Kinda Part Four

The one where the Mara takes corporeal form...

It gave me an itch of recognition towards the end of part 3, but I didn't realise until the reprise that Peter Howell's score during the vision scene, reflecting the ticking and clicking of clocks and the passing of time, reminds me heavily of his work on The Five Doctors, in particular Borusa's theme. The ticky-clicky theme works better here, but I can't separate it from The Five Doctors in my head!

Panna isn't dead at all, at least not her spirit. Her aged and decrepit body might be lifeless, but all of Panna's great knowledge and experience has passed into young Karuna, in a form of reincarnation where the souls merge as one, rather than exist consecutively. Sarah Prince is fantastic in the way she portrays this, walking with more maturity and genuinely seeming like an older woman in a young girl's body. I'm not sure how old Prince was at this time, but she'd been acting for a good five or six years by Kinda, so also had the experience to pull it off. She's an overlooked gem among so many in this story.

Karuna-Panna explains that the Mara inhabit the dark places of the inside, and managed to cross over to the real world via the dreaming of an unshared mind at the Place of Great Dreaming. The Doctor seems to automatically assume this must have been Tegan, but it's a big leap because he has no idea what Tegan's been up to since he left her in part 1. He happens to be right, but that's because he's written by the man who's writing the story!

Back at the dome, things are getting playful. Hindle and Sanders are completely infantilised now, building a new capital city for S14 out of cardboard boxes and cut-out men. Richard Todd continues to take his part completely seriously, despite its limits, which is impressive for a man who had been nominated for an Oscar and won a Golden Globe during the height of his career 30 years prior. Todd's career waned in the 1960s, but he soldiered on in film, TV and theatre into the 1990s, and it was good of him to accept a job on that rickety low-budget series Doctor Who after having starred in blockbusters such as D-Day: The Sixth of June and The Dam Busters. Todd's great in Kinda, despite him having a relatively minor part.

I mean, they're all great, aren't they? You can't fault a single one of them, particularly Simon Rouse, who continues to hold the screen in every scene he's in. His performance as the unhinged Hindle must count as one of the greatest in Doctor Who's entire history, and it seems to me he delivered it so organically. I love the scene where the Doctor and Todd are trying to diffuse both the tense situation in the dome, and the bomb Hindle's set up, by distracting him with questions about his cardboard city. Hindle is like a little boy, gleefully showing off his city, but also sharp enough to know when he's being taken for a fool. He is a very dangerous personality, and Rouse gets this spot on. The part could so easily have been ruined by a lesser actor, so it's a good job director Peter Grimwade had a good eye for who he wanted to cast.

Nerys Hughes could have been one of those castings encouraged by producer John Nathan-Turner, who was always on the lookout for a stunt casting to boost the show's profile. Whether it was JNT or Grimwade who came up with Hughes, it was a wise choice, because she brings such warmth and naturalness to the part. She is stunning when Todd tries to distract Hindle away from his Big Red Button, using her knowledge of psychology to tempt Hindle with her "secret", the Box of Jhana. "Are you frightened of me?" asks Hindle. "Terrified," gulps Todd. It is the wisdom of the woman in the room who saves the day, rather than the Doctor's (understandable) physical grappling with Hindle.

There's one thing that I don't quite grasp (just the one, I hear you ask). Hindle explains that he controlled the Kinda prisoners using mirrors, having them believe he had captured their souls in the mirror's reflection. I get that, but what I don't get is how that explains his telepathic control of the two Kinda. They believe Hindle captured their souls, but how does that enable Hindle to have the mental capacity to control them? Or are the Kinda allowing him to control them somehow?

Anyway, this stuff about reflections is really important, because the Doctor realises that's the way he can defeat the Mara. What's the one thing evil cannot face, he asks. Itself! OK, if you say so Doctor. He rigs up a giant outdoor hall of mirrors and traps the possessed Aris in the centre, drawing out the Mara, which gains corporeal form as a giant pink snake. Yes, I watched the original broadcast version, not the jazzed-up DVD version with updated effects.

The snake is a huge disappointment, you can't avoid that ("It's fantastic!" gasps Adric. No it's not, it's a tumble dryer tube painted pink). But in and of itself, it's still a pretty impressive prop. Its inanimate nature is largely overcome by Grimwade showing it in fleeting wide shots and snappy close-ups, and blurring the screen sometimes. It's the same trick Timothy Combe used with Puff the Magic Dragon in The Mind of Evil (still, a gorgeous sculpt nevertheless) and David Maloney with the giant rat in The Talons of Weng-Chiang (thank goodness the sewers of Victorian London were low-lit!). It's unfortunate that Grimwade's setting is a brightly lit BBC studio jungle (couldn't they swing it so the Mara turned the world dark during its manifestation?), but he has a degree of success with a very limiting prop. If you're ophidiophobic, then you're still not going to like it!

