3.6: The Mind of Evil

In which Benton gets some character development, and we learn something important about the Master.

Broadcast: January-March 1971

Watched: December 2019-January 2020

The Mind of Evil, Episode One

Confession: I’d got confused and assumed the Doctor was off to visit the Master in prison, despite having only ten minutes before watched the Master escapes. [The latter happens in the previous episode; the former won’t happen until next season. In my defence, there is a prison in this episode.] Anyway. 

The set up for this story is hilarious. “Dash it all man, we’re so busy with this international peace conference you can’t possibly expect us to look after a missile too! Oh, very well. At least the Doctor is keeping out of the way looking at that sinister brainwashing machine. What’s that? The delegate’s dead?”

Is the Keller machine a right wing idea or a parody of one?

The way everyone perves over Captain Chin Lee is even more disturbing than the fact she gets her own sinister theme tune. [Interesting twist on that perving: the actress, Pik-Sen Lim, was the wife of the story’s writer, Don Houghton. Their daughter, Sara Houghton, played Dr Samantha Madigan in The Sarah Jane Adventures television story The Curse of Clyde Langer.]

The Mind of Evil, Episode Two

Pertwee is *such* a prick to everyone. Jo saves him and he tells her off. At the other end of things: everyone is such a prick to Benton. I mean, I know he’s useless, but still. WTF is Mike doing going straight to threatening the Doctor with force?

“No no Doctor, he’s Chinese” is a good joke. Though the best joke is still “Yes we’ll just move a missile in the middle of a peace conference FINE if we must”.

I love how obvious it is that the guy messing with the phone lines is the Master. Also how they keep forgetting to give the delegates names, it’s just “The American delegate” for ages etc.

The Mind of Evil, Episode Three

The fact the Doctor instantly works out that it’s the Master, as if there’s no one else in the Dr Who universe who ever uses alien tech to screw up the world, is quite funny. So is the grudging way the prison governor decides they’d better tell UNIT that one of its employees is being held hostage in a prison riot, as if it’s her own fault.

Can’t tell if it’s because I’m watching a shoddy copy of this episode, but the prison stuff is incredibly hard to follow. How does the Master take control? What happens to the governor? Does he know “Keller” has taken over? Jo with a gun is cool though. As in Terror, she’s very game.

The Mind of Evil, Episode Four

“And British of course.” “Of course.”

I sort of love that it’s only his second story and the Master is already trying to get the Doctor to help in his evil schemes. Also, the fact his biggest fear is the Doctor laughing at him is a *brilliant* character note, which persists to this day. The co-dependence of their relationship, the fact the Master has no existence independent of the Doctor, isn’t just a function of the role of the archenemy or some subtext for fic writers, it’s there on screen from the beginning.

I id have a weird moment earlier of, “This is the same show as Serial A.” Was there ever any discussion, from BBC or critics, or the gradual change in the show’s format? Other series don’t do this, Judge John Deed doesn’t now follow his adventures in retirement running a pub or something. But Doctor Who keeps changing and everyone just accepts it.

The missile hijack sequence is strangely violent.

The Mind of Evil, Episode Five

“It’s a fortress, you’d need an army to get in there.” You literally have a f***ing army.

Anyway. I’ve switched to Britbox. Since I’m doing this it seemed sensible to pay for it. And... blimey, they’ve done a good job on cleaning this up, haven’t they? Copy I was watching before was black and white and frequently rubbish. The version commercially available today looks fantastic. [A Misadventure in Space and Time does not condone piracy. You wouldn’t steal a car.]

The one episode subplot with the obnoxious new major threw me a bit - but it’s only there so that we can tell the Brig is pleased to see Benton without him actually having to express that in any way, isn’t it? As with Benton asking for news of Yates, it’s to establish that these people like each other.

Love the dumbass UNIT attack plan. The boss pretends to be a delivery man with a lot of booze, while some soldiers literally hide behind the van. Genius.

Pertwee spends more time sleeping on screen than any other Doctor I think.

The Mind of Evil, Episode Six

Forgot to take contemporaneous notes.

It’s... fine. The nice idiot dies. Benton gets to be acting governor which is a nice bit of character development/thematic closure. The Doctor is a dick to the Brig again.

On the whole though this one was a bit of a disappointment. Was looking forward to another story from the writer of Inferno and it’s... okay? It’s fine. But it doesn’t add up to much and all the good stuff is in the relationships. The Doctor and the Master. The internal UNIT stuff. Jo being generally great. But the story doesn’t live up to its early promise.

Oh well.