DOCTOR WHO - THE MIND OF EVIL (1971)

DIRECTED by Timothy Combe

SCREENPLAY by Don Houghton 

STARRING  - Jon Pertwee as The Doctor,  Katy Manning as Jo Grant,  Nicholas Courtney as Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart,  Richard Franklin as Captain Mike Yates,  John Levene as Sergeant Benton,  Roger Delgado as The Master,  Fernanda Marlowe as Corporal Bell,  Patrick Godfrey as Major Cosworth, Simon Lack as Kettering,  Pik Sen-Lim as Chin Lee,  Kristopher Kum as Fu Peng,  Tommy Duggan as Senator Alcott,  Raymond Westwell as Prison Governor,  Michael Sheard as Dr. Roland Summers,  Clive Scott as Arthur Linwood,  Neil McCarthy as George Patrick Barnham,  William Marlowe as Mailer,  Hayden Jones as Vosper,  David Calderisi as Charlie,  Johnny Barrs as Fuller.

PLOT - In Stangmoor Prison a revolutionary new process to rehabilitate hardened criminals is being tested out. The Keller machine wipes the criminal's minds of all violent and anti-social urges leaving behind peaceful and reformed individuals. UNIT assigns the Doctor and his assistant Jo Grant to oversee the testing of the process.

However, things start to go wrong and the machine starts to cause the deaths of people who are working in it's vicinity. These people appear to have been frightened to death.

Soon it becomes apparent that the Doctor's arch enemy, the Master is behind the creation of the machine. Using hypnotised pawns the Master plans to use the Keller machine to sabotage a world peace conference and steal a deadly nerve gas missile with which he intends to start World War 3. Can the Doctor foil the plans of his evil nemesis or will he too succumb to his deepest, darkest fears ?...

DIALOUGE  - The Doctor  - "Just once, Brigadier, could you arrive BEFORE the nick of time ?"

PERFORMANCES  -  Jon Pertwee's take on the role of the third Doctor was that of a suave man of action. Just as likely to chase a villian in a speedboat or beat a henchman into submission with Venusian Aikido than he was to hang around laboratories concocting last minute solutions to save the day. In short, he was a much more "action packed" character than his two immediate predecessors where. To modern day viewers, Pertwee's Doctor seems like much more of a dry run for the type of Doctors we see in the modern series where the Doctor is just as much a man (or woman) of action as they are of science.

It's perhaps surprising then that in this story we get to see very little of that side of Pertwee's Doctor. We get the other aspects of his performance  - he's rude to civil servants and government officials, he's gently patronising but otherwise careing towards his assistant Jo, and he's often scathing of Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart's methods - but the third Doctor doesn't really get to do a lot of running around gung-ho heroics this time out. Instead we get to see a different side to his character.

In this story the Doctor has to come face to face with his deepest, darkest fears. When confronted with the mind parasite that inhabits the Keller machine the Doctor's fears are used to attack him. In a previous story (Inferno), the Doctor witnessed a parallel Earth burn. It's his regret at being unable to save that world and his fear of seeing it happen again that is used to attack him. The Doctor seems physically, mentally and emotionally drained after this, we're used to the third Doctor seeming like a relatively youthful figure (despite Pertwee being in his mid 50's at the time), full of vitality and vigour - Its strangely affecting seeing him in these reduced circumstances, seeing him seem so weak and vulnerable. Obviously this is only a temporary state of affairs and the Doctor gets his mojo back in time to save the day, but its still interesting to glimpse this little seen side of Pertwee's Doctor.

Katy Manning plays the Doctor's assistant Jo Grant, as usual she's cute, quirky and comes across as being likably sweet and ditzy. She doesn't get a huge amount to do in this story (she spends much of it being held hostage by rioting prisoners) but she's at least on hand to comfort the Doctor in his hour of need and offer him some reassurance. As always the chemistry between Pertwee and Manning is excellent and really sells thier scenes together. It's easy to see why their paring is fondly remembered by fans to this day.

