Story #56 - The Mind of Evil (1971)

Harry -
With the colourized DVD of this story not yet released, here we are, watching scratchy black and white Doctor Who episodes online. I thought these days were behind us.


Sarah -
On the bright side, at least it's not a recon with blurry images and a crap soundtrack.


Harry -
True, "The Mind of Evil" presents an interesting story with a Pertwee era soundtrack - my favourite! There are many pieces to this story so it felt quite epic. A slew of scenes shot on location added to that.


Sarah -
It is an interesting story – but one that would have been more effective as a four-parter.


Harry -
We begin with a kind of mad laboratory scene, with the Doctor and Jo checking out a demonstration of the Keller Machine at the nicely realized Stangmoor prison. The machine itself was a bit daft - something that can remove evil impulses from the human brain, like so much lint in a dryer. Really? I was as skeptical as the Doctor.


Sarah -
The extraction scene was ludicrous. The Doctor’s snarky comments were the only thing that made watching it bearable.

My biggest problem with this story, though, is the Master’s cockamamie plan to take over/destroy/or whatever Earth. He’s created this machine and used it 113 times, just so he can steal an illegal missile that is conveniently being transported while the first-ever World Peace Conference is being held in London. You’ve got to credit the Master for planning ahead.


Harry -
There does seem to be a large time gap between the conclusion of "Terror of the Autons" and now, in order for the Master to have assembled the machine, assumed the identity of Doctor Keller, tested the machine, and had it approved for use and delivered to Stangmoor. What have the Doctor and friends been up to all this time?


Sarah -
It was 1971. We can probably guess what they were up to…


Harry -
There's probably a fan fiction for that.

Well, we know that UNIT is knee deep in overseeing the security arrangements for the World Peace Conference. So nice to see the Brigadier got himself a proper office.


Sarah -
Playing security guard doesn’t quite seem within UNIT’s brief, and they don’t really seem to be doing a very good job of it, do they?

Wow, I’m just a nattering nabob of negativism today, aren’t I? (Just trying to create some early 70s atmosphere for you, there.)


Harry -
It was not nice to see how the Doctor treated the Brigadier when they went to see the Chinese delegate in episode two. While the Doctor charmed Fu Peng by addressing him in his native language, the Brig was ignored, talked over, and made to look like a fool. Did not like.


Sarah -
I was half expecting the Doctor to say he picked up Chinese while traveling with Marco Polo!


Harry -
He is a name dropper...


Sarah -
The tension between the Doctor and the Brig continues. And the Doctor’s grumpy mood continues, as well.


Harry -
By the end of part two, the story has broken out into several interesting strands. The Keller Machine proves lethally dangerous, killing at least a couple of people and almost the Doctor. The Master and his accomplice are wreaking havoc at the Peace Conference, and a jailbreak-hostage drama erupts at the prison. Oh, and there's a nuclear warhead in play, just to make it interesting. Wow!


Sarah -
We never really find out the identity of the creature inside the Keller Machine, do we?


Harry -
No, it was just a generic blobby thing without a name. But so evil!  Evil enough to attack the Doctor in three out of the first four cliffhangers.


Sarah -
It’s not much of cliffhanger if it keeps happening over and over, is it? Still, they gave Pertwee a chance to pull some panto faces… over and over and over again. (Uh oh, there I go again.)


Harry -
As for the Master's relationship with the Doctor, here it is on multifaceted display. He can be cordial with the Doctor in one scene, he can be raving about killing him in the next, and he can be pleading for his help in the next... and the Keller Machine reveals a giant mocking Doctor as the Master's greatest fear. As many an armchair psychiatrist has noted over the years, the Master has some serious Doctor issues.


Sarah -
I’ve read that the Master was a late addition to the story, which explains its disjointed feeling. Still, without Delgado, The Mind of Evil would be missing its greatest strength – the many scenes between the Doctor and Master. There are times, frankly, when the Master seems the preferable of the two. He’s at least trying to be charming, while the Doctor’s eternal bad mood marches on.


Harry -
I mentioned the location shooting earlier and it really is great. The missile hijacking and Stangmoor shootout are lively stuff, much more polished than the hijack scene from "The Ambassadors of Death" just one year previously.


Sarah -
During the shootout, I found myself wondering what Sydney Newman thought of the direction of the educational children’s show he had envisioned nearly ten years prior! We have yet another massive body count in this story.

Turns out the helicopter scenes, among others, put the story over budget, leading to director Timothy Combe never working on Doctor Who again. You don’t mess with Barry Letts’ budget!


