The Mind Robber (TV story)

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The Mind Robber was the second story of Season 6 of Doctor Who. It was the first story which David Maloney directed, and the only televised story to feature the Land of Fiction.

Synopsis

To escape from the volcanic eruption on Dulkis, the Second Doctor uses an emergency unit. It moves the TARDIS out of normal time and space. The travellers find themselves in an endless void where they are menaced by white robots.

Having regained the safety of the TARDIS, they believe they have escaped — until the ship explodes. They find themselves in a land of fiction, where they are hunted by life-size clockwork soldiers and encounter characters like Rapunzel, the Karkus, and Swift's Lemuel Gulliver.

This domain is presided over by a man known only as the Master — a prolific English writer from 1926 — who in turn is controlled by a Master Brain computer. The Master is desperate to escape and wants the Doctor to take his place, while the Master Brain plans to take over the Earth.

The Doctor engages the Master in a battle of wills using fictional characters. Zoe and Jamie overload the Master Brain. In the confusion, the White Robots destroy the computer, freeing the Master.

Plot

Episode 1

Back inside the TARDIS, Zoe watches the eruption on the scanner. The Doctor attempts to take off but the fluid links cannot take the load of the TARDIS and mercury vapour begins to flood into the console room. Jamie watches the lava draw towards them. The Doctor tells him there is nothing to worry about but begins to doubt himself, the TARDIS never having been subjected to lava before. He watches as the readings of the mercury levels rises and rises. The Doctor mentions an emergency unit that moves the TARDIS out of the time and space dimension and out of reality altogether. He is very reluctant. He gets the unit out to look at it and Jamie literally forced him into employing it. As the TARDIS is engulfed in lava it dematerialises. The console room flashes and then stops. The Doctor realises that the gauges are reading zero on everything. They have landed but nothing is displaying anything, not even the scanner. When asked where they are the Doctor responds with "nowhere" before hurrying off.

Zoe has gone to change and then encounters the Doctor. He is worried but is trying to hide it. Zoe reasons with the Doctor that the TARDIS only lands them in places that are safe, so they must be somewhere safe. The Doctor reasons with Zoe: they are in a dimension about which they know nothing, they are at the mercy of forces which they don't understand. Zoe still wants to go. The Doctor is forced to put his foot down.

Back in the console room, Jamie is engrossed by the scanner. He can see his home, the Scottish Highlands. Zoe enters. He shows her. She can see nothing. When he looks back he can't see anything either. He puts it down to Scotch mist. As Jamie is distracted Zoe gets engrossed by the scanner too. She too sees her home city. Just as before, she shows him and it disappears. Zoe wants to go out but Jamie stops her. He goes to fetch the Doctor. Left alone Zoe can see her home city on the scanner again. She opens the door and calls for Jamie and the Doctor so they can leave. Impatiently she leaves the TARDIS. As soon as she leaves the scanner goes blank.

Jamie explains what has happened to the Doctor. He is still convinced he saw the Scottish Highlands. The Doctor rushes in to find Zoe. When he realises she has gone he reasons that their must be something tempting them out of the TARDIS. A warning light goes off on the TARDIS. They do not have much time before they are forced to take off. Jamie says he will go and find Zoe. Before the Doctor can stop him he's run off. Another warning light goes off on the TARDIS console. The Doctor then nears a sharp,piercing sound. He staggers around the TARDIS crying out for whomever is making the noise to identify themselves, where they are and what they want. The Doctor sits on a chair determined to fight the noise.

Zoe has found herself in a completely blank canvas. She is calling out for the Doctor and Jamie. Jamie finds Zoe. They decide to go back to the TARDIS but they have become utterly lost. They decide to stand still and call for the Doctor.

Back in the TARDIS , the Doctor can hear them but is still trying to fight against the noise.

Out in the nothingness, Jamie feels they are being watched. Zoe concurs. Unseen by them two robots are indeed watching over them. Zoe is distracted again by a vivid depiction of her city. Jamie brings her to her senses but she is very hard to convince that she did not see it. In turn, Jamie starts to see his homeland. Zoe has to slap him to bring him to his senses. They decide to find the TARDIS again, but as they turn they encounter two of the robots. They run off but bump into more and soon they are surrounded by them. They turn to see a depiction of themselves beckoning them forward.

The Doctor sees this image of Jamie and Zoe too. He hears a voice imploring him to follow them and to save them. He refuses but the voice tells him that he will.

The robots produce a hypnotic effect on Zoe and Jamie, causing the former to scream in distress.

The voice is still imploring the Doctor to save his friends. In a daze the Doctor walks out the TARDIS. Once outside he comes to his senses again. He calls to Jamie and Zoe and tells them to focus on his voice. He tells them everything else is unreality and that he and the TARDIS are the only things that are real. He tells them to come towards him. They obey. He tells them to go into the TARDIS. The robots begin to use their hypnotic effects on them and the Doctor pushes them into the TARDIS.

