Sunday, April 14, 2019

Doctor Who: Series 8, Episodes 5-10 – “The Mind of Evil” (1971)


This is a classic Who mixed bag for me.  On the one hand, the characterization is pretty on-point throughout, with nice interactions and strong moments for pretty much everyone.  On the other, the story is supremely silly and uses up more than its fair allotment of “hokey.”

The Third Doctor and Jo visit Stangmoor Prison to see a demonstration of the Keller Machine, a revolutionary invention that can purportedly change the mental state of a convict and reform them completely.  However, the machine proves to be more than anyone bargained for, and our heroes soon find themselves investigating mysterious deaths amid a prison riot.  Meanwhile, the Brigadier and UNIT are facing strange goings-on running security for the World Peace Conference, and despite what the Brigadier thinks, his problems may intertwine with what the Doctor and Jo have found at Stangmoor.

We’ll get this out of the way:  the story is ridiculous.  Know how I said the Keller Machine changes a convict’s mental state (radically, by the way, effectively lobotomizing them)?  That’s not how the serial describes it.  The character playing an actual expert in the story says that the machine “removes evil impulses” from the criminals, and it turns out that he means that literally.  Upon hearing this, the Doctor legit worries that they’ve now got a machine full of “evil impulses,” and the expert (incorrectly) reassures him that the machine is only half full of evil.  Seriously – that happens.  What are farting aliens compared to that goofiness?

There are also some really silly hallucination sequences and some dubious Chinese dialogue recitation from Jon Pertwee.  Plus, while I appreciate that the Master shows himself to be not quite as smooth a criminal as he likes to think he is, series 8 on the whole goes Master-crazy.  I get the conceit – with the Doctor stranded on Earth, the show either needs a different alien incursion every serial or a reliable recurring villain who’s similary stuck – and Roger Delgado is still my favorite Master, but the season just has too much of him.  So even though I think he’s used reasonably well in this story, it doesn’t quite work in context of the whole season.

But oh, the characters, you guys.  This might be Jo’s best showing ever.  She fakes out bad guys, she wrestles away their guns, she hatches escape plans, she stays cool in the face of danger, and she’s all-around lovely with the Doctor.  I just love how tough and well-used she is here, while still being entirely Jo.  The Doctor has good interactions with everyone; I like the frenemy angle he has going on with the Master, and he and Jo are so sweet when they’re together.  Plus, dubious Chinese dialogue recitation aside, I love the scene where he and the Brigadier visit the Chinese delegate.  You can tell the Brigadier hates feeling so extraneous, just as you can tell that the Doctor is totally aware of that fact and perfectly fine with it.  As a bonus, we get Captain Yates being fairly cool and stalwart, and while Sergeant Benton’s appearance aligns a bit with his “butt monkey of UNIT” characterization, he also goes out of his way to make up for it by the end of the serial.  Way to go, Benton!

Overall, it’s uneven, but as someone who pretty much always goes for character over plot, it still mainly works for me.  Jo being awesome is enough to keep it squarely in my good graces, despite its notable flaws.

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