Kinda Part One

The one where Tegan goes on a journey into her own psyche...

Warning: this is Kinda, so there's lots to say...!

After fainting at the end of the last episode, Nyssa has apparently passed out a second time, resulting in the Doctor taking the TARDIS to the peaceful, idyllic jungle planet of Deva Loka (known as S14 to some). It's lovely to find the regulars hanging out together, and actually getting along at last. Adric and Nyssa cheerily play chess, while Tegan cheekily tries to intervene. They come across as a family, with the Doctor, despite his youthful appearance, being the father figure.

The Doctor rigs up a gadget called a delta wave augmenter to try and ease Nyssa's headaches. To benefit, she has to sleep for 48 hours, which means the others have a couple of days to kick back and explore Deva Loka. Amusingly, Tegan still has one eye firmly on getting back to Heathrow, staying in her now probably very smelly air hostess uniform and moaning about having to stay while Nyssa's snoozes.

The Doctor, Tegan and Adric explore the jungle, which looks lovely, but never real. Kinda is entirely studio-bound, so the fact the story is set in an alien jungle is a little unfortunate. In the past Doctor Who has come up with some cracking jungles, such as in The Ark, Planet of Evil, Nightmare of Eden and The Creature from the Pit, but Malcolm Thornton struggles to build a realistic jungle in a studio far too brightly lit by Mike Jefferies. Making Deva Loka look idyllic and verdant is one thing, but due to a complete lack of canopy shade or tone, it never looks like anything other than a studio set, complete with fake grass and pot plants.

The trio find a magical windchime structure in a clearing, which appears to have some kind of hypnotic influence on Tegan, who plops down awkwardly on a log and falls asleep. It's great when the Doctor admonishes Adric for wandering off ("Don't wander off, not on a new planet"), cementing the dynamic of Adric being the adventurous youth and the Doctor his frustrated guardian. Matthew Waterhouse has been a revelation to me during this marathon, because he perfectly captures Adric's character and never gives less than 100%. He's great to watch when other people are talking too, he's always in character, always boyishly mischievous and wide-eyed. Waterhouse was never a bad actor, he just had a bad press.

The Doctor and Adric come across a strange machine, abandoned in the jungle. It's some kind of armoured suit controlled via the brainwaves of the occupant, although it's far from practical for a densely forested planet like Deva Loka. Of course, Adric decides to slam shut the machine's door, which brings it to life. The Doctor's frustrated reaction is priceless, and as the machine marches them through the jungle as its prisoners, the Doctor yet again tells off his young ward. "Adric, there is a difference between serious scientific investigation, and meddling," he says, to which Adric says "Yes." The Doctor: "Isn't there?"; "Yes!" The Doctor's annoyance is palpable!

The suit takes the Doctor and Adric to a dome in the jungle, home to three individuals who don't seem to like each other. Playing leader Sanders is British acting legend Richard Todd (quite a coup for Doctor Who), dressed in the uniform of a Victorian British Colonial officer. He's a brusque, no-nonsense kind of guy, quite different to his second-in-command, Hindle (Simon Rouse), who seems to be extremely highly strung. Finally, there's science officer Todd, played with yummy mummy sensuality by Nerys Hughes, who even gets to peer over her spectacles like proper scientists do (see also: Dr Toshika Sato in Torchwood).

These three are on an exploratory mission to find a suitably habitable planet for their homeworld to colonise, but there were originally six of them. They await the return of Roberts from the jungle, but I'm guessing he's the one who left the armoured suit abandoned there. Two others of their party have gone out exploring, also never to return. What's out there, in the depths of the jungle, plucking people away?

The scene where the Doctor and Adric are greeted at the dome is great stuff, both written and acted wonderfully. Peter Davison in particular is on form as his affable Doctor gets short shrift, despite him staying polite and friendly. He struggles to concentrate with a gun in his face, gets distracted by a discussion about the Kinda people, and jumps when he forgets Sanders' initial question. When he asks for some breakfast, extending the hand of friendship in the hope it will be returned, he's met with a blank stare. "Look, if we turn out to be hostile, then fair enough, but until we do why not give us the benefit of the doubt? It's common sense really, don't you think?" The eternal optimist, ever the charmer. What a breath of fresh air Davison is after years of Tom Baker not trying very hard.

Christopher Bailey's dialogue is well-crafted, but let's not overlook Peter Grimwade's astute direction, which captures actors' facial expressions and body language really well. I love watching the scene with the Doctor and Adric at the dining table, the Doctor turning this way and that to try and converse with everybody, while Adric just chomps away on his pink mush (and then eats the Doctor's unwanted mush, swapping spoons - Waterhouse is very watchable).

Every one of the three guest stars is excellent. Richard Todd was 62 at the time, but was as fit as a man 20 years younger judging by the exercise regime he's put through in just one take! Simon Rouse makes Hindle a seething mass of frustration and anger, a man on the precipice of sanity. We're not sure why he's such a fruit-loop, but the scene where he confronts the Doctor and Todd in the lab is staged so well, with Hindle waiting until the others have gone before he explodes with violent anger, trashing the lab and hurling furniture about. And then, marvellously, he straightens his hair and uniform as he regains his composure. It's such a fantastically well observed performance of a man struggling with his mental health.

