Doctor Who: Series 6, Episodes 6-10 – “The Mind Robber” (1968)

This was one of the first Second Doctor serials I ever saw (the first?  I can’t remember whether or not I saw “The Tomb of the Cybermen” before this one,) and it remains one of my favorites.  Yes, it can be super goofy, and it maybe pulls the same trick one too many times, but it’s also really fun and creative.

A start-of-serial TARDIS crisis throws the Second Doctor, Jamie, and Zoe out of our universe and into the Land of Fiction, a bizarre world governed by narrative rules.  Mythical monsters, fairytale princesses, and semantic riddles are commonplace here, and in order to avoid the clutches of the mysterious author behind the curtain, the Doctor and his friends have to determine what’s real and what’s merely a story.

The idea of team TARDIS facing off against Medusa, shooting the breeze with Gulliver, or wandering through a literal forest of aphorisms sounds kind of hokey, going back to the original conception of the show as sci-fi edutainment for kids.  If you’re going to incorporate history and science lessons in among the adventure and excitement, why not throw in a bit of literature, too?  There’s a ring of that, to be sure, but the story is so wild and weird that the execution doesn’t give off much a “Today, kids, we’re going to learn about…” vibe.  The best description I can think of is this:  it feels more like Disney’s Alice in Wonderland than Lewis Carroll’s, where it’s hard to watch without wondering what the creators were on when they made it.  Less outright psychedelic and more straight-up whimsical, but I think the comparison holds.

I really love the inventiveness of this story.  I like that it takes time to include characters from the future that we obviously won’t recognize (like the 21^st-century comic-strip hero that only Zoe knows about) in addition to familiar faces like Rapunzel.  I enjoy the silly things it does with giant books and blatantly fake-looking unicorns.  I’m impressed by the creative workarounds it hides for behind-the-scenes snags:  Frazer Hines, who plays Jamie, got sick while filming this serial, and, given the fanciful workings of the Land of Fiction, the show came up with a 100% credible reason to have him played by a completely different actor for the better part of two episodes.  (Yes, Hines is far more Jamie than the other actor, but I still love that they figured out how to do it.)  And it just tickles me that someone scoured Gulliver’s Travels to find lines from the book that Gulliver can reasonably say in response to any questions the Doctor and co. put to him. 

Everyone is in good form, I’d say.  It’s still a fairly early episode in Zoe’s run, and she’s maybe the shakiest here (a lot of screaming, is what I’m saying,) but her scene fighting the Karkus is one of her most memorable on the show.  I like this, not just for the action, but for the way she learns how to make the Land of Fiction work in her favor.  Jamie shows some good common sense in a few solo scenes, figuring out how to interact with machines he doesn’t understand, and I’m always a sucker for him doing everything he can to find or protect his friends – bless.  And the Doctor is a blast in this world.  I love his delight at meeting the fictional characters and gleeful satisfaction when he solves word puzzles, and it just kills me that it takes him two tries to correctly assemble Jamie’s face (don’t ask; just watch it.)  As always with this team, we get fun interactions peppered with playful ribbing and some nice warmth.  Good, crazy fun with one of my all-time favorite Doctor-companion combos.