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The Mind Robber

14TH SEPTEMBER 1968 - 12TH OCTOBER 1968

(5 EPISODES)

The Mind Robber is perhaps the best-structured release in the BBC’s Doctor Who DVD range thus far. Its main bonus feature has not been carved up into several separate featurettes that each have to be played individually: Writing Story X, Designing Story X, Shooting Story X et al. Instead, we have a lengthy, informative and consolidated documentary on the making of the serial. The Mind Robber is also one of the most remarkable DVD releases so far as its five part centrepiece is quite unlike anything else in Who’s television canon, fusing genuinely unsettling nihilistic horror with surreal scares and cartoon camp.

The disc’s focal Fact of Fiction documentary does a splendid job of exploring the exceptional set of circumstances that gave rise to The Mind Robber as we know it. The serial’s acclaimed first episode was borne of necessity, with problems elsewhere forcing Derrick Sherwin to stretch out Peter Ling’s script from four episodes to five on a budget of nil. His solution was nothing short of inspired as, rather than bludgeon twenty-odd minutes of padding into a nicely-paced narrative, he improvised a lead-in to the tale that some still consider to be one of the series’ most terrifying episodes. I’d probably agree, were I able to tear my eyes away from Wendy Padbury’s shapely bottom as she clings to the TARDIS console floating through oblivion and appreciate the solipsistic terror of the piece.

Similarly, what could easily have proven to be a production-derailing case of chicken pox was turned into yet another windfall, as the production team were able to seamlessly replace the pockmarked Frazer Hines with Hamish Wilson, whose erroneously-assembled face would serve as a constant reminder of our heroes’ surreal surroundings and what they stood to lose. After all, if somewhere can take your face from you, what else can it take?

The four episodes of The Mind Robber set within the Land of Fiction rank amongst the series’ most outlandish. With its colourful cast of literary legends and genre stereotypes, The Mind Robber conjures wacky imagery as sundry as that found in The Alice Compendium, Treasure Island and Marvel comic books, but affords it surprising depth. The serial’s antagonist, who shapes events from afar, is abnormally affable, and arguably as much a victim as he is a villain. For every cartoon superhero there’s an oversized, sinister toy soldier; for every hammy Blackbeard there’s a Medusa. Indeed, the cliffhanger ending to the third episode featuring the tendril-headed mythological monster may well be one of the most alarming of the era.

Together with the serial’s five episodes and The Fact of Fiction, the DVD also boasts a commentary featuring Frazer Hines, Wendy Padbury, Hamish Wilson and director David Maloney. To be fair, there’s little of note unearthed in the commentary that doesn’t make it into The Fact of Fiction, but Hines’s telling of certain anecdotes is much more amusing in the commentary’s more casual setting. Hines also forms the focus of the disc’s second most substantial special feature, Highlander, which sees the pretend Scotsman talk us through his lengthy tenure as the second Doctor’s definitive companion with his customary charm. The remaining feature, Basil Brush and the Yeti, is far less worthwhile in my view, but I’m sure that completists will appreciate its presence all the same.

Overall then, both The Mind Robber and its DVD accoutrements come highly recommended. This curious disc may not be all that representative of the Patrick Troughton era, or indeed Doctor Who generally, but it has a capacity to entertain that eludes some of its more traditional peers – particularly the debacle that it followed.

Copyright © E.G. Wolverson 2006

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