I don't fully buy the Mara's demise, because if it's the reflections that are supposed to banish it, then it's towering way above the mirrors and can't actually see them. Why doesn't it just slither over the top of the mirrors? But we're supposed to go along with the conceit, which I'm happy to do, and the serpentine horror is finally vanquished. Well, from Deva Loka at least, but not from the dark places of the inside, or perhaps even Tegan's mind. It's great that we see Tegan horrified by the thought of this creature being inside her, and asking whether it's fully gone (but getting no answer).

Tegan will have been severely scarred by an experience such as this. It's a manifestation of pure evil which came out of her own psyche, and threatened total destruction, so of course she's going to be rattled by it. We know there's more of this to come in Season 20, but for now, it ought to give Tegan some nice character development as she comes to terms with what's happened on Deva Loka. We shall see.

More thoughts:

• After spending the whole of part 3 flat on her back and unconscious, Tegan has a lot of catching up to do! It's sobering when she's awoken by the Doctor that she has virtually no knowledge of anything that's happened in Kinda. She doesn't know anything about the Kinda or the dome, she doesn't know who Todd or Karuna are, and must be oblivious to what the Mara is too. There's precious little explanation for her from the Doctor, but by now she's learnt to just "go with it"!
• I love the bit where Tegan seems very protective of her dreams ("dreams are private!"), as if she's embarrassed by them, and feels she has something to hide!
• When Tegan sees Adric failing to handle the TSS, she says exactly what I've been thinking all along: "I don't think much of that as a fighting machine!" Trust Tegan to say it like it is!
• Despite Adric and Tegan being reunited with both each other and the Doctor, it's still Todd who acts as the Time Lord's principal companion in the dome, as if he trusts her more. Granted, she's been through more with him and so knows more about what's going on, but it's surprising that Adric and Tegan are both left to bicker and wait in the dome corridor. Surely it would have been far safer to return to the TARDIS rather than linger in a dome that may be about to explode?
• "You can't mend people!" screams Hindle when the Doctor steps on his cardboard man. The look of devastation on Peter Davison's face is priceless!
• The last scene between the restored Hindle and Sanders is lovely, played so nicely by Rouse and Todd. The two explorers are reunited as comrades, in an almost father/ son combo. The fact Sanders has been so altered by his experience on Deva Loka that he wants to stay behind is a touching coda for the character. I wonder whether he does?

And so the TARDIS crew must say goodbye. That last scene between the Doctor and Todd is beautiful and sad. You can see how regretful the Doctor is that he has to leave Todd behind. They are two characters who worked so well together, had such a good rapport and obviously have a fondness for one another too. Just look at the Doctor's crestfallen face when Todd offers her hand to say goodbye. He seems gutted that a) she's not asking to come with him, and b) that goodbye is a handshake, and not a peck on the cheek. It's played so well by Davison, and also by Hughes, because she plays Todd as pretty much oblivious to what the Doctor might be thinking. She is clear in her mind about what she's going to do next, and that does not involve flying off in a strange blue box with four space hobos. As the Doctor turns to go I'm screaming in my head: "GO WITH HIM, TODD!"

And then Nyssa pops up. Her headache's gone, bless her, and she's ready to react blandly to more amazing adventures. I have to say, I haven't missed Nyssa. If she had have been in Kinda, hers would have probably been the Todd role, but that would have deprived us of one of the greatest female guest characters of the Davison era (if not the best), so I'm glad Nyssa had a migraine. Perhaps this will become a recurring malady...?

Kinda is wonderful. It's clever, it's mature and it's demanding. If Christopher Bailey's submitted script had actually made it to screen, I'm not sure it would have been as enjoyable because it wouldn't have felt like Doctor Who, and would certainly be more impenetrable. The dilution of the production process probably helps Kinda be as accessible to viewers as possible, and while it's not perfect, it's certainly one of the most intelligent Doctor Who scripts of the classic era. A brave experiment, and successful enough to warrant a sequel...

First broadcast: February 9th, 1982

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: The final scene between the Doctor and Todd, and Davison's crestfallen reaction to the proffered handshake.
The Bad: The Mara was so big that it was not facing its own reflection at all, and so could have easily escaped.
Overall score for episode: ★★★★★★★★☆☆ (story average: 8.3 out of 10)

NEXT TIME: The Visitation...

My reviews of this story's other episodes: Part One; Part Two; Part Three

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.

Kinda is available on BBC DVD as part of the Mara Tales box set. Find it on Amazon - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Who-Tales-Kinda-Snakedance/dp/B004FV4R4K