Harry -
Combe also spent some cash on another new UNIT face, and I'm glad we got to meet the oh-so-earnest Major Cosworth. Perhaps the campiest UNIT member ever! Not sure if we'll see him in future stories, but he made an impression.

Maybe I'm just hearing things, but the Brigadier's cockney deliveryman was... odd. And did you find Jo's accent a bit posh?


Sarah -
Odd and very, very funny. As for Jo, she got her job through nepotism, so there’s likely a posh girl on the inside of all that grooviness.

Speaking of odd, the dragon that attacks the American senator has to be the most pathetic deepest fear one can imagine!


Harry -
It wasn't even a real dragon but a statue (or a poor prop anyway). Weird phobia, that.

You were right that this story would have been better as a four-parter. The last episode ends with a bang when the hangar is blown up, but by then we've seen maybe one too many insincere exchanges between the Doctor and the Master, and the Keller Machine's peek-a-boo routine got tedious. Then Barnham, who has been an innocent bystander through the entire story, meets a terrible end. Kind of a sad ending.


Sarah -
Barnham’s death was the final nail in the coffin for me. This story left me almost as grumpy as the Doctor in his Earthly exile.


Harry -
Lots left unresolved too. We don't know how the Peace Conference turns out. The Master has slipped away after taunting the Doctor. And yeah, the Keller Machine alien got blown up and that was that. The more I dwell on this, the less satisfying it is. Ah, let's move on. A four-parter is next (hooray!)


Sarah -
Before we go, I have something positive to say! Jo was quite smashing in this story – resourceful, loyal, and not afraid to play her part in a fight scene. Well done!


Harry -
Best line:
Benton - "I'd like to come on the assault, sir."
Brigadier - "Benton, you're supposed to be suffering from severe concussion."
Benton - "I know sir, but it's only a scratch, honest. And you said yourself I've got a thick skull."

Favourite moment: the Doctor and the Master act like the best of frenemies in the prison governor's office.

Lasting image: the Doctor pulling faces when the Keller Machine attacks him.

7/10


Sarah -
Best Line: "He’s got his TARDIS back. He’s free to come and go when he pleases and I’m stuck here on Earth -- with you, Brigadier!"

Favorite Moment: The Doctor’s and Master’s verbal sparring.

Lasting Image: The smile on the Brig’s face when the Doctor delivers his final line. (See above.)

6/10

Our marathon continues with Story #57 - The Claws of Axos...

Story #55 - Terror of the Autons (1971)

Sarah -
If you don't mind, Harry, I'd like to take a moment to pay tribute to Dr. Elizabeth Shaw, who has been dispatched with not an ounce of ceremony. Honestly, Dodo had a better send off than poor Liz.


Harry -
Ugh, what a horrible send off, or rather lack of. Writing Liz out out of the show through a couple of lines of dialogue completed the end of her unfortunate character arc. She began season seven as a Cambridge-schooled woman of science with a healthy dose of skepticism and independent thinking. Four stories later, she'd been rendered into an errand girl, running messages between the Doctor and the Brigadier as her skirts got shorter and shorter. I'm sure Caroline Johns was glad to see the back of that job.


Sarah -
I really started worrying about her skirts!

As we know, the producers decided Liz was far too intelligent and, in the words of the Brig: "What you need, Doctor, as Miss Shaw herself so often remarked, is someone to pass you your test tubes and to tell you how brilliant you are. Miss Grant will fulfill that function admirably."

That quote pretty much sets up the premise of Doctor Who for most of the rest of its run, doesn't it?


Harry -
Enter Katy Manning, wide-eyed and clutching a message from the Brig to the Doctor. I've never been wild about Jo. I think of her as one of the few companion characters without any sort of character arc. She was announced as the Doctor's new assistant, she assisted him, then she left. Hopefully this rewatch of the Jo Grant era will provide us some new insights, or a better appreciation for her character.


Sarah -
This is really the beginning of the Doctor as the all-knowing Time Lord with a human companion along to ask the right questions. It's not that past companions didn't fulfill this role, but their relationships with the Doctor were different.

More than once, the First Doctor, had little grasp on what was going on and his companions were left to figure things out for themselves. The Second Doctor was always quite chummy with his companions -- he and Jamie were just a couple of blokes out on a lark.

As season 8 begins, the Third Doctor is clearly in charge and Jo is there to assist him.


