The Mind Robber is a strange story in more ways than one. It uses a lot of characters from stories and fables and what appears to be normal isn’t. The story was actually only meant to be four episodes however due to problems with the previous story ‘The Dominators’ that story was made one episode shorter and a new Episode 1 was required. However with no money for extra sets or characters it was just the main cast, the TARDIS console set and a white cyclorama that was used.
I like episodes that are just set in the TARDIS. It gives a claustrophobic feeling that is very refreshing. That’s one of the reasons why I love ‘Inside the Spaceship’ so much. Like that story there is an unseen threat to the TARDIS crew which sees Jamie seeing his home town in Scotland and Zoe’s home town in some space-age town. Both wanted to get out of the TARDIS and they soon realise that it’s a trick. Due to the fact that there are only the three characters it means there’s a lot more time for them to interact and this is intriguing to me.
This story features the Master but not the one that we all know and love. He turns out to be controlling the controller but all we see of it is a big ball with some cobwebs in it. The Master was bought to the Land of Fiction though he doesn’t class himself as a prisoner. He loves writing but is wired to a machine and it is the machine that wants the Doctor to replace the Master due his age. The Master starts off as a nice bumbling author who is as sweet as pie but when the Doctor refuses to take over from him he shows his nastier side. The plan is that the Master/Controller is going to take all the people on Earth and use their imaginations for his purpose. With the Earth empty, the Master can create his own world with his own characters. As plans go its quite out there. But then what in Doctor Who isn’t.
There’s a nice battle of words between the Master and the Doctor with the threats and dangers getting more extreme each time. It was nice to begin with but ultimately got silly as time went on. I found the idea that there was that the actions of the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe were being read out via a machine and the Master.
This story is also notable for the fact that for one episode, Frazer Hines got replaced by Hamish Wilson due to Hines having Chicken Pox. To be Wilson he did a competent job, he wasn’t on par with Hines but then that like getting another actor to pretend to be Patrick Troughton. They’ll do a decent job but it just won’t work. When Hines was in it he was his usual likeable self. Wendy Padbury was also on good form but I did find it disconcerting that she kept screaming. For some reason I think that smart academic women like Zoe or Liz Shaw shouldn’t scream. It just doesn’t seem natural. Patrick Troughton was on usual good form and at this time of his run as the Doctor he was seemed to be getting slightly tired of these sorts of stories.
The main problem that there is with this story is that it’s just dull. There’s no immediate threat for the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe. It was quite late in the story before the Doctor meets the master. I think that this should have happened quite a lot earlier in the story. Also I found the actors playing some of the literature characters to be a bit below par. Especially Christine Pirie who played Princess Rapunzel. She seemed wooden to me and I didn’t care for the character. I also can’t understand why they bothered to bring in Karkus. The actor playing Karkus (Christopher Robbie) wasn’t a muscular as he should have been and the scene with Karkus battling Zoe was just embarrassing and shouldn’t have been committed to film. The only character that I thought worked was Gulliver as played by Bernard Horsfall who is always a reliable actor.
The Mind Robber isn’t a bad story just dull. Peter Ling did a credible job writing this story but just put too many characters in it. Worth a viewing but don’t expect too much from it.
I like episodes that are just set in the TARDIS. It gives a claustrophobic feeling that is very refreshing. That’s one of the reasons why I love ‘Inside the Spaceship’ so much. Like that story there is an unseen threat to the TARDIS crew which sees Jamie seeing his home town in Scotland and Zoe’s home town in some space-age town. Both wanted to get out of the TARDIS and they soon realise that it’s a trick. Due to the fact that there are only the three characters it means there’s a lot more time for them to interact and this is intriguing to me.
This story features the Master but not the one that we all know and love. He turns out to be controlling the controller but all we see of it is a big ball with some cobwebs in it. The Master was bought to the Land of Fiction though he doesn’t class himself as a prisoner. He loves writing but is wired to a machine and it is the machine that wants the Doctor to replace the Master due his age. The Master starts off as a nice bumbling author who is as sweet as pie but when the Doctor refuses to take over from him he shows his nastier side. The plan is that the Master/Controller is going to take all the people on Earth and use their imaginations for his purpose. With the Earth empty, the Master can create his own world with his own characters. As plans go its quite out there. But then what in Doctor Who isn’t.
There’s a nice battle of words between the Master and the Doctor with the threats and dangers getting more extreme each time. It was nice to begin with but ultimately got silly as time went on. I found the idea that there was that the actions of the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe were being read out via a machine and the Master.
This story is also notable for the fact that for one episode, Frazer Hines got replaced by Hamish Wilson due to Hines having Chicken Pox. To be Wilson he did a competent job, he wasn’t on par with Hines but then that like getting another actor to pretend to be Patrick Troughton. They’ll do a decent job but it just won’t work. When Hines was in it he was his usual likeable self. Wendy Padbury was also on good form but I did find it disconcerting that she kept screaming. For some reason I think that smart academic women like Zoe or Liz Shaw shouldn’t scream. It just doesn’t seem natural. Patrick Troughton was on usual good form and at this time of his run as the Doctor he was seemed to be getting slightly tired of these sorts of stories.
The main problem that there is with this story is that it’s just dull. There’s no immediate threat for the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe. It was quite late in the story before the Doctor meets the master. I think that this should have happened quite a lot earlier in the story. Also I found the actors playing some of the literature characters to be a bit below par. Especially Christine Pirie who played Princess Rapunzel. She seemed wooden to me and I didn’t care for the character. I also can’t understand why they bothered to bring in Karkus. The actor playing Karkus (Christopher Robbie) wasn’t a muscular as he should have been and the scene with Karkus battling Zoe was just embarrassing and shouldn’t have been committed to film. The only character that I thought worked was Gulliver as played by Bernard Horsfall who is always a reliable actor.
The Mind Robber isn’t a bad story just dull. Peter Ling did a credible job writing this story but just put too many characters in it. Worth a viewing but don’t expect too much from it.
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