Nerys Hughes gives a warm, maternal, confident turn as Todd, complete with brainy specs and clipboard, and reminds me how unusual it is to have a woman of her age (40 at the time) in a principal guest part in Doctor Who. There were virtually no female characters of any importance in Logopolis or Castrovalva (Bidmead doesn't really "do" women very well), and only one in Four to Doomsday. And while you had characters such as Mena, Lexa and Camilla in Season 18, you also got entire stories with barely any female guests, such as Full Circle and Warriors' Gate, plus the recent Bidmead tales. Doctor Who would improve its female contingent as the 1980s progressed, but it was certainly about time, and Nerys Hughes is the first truly great female character of the Davison era.

Davison and Hughes work well together too, the chemistry between them is obvious from the start. The two characters suit each other, they seem more like equals. Despite Hughes being a decade older than Davison, the age gap doesn't show at all, whereas it does between Davison and Sarah Sutton and Matthew Waterhouse (both a decade younger than he). The Doctor and Todd talk like adults, and the moment where the scientist offers the Time Lord an apple simply throbs with symbolism: is this Eve offering Adam the forbidden fruit, in this lush Garden of Eden? It's all there if you want to take it...

Symbolism runs deep in this story, although if you tried hard enough you could reinterpret anything using symbolism, even the adventures of Scooby-Doo. But Kinda feels heavy with double meanings, and writer Christopher Bailey has packed a lot of esoterica into what is essentially a teatime show for children. One of the plainest comparisons is that these explorers are actually the advance guard of a colonial invasion, and the fact they're dressed in British Colonial uniform means Bailey is likening them to Victorian imperialists. The British colonisation of "darkest Africa" in the 19th century is being used as a comparison here for what Sanders and his team are doing. They intend to colonise Deva Loka, this lush and seemingly innocent jungle planet, and Sanders in particular deems the natives as "a bunch of ignorant savages".

Meanwhile, Tegan's snoozing in the jungle and seems to be offered up by the Kinda as some kind of tribute or sacrifice, as they lay (forbidden?) fruit at her feet and a garland of lavender flowers round her neck (the colour of the flowers matches her air hostess outfit). Grimwade affects a fantastic zoom in on Janet Fielding's eye as we journey into Tegan's psyche, and unlike the jungle, it is lit beautifully by Jefferies. This is a stark, industrial void-space, where Tegan encounters two elderly people, Anatta and Anicca, who are playing a board game, exactly like Adric and Nyssa were outside the TARDIS (does the three-sided metal structure represent the time machine?). Does Anatta represent Nyssa in Tegan's psyche, and Anicca is Adric? In Buddhist philosophy, these names represent the three doctrines of the self: Anatta is the idea that humans do not possess a permanent soul, Anicca is the impermanence of all being, and Dukkha represents suffering.

Dukkha is the character played by Jeff Stewart, a vaguely malevolent young man who in some ways might symbolise the Doctor in Tegan's mind. Her travelling companions are all represented in Tegan's inner world, Adric and Nyssa representing the self, and the Doctor representing suffering, or torment. It's a fascinating insight into the inner workings of Tegan's mind, as subconscious as this might be. Tegan has been uprooted from her perfectly happy existence on Earth in 1980, where she had a new dream job to look forward to. She's been exposed to mind-twisting concepts and ideas, her beloved aunt has been murdered, and her every attempt to get back to her version of normal has been repeatedly scuppered (first by the arrival on Monarch's ship, then by Nyssa's headache!). Tegan is in turmoil emotionally, and may see the Doctor as more of a hindrance than anything else (Dukkha = suffering).

It's a lot, it really is, and all of this would have gone way over the heads of the eight million people watching. But repeated viewing affords this deeper dive into what Bailey is driving at, and while it's a fact that the writer was notoriously displeased with the finished story, there's still all of this meat for fans to tuck into.

Tegan is told by Dukkha that "you will agree to being me sooner or later - this side of madness or the other", suggesting there's something distinctly malevolent after her very soul. Something wants her to "be" suffering. Is it already inside her mind, or is it some malignancy in the jungle of Deva Loka, coming to get her? And just when things couldn't get weirder, a second Tegan turns up, another "self". Which Tegan is the real Tegan? Does this represent Tegan's inner turmoil, suggesting she may be unsure of who she is? Is she an air hostess working at Heathrow, or is she a time traveller journeying through the universe with three aliens?

One thing's sure: the presentation of Tegan's mind is done with stark beauty. Grimwade's direction, Jefferies' lighting, and the costuming and make-up of Anatta, Anicca and Dukkha by Barbara Kidd and Suzan Broad is stunningly effective. The production team working in perfect symbiosis to create a striking and memorable mindscape.

The cliffhanger is fab too. On the surface it's just another bad guy pointing a gun at the Doctor, but it's performed so well that it's something special. As soon as that door has lowered and Sanders is gone, Hindle turns to the Doctor, Adric and Todd with rising satisfaction. Now he is in charge, he somehow controls the Kinda dreamboats, and he has the power of life and death over all of them! The incredulous look on the Doctor's face as the titles come in says it all.

This is Doctor Who for adults. No monsters in sight, but a monstrousness lurks at the fringes of the story.

First broadcast: February 1st, 1982

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: The design of everything inside Tegan's mind is stunningly effective.
The Bad: That armoured machine (aka TSS, Total Survival Suit) is a clunky, impractical crate.
Overall score for episode: ★★★★★★★★★★

NEXT TIME: Part Two...

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

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