Harry -
Unfortunately Jon Pertwee opens season eight in the same crabby mood where he left off. And the way he talks down to the people around him (which seems to be too often!) makes him slightly less likeable than I'd like the Doctor to be.


Sarah -
Watching the stories in order is really changing my perceptions. More than once I found myself thinking the Doctor was acting like a complete jerk. He managed to soften a bit towards Jo, but I felt so badly for her when she met him the first time. Rude Time Lord!


Harry -
Strangely, it came as a perverse sort of relief when a new adversary appeared to take on the Doctor, maybe put him in his place even!


Sarah -
At last, someone to out Time Lord the Time Lord! I couldn't stop myself from giggling with glee when the Master first appeared. How I've been anticipating this moment!


Harry -
How can you not love Roger Delgado as the Master? Suavely imperious, quietly menacing, utterly watchable. As he starts executing his evil scheme - and executing people - the show corrects itself. The Earth is under siege again, and the Doctor resumes the hero role.


Sarah -
Viewers can only be grateful to the Master for forcing the Doctor to get over himself and focus on the problem at hand.


Harry -
That scene where a bowler-hatted Time Lord appeared and warned the Doctor was brief, but offered a fascinating concept. Imagine if Barry Letts and Terrance Dicks made this a regular feature in the show - having an oddly costumed Time Lord pop up at the start of each story to warn the Doctor of imminent danger.

Hmm... maybe not.


Sarah -
Another reason to be grateful.


Harry -
But look who did pop up again: Michael Wisher, as wishy washy as ever!


Sarah -
The hardest-working man in the Whoniverse! (Check out this smashing graphic!)

Harry -
Hard to believe such a gentle soul could harbour the ultimate megalomaniac. A performance to look forward to!


Sarah -
Speaking of hard-working -- the Autons are back, yet somehow they're not quite as threatening this time. Is it the comical heads? The daffodils?


Harry -
The sudden ability to speak? The "haven't we seen this before" invasion plan?


Sarah -
The more I think about it, the less this invasion plan seems to make sense.


Harry -
Was it much of a plan at all? This is where we encounter some more of what began in the Troughton era: taking monsters that got a great reception the first time around and bringing them back without really thinking up something new for them to do. Here, it's the return of the Autons and the Nestene Consciousness, taking a second crack at trying to conquer the Earth. They have a nefarious accomplice in the Master, but it all gets muddled. How did the Master fall in with this lot? What will he get out of this? And was his own scheme really so flimsy that the Doctor could point out a glaring flaw in it so easily? Weird.


Sarah -
Not quite the cunning plan one would hope, is it?


Harry -
I rather liked the part of the story where the Master left traps for the Doctor to fall into repeatedly. Hah! Who's all arrogant now?


Sarah -
Hoisted by his own petard! (I think I've been waiting two years to find a place to say that.)


Harry -
Nice!

Oh, getting back to the daffodils. Bit daft, that. Although I did like the Autons with the boaters, yellow blazers and giant carnival heads.


Sarah -
The carnival heads were creepy. I'm glad I didn't see this one as a child -- they would have given me nightmares.


Harry -
Apart from Delgado's searing performance, they might be the other highlight of this story for me. Which isn't saying much, sadly.


Sarah -
There were some rather good lines, but they didn't add up to much.

Before we sign off, Harry, a quick shout-out for Captain Mike Yates -- who joins Jo and the Master by making his first appearance in this story. Interesting to learn from the featurette on the DVD that Ian Marter almost got the job. Good thing his schedule didn't allow it or we might be Sarah and some-other-bloke right now.


Harry -
Things have a way of working out for the best. Each story brings us closer to the Elisabeth Sladen / Ian Marter era!


Sarah -
Don't get ahead of yourself, Old Boy!


Harry -
Last season, the UNIT team was still taking shape. Now, we have the Brigadier, Captain Yates, Sergeant Benton, the occasionally arrogant but still dashing Scientific Advisor and his enthusiastic new Assistant all together. The UNIT family is ready to take on all comers. Bring it on!

To me, the real importance of "Terror of the Autons" is that it sets the template that Doctor Who will follow all through this season and into the next two. As a stand-alone story, it left me wanting. But I can't wait to see what that old rascal the Master will get up to next, and I'm eager to see more of the Jo Grant era as we move on to the next story. Shall we?


Sarah -
I can only agree. There are isolated moments of brilliance, but they don't add up to much in the end. Onward to "The Mind of Evil"!