The Mind of Evil is a great story for the Doctor's other faithful friend, namely Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart (Nicholas Courtney). Aside from his usual parade ground military swagger and last minute rescue bids, Courtney gets to show off a more comedic aspect to the Brigadier's character. Theres a brilliant scene where the Brigadier has to pose as a van driver to get past the security guards at Stangmoor Prison. It's hilliarious seeing this upper-class military man pretending to be a working-class white van man - he's just so wonderfully bad at it. This is the extent of his disguise...

That's right - he puts on a flat cap and starts calling everyone "mate" in the worst cockney accent since Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins. The fact that he delivers his "mockney" dialogue in the same, clipped military style that he normally speaks makes it even more amusing. The Brig may be a great commanding officer and a brave soldier but undercover work clearly isn't his forte. The Brigadier also has a few moments where he affectionately takes the piss out of the Doctor, I feel this is an attitude he's had to adopt in an attempt to deal with the Doctor on a day to day basis and is a nice little touch.

We come now to the villian of the piece and as ever in this season of Doctor Who it turns out to be The Master (Roger Delgado). Like the Doctor, the Master is also a Time Lord. Unlike the Doctor he's evil - he's basically the Yin to the Doctor's Yang, he's every bit as smooth, suave and cultured as the Doctor but without the Doctor's inherent goodness and moral code. The Master as played by Delgado isn't the crazily insane Joker-esque figure that he's become in the modern series, he's more reserved and dignified, he's a machieavellian Bond villian with a hundred and one schemes for world (or universal) domination. He also clearly enjoys sparring with the Doctor - like all the best hero and villian parings seen onscreen Pertwee and Delgado where great friends in real life (in fact Delgado's death was one of the factors that caused Pertwee to leave the role of the Doctor - he couldn't carry on doing it without his friend there), you can tell that the two loved acting alongside one another and this comes over in all thier onscreen clashes, this story is no exception.

We get a really great moment where the Keller machine turns on the Master and confronts him with his own greatest fears like it did with the Doctor earlier. Where the Doctor's fears involved death and destruction, the Master's greatest fear is not defeat or death...It's the Doctor...laughing at him. I think this speaks volumes about both the Master's ego and his state of mind.

SFX - We get quite a mixed bag effects wise in this story. In one scene a Chinese delegate is attacked by the machine and sees a Dragon. In close-up, the Dragon's face and head looks pretty good...

Unfortunately, it all turns to shit when we see it's body - it's clearly someone dressed in a "Panto Horse" style costume.

We also get some really terrible shots of the UNIT troops guarding the nerve gas missile. The actors have obviously just been super-imposed in front of a static photo...

The Keller machine itself looks a bit like a cut-price Dalek (especially when it starts moving around under its own steam)...

The alien mind parasite housed inside is very well done though...

Also, the Keller machine gets a nice send off with some effectively shot pyrotechnics...

VIOLENCE  - At the start of the story several staff members of Stangmoor Prison are killed by the Keller machine (usually dying of heart attacks after being literally frightened to death).

In the final episode - UNIT troops storm Stangmoor Prison and engage in a dramatic shoot out with the rioting prisoners who are working for the Master. It's a very bloodless shoot out considering we see several people get taken out by head shots but I can understand why the BBC wouldn't want to show that at 5.30 on a Saturday night.

RATING  - The Mind of Evil has all the ingredients that make a good Doctor Who story in it's early 70's Pertwee/UNIT era. The regulars are all settled into thier roles and working together nicely, the script is well written, the story is interesting. Perhaps the only thing it lacks is a truly memorable monster but the rest of the story is good enough for this not to be much of a problem.

Overall, I'm giving this 4 and a half worst nightmares out of 5. Well worth a watch.

ART -

Below, we have the cover of the Target novelisation (and also when it was re-released in a bumper double volume paired with the novelisation of "The Claws Of Axos")...

And finally - heres the Radio Times listing for The Mind Of Evil...