there...

At the end of the episode the Master ties the Doctor to a chair with the Keller machine switched on, then proceeds to leave to attend to other matters (the acquisition of the Thunderbolt). Why does he leave the Doctor to his inevitable fate at the mercy of the Keller machine when he's already said he needs him to try and control it? He wants to see how long the Doctor can resist the machine's power, but doesn't hang around to witness it, or switch it off when it's about to kill him.

We're treated to some classic Pertwee comedy gurning as the machine assaults the Doctor's mind with images of the terrifying creatures he's faced in the past, such as the War Machines and the Zarbi! Who knew the Doctor was so afraid of these monsters from his past? There's also a brief glimpse of a Silurian, an Ice Warrior and a Cyberman, while we also hear the rasping tones of a Dalek, but I rather favour the original idea in Houghton's script to have the actual monsters manifest in the room. What we get are photos of the monsters that flash by far too quickly to have much of any impact, and it would have been so much better and more exciting to have the monsters there in the room, slowly advancing on him as the titles crashed in. OK, so they probably wouldn't have been able to put their hands on a War Machine or Zarbi costume, but Houghton's script originally suggested a Dalek, a Cyberman, a Silurian and a Primord, so it could've worked...

First broadcast: February 13th, 1971

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: Jo is a hero, if only for a short while.
The Bad: The cliffhanger, apart from not making sense (why would the Master leave the Doctor to die when he's just said he needs him?), could have been so  much better by just making the monster images more visible. As it is, it just looks like a day-glo zoetrope projection.
Overall score for episode: ★★★★★☆☆☆☆☆

"Now listen to me" tally: 12 - The Doctor tells the groggy Chin Lee to "listen to me" soon after the dragon disappears.
Neck-rub tally: 1

NEXT TIME: Episode Four...

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