Harry -
Best Line:
Jo - "Doctor, stop being childish."
Doctor - "What's wrong with being childish? I like being childish."

Favourite Moment: Captain Yates slams an Auton with his car, the Auton rolls down a long hill, lands at the bottom... and gets right back up.

Lasting Image: the yellow blazered Autons with the giant carnival masks.

6/10


Sarah -
Best Line: "I have so few worthy opponents. When they're gone I always miss them."

Favorite Moment: The Master's first appearance.

Lasting Image: The killer plastic chair!

6/10

Our marathon continues with Story #56 - The Mind of Evil...

Story #54 - Inferno (1970)

Harry -
Well! I didn't think our hero Sir Keith Gold could ever be faced with as challenging a situation as in the previous story, "The Admin Assistants of Death" - but here we are!

As director of the project to drill for Stahlman's Gas, Sir Keith was tested to the limits of his professional skill set.

Professor Stahlman, while no doubt a brilliant scientist, really shouldn't have been part of the drill site staff. At times, Stahlman's communications with staff were... brusque. Also curt. I suspect his behaviour has resulted in one or more grievances being filed. I was hoping that Sir Keith would ask him to attend sensitivity training, but, as always, our hero kept his cool. There were larger issues on his to-do list that he had to prioritize.

The first order of business should have been calling a meeting to review the design approvals for that site. I mean seriously, that deep core drill was literally on top of the employees. It wasn't necessary for UNIT to be there, it should have been Health and Safety! It was inevitable that one of the technicians would come into contact with the green goo that seeps out of the Earth from time to time, and he contracted an infection. Oh dear!


Sarah -
Harry. Harry! HARRY!!!!!!!! Snap out of it, Old Boy, this isn't a parallel universe and Sir Keith is not our protagonist. Get a grip, Chap!


Harry -
What? Why Sarah, what happened to your brunette wig? Didn't you just see that spinning sparkly thing? Gosh...


Sarah -
Brunette wig? Perhaps you’d better lie down, dear.


Harry -
That was unsettling. D'you know, what do you think we'd be like in a parallel universe? Would we be blogging about Buffy the Vampire Slayer?


Sarah -
Hmm, I certainly could rise to that challenge, but perhaps we should stick with Doctor Who for now. The Hellmouth is no place for two bloggers with such sensitive dispositions.


Harry -
As for this Doctor Who story, "Inferno," wow! Season seven goes out on top form. That was seven episodes of high tension. The atmosphere at the drilling site was brutal. Everyone was on edge, Stahlman was a prick, Sir Keith was a bit of a ninny, and the Doctor seemed to be pissed off the entire time. And it didn't let up. There were no humourous moments or characters. The story didn't pause once for a moment of comic relief; it kept ratcheting up the pressure on the characters and us the viewers.


Sarah -
You know what I could use after this season? A frolic on the beach with the Doctor, Jamie, and Zoe…or, at the very least, a hug. While brilliant, the intensity of this season has left me feeling a bit drained.


Harry -
The shift from season six to seven has been nothing short of mindblowing. The fun frolics of the Troughton era seem so far away. I miss those days!


Sarah -
Don’t get me wrong, I love this story. It’s non-stop from beginning to end. While I’m not a big fan of the seven-parters, Inferno never flags. There isn’t much filler – it’s just go, go go!


Harry -
Full credit goes to the cast for delivering master performances. Jon Pertwee played the entire story in a state of set-gnawing pissed-offedness; Olaf Pooley kept burning my piss as the bullying, self-centred Stahlman; Christopher Benjamin was tragically ineffectual as the by-the-book public servant; Derek Newark and Sheila Dunn were charming as the pair who bonded under extreme duress; John Levene went to hell and back as Sergeant Benton; and massive praise to Caroline John and Nicholas Courtney for their fantastic parallel performances. In the DVD featurette, John gushed about how much she loved the chance at playing a baddie - even though her baddie came good in the end.

As for the Brigade Leader... that was almost Shakespearean. Okay, I'm gushing now too, but watching Courtney's alternate self descend from a vicious thug to a gibbering coward was sheer brilliance!


Sarah -
Nick Courtney was utterly brilliant! Caroline John’s slow realization that there could be another way was quite moving.

I started out being irritated by Sutton and his attempts to pick up Petra. Ah, the good old days of workplace sexual harassment as normative behavior. Eventually, the parallel universe Sutton and Petra and the excellent performances by Newark and Dunn (Director Douglas Camfield’s wife, previously seen in "The Daleks' Master Plan" and heard in "The Invasion" – as the computer voice of The Electromatic Company) made me like the characters.

Stalhman. Wow. What an asshole. I understand the lure of cheap energy, but who would ever let this guy head up a project? OK, I take that back. Lots of companies would put this jerk in charge.

And then there’s Sir Keith Gold, such a heroic figure. He’s such an unassuming man, yet he’s not afraid to take a stand when a stand must be taken. Did he hesitate for a moment when Stahlman’s excessive behavior warranted a visit to the Ministry? No, he did not! He ordered his car and set off for London, post haste.

Sir Keith’s exposure of Stahlman’s fiendish plot to delay his arrival at the ministry was an intellectual triumph worthy of Sherlock Holmes himself. Most impressive was the sympathetic manner in which Sir Keith dealt with the errant chauffeur, Patterson. Our hero is certainly a man for the ages and I look forward to following his further adventures in this blog.


Harry -
Er, what do you mean, further adventures? Oh dear... Sarah? Sarah are you there? SARAH! Stay with me, Old Girl!


Sarah -
What? Harry, is that you, Old Boy? Did you just see that spinning sparkly thing? Did you hear that whirling music? It felt so real...and don’t call me Old Girl!


Harry -
And she's back.  Whew!

Well, that spinning sparkly thing is impressive, isn't it? Despite the intensity of the story, there's a kind of throwback charm to the production. The hairstyles and clothes, the analog countdown thing, and of course, the garage door opener!

I wonder at what point, if ever, the production crew sensed they might have overplayed the garage door opener. Or was it just that fantastic an innovation in 1970?


Sarah -
The level of ceremony necessary to open the garage door with the sonic screwdriver seemed particularly unwarranted.


Harry -
There were no music-related points in my notes for this story, but looking over them, it seems I made fewer and fewer notes each episode. I decided that episode five was The Shouting Episode because that's all everyone did for 20 minutes - except Sir Keith, who addressed everyone in a respectful tone as always.


Sarah -
As if we would expect anything else! If there’s one thing you can say about Sir Keith, it’s that he always treats others in the manner appropriate to a man of his station. Why I remember in a previous adventure when he…

Oh no! It’s happening again. Stop this sparkly spinning thing, Old Boy!


Harry -
There - I've just wedged a gin bottle into it. Should stop it spinning now.

Episode six was This Infernal Extension Cord! or, The Rewire the Power to the TARDIS Console Episode (a touch drawn out). I didn't make any notes for Episode seven, being both exhausted and maybe starting to get a bit bored with all the delays by that point.

Does this story have a happy ending? In the parallel universe, we watched everyone die horribly. In our universe, the drilling was halted in time, but not before many lives were lost. And little do we know it, but we've just seen the end of Dr. Elizabeth Shaw's involvement with UNIT.


Sarah -
Poor Liz. Dumped so unceremoniously for the crime of being too bloody smart. Ah, Lizzie, we hardly knew ye.


Harry -
Season seven, always serious, ending on a sombre note.


Sarah -
I was thinking about your observation that the Doctor gets more pissed-off as the story progresses. This Earthly exile is clearly wearing away at the good Doctor. He even snaps at the Brig. What is this universe coming to?


Harry -
He's not liking the exile. He sure was a bit "in-your-faces" about restoring the TARDIS and splitting ASAP.


Sarah -
We’ve kind of avoided the elephant in the room here. The console can be moved out the TARDIS and used for travel on its own? Stupid, cheap BBC wouldn’t let them use the TARDIS set? What’s going on here?


Harry -
I did wonder how the TARDIS console could be moved around like that, and I don't think it was ever explained.

As season seven draws to a close, would you agree that Doctor Who has gone from "base under seige" to "Earth under seige?" Grander scale, greater stakes, more things to get pissed off about!


Sarah -
If you need me, I’ll be on the beach making sandcastles.

Best Lines:
Doctor: "But I don’t exist in your world."
Brigade Leader: "Well, then you won’t feel the bullets when we shoot you."

Favorite Moment: The Brig making the Doctor squirm for calling him a pompous, self-opinionated idiot.

Lasting Image: The Brigade Leader pulling a gun on the Doctor

9/10


Harry -
Best lines: we are agreed on this one.

Favourite moment: the Doctor slowly takes in the fact that he is in a parallel universe.

Lasting image: the Brigade Leader's nasty scar.

9/10

Our marathon continues with Story #55 - Terror of the Auditors - whoops! - Terror of the Autons...