Once inside, Jamie and Zoe come to. The Doctor hurriedly takes off. As they are in flight the high pitched noise starts again. Jamie leaves the Doctor and Zoe to it and goes for a nap. Zoe apologies to the Doctor who understands and says if it was anything as tempting as the voice that he heard she was bound to get in. The Doctor realises that he had forgotten about the voice up until then. He notices that the TARDIS is using more power than normal and begins to rectify it. Meanwhile, in the corner of the room, Jamie tosses and turns fretfully in his sleep. He suddenly wakes with a start. The Doctor tells him not to bother him as he cannot get power back to normal. Jamie tells Zoe that he was dreaming about a unicorn. They look up and see that the Doctor is in a trance. He draws their attention to the sound vibrating through the TARDIS and identifies it as alien. Zoe and Jamie start to notice it too and can't focus because of it. The Doctor implores Zoe and Jamie to read aloud the numbers on the dial so that they can focus on something else. The sound heightens. It is too strong for the Doctor who slumps back against the wall.

Outside the TARDIS is flying aimlessly through space when suddenly it explodes. The console alone is left flying through space with Zoe and Jamie clinging on to it. Zoe turns and screams as she sees the Doctor, seemingly dead, floating in slave. Smoke slowly covers the console as it drifts out of sight.

Episode 2

The Doctor has to reassemble Jamie's face with card, but gets it all wrong.

Jamie is looking for the Doctor and Zoe in, what appears to be a very odd, forest. He hears Zoe cry out. As he seeks her out he comes across a Redcoat. Assuming he is back in his own time, he draws a knife and attacks the soldier. The soldier turns and shoots and Jamie turns into a cardboard cutout of himself.

Zoe is wondering around the forest looking for her friends. She notices she is trapped. All of a sudden she turns to see a door. Slowly the door creaks open and she walks in, before falling through the floor.

An unseen figure watches over this on television screens. He is looking for the Doctor. He orders that they search all areas so that the Doctor can be completely under his control.

The Doctor awakes. He hears Jamie and Zoe and begins to seek them out. He begins to get confused as they are both calling out at the same time. He tells Zoe to stop and follows the sound of Jamie's voice.

The unseen figure turns the lights up so as to find the Doctor quicker.

The Doctor thanks whomever turned on the lights as it is helping him find Jamie. He hears some figures approaching and hides.

The unseen figure orders his soldiers to spread out and cover all areas so the Doctor can be found.

The soldiers move on. The Doctor emerges and continues his search. Soon an armed figure emerges and draws a gun in him. He speaks in a strange language but the Doctor soon discovers that, not only can he speak English, he comes from England. He questions the Doctor, worried that he may be a highway man. The man tells the Doctor that he left England in 1699 and that he has lost his companions. The Doctor asks where they are but the man does not know. The Doctor asks for his help in finding Jamie and Zoe but the man says that 'The Master' will not permit it and that he has a warrant out for the Doctor. The man says he must leave and walks away. The Doctor pursues but the man is gone. The Doctor puts it down to a hallucination. He begins to search for Jamie again when he is surrounded by schoolchildren. They bombard him with riddles before one draws a sword and points it at his neck ordering him to answer the riddle "What can you make of a sword?" The children all shout at him before the Doctor realises the answer is 'words.' The boy throws the sword in the air and it turns into a dictionary. The schoolchildren bit the Doctor goodbye, but not before wishing him all the best and hoping that he is "suitable". They to disappear as soon as they run off. Left alone, the Doctor hears Jamie cry out again. He turns to find Jamie; but is disheartened when he discovers it is just a cardboard cutout. He turns to see that a safe and a wishing well has appeared. He throws the dictionary down the well, only for laughter to emerge from it. This causes the Doctor to investigate more closely. He looks around the safe and out of the mist emerges the letters M and T with crosses through them. Between the well and the safe emerges the figure of a hand with an H crossed out in the middle. The Doctor figures out that this is a riddle too. When looked at it is the figure of JAMIE, mist without the M or the T (IS), the SAFE, the hand without the H (AND), the WELL. JAMIE IS SAFE AND WELL. Pleased with himself he turns to see the cardboard cutout is missing it's face. He sees a board next to him that has all kinds of faces on it. He begins to piece the faces together however he does it wrong. Jamie comes alive...but looks completely different. The Doctor tests Jamie to make sure it is not a trick but he can remember everything that has happened so far and can even tell the Doctor about the destruction of the TARDIS which even he did not know about. They hear Zoe cry out and go to look for her. They find a door, however the Doctor realises that it is just a brick wall with a door painted in it. Jamie wants to find a battering ram to knock it down but the Doctor realises this is another riddle: "When is a door not a door?" "When it's ajar." No sooner is this said then Zoe emerges, trapped in a jar. They free her and she is glad to be free but then notices Jamie's face. She doubts that it is Jamie but the Doctor says they are in a place where nothing is impossible.

Later the Doctor and his colleagues are tired form trying to get to the end of the forest. Jamie climbs one of the trees and is astounded to find it is not a tree but a huge 'S'. He discovers that they are in a forest of letters and words. The Doctor asks him to read out what he can see and Jamie realises they are in a forest of proverbs: 'Slow but sure' 'In for a penny, in for a pound' 'Look before you leap.' Jamie sees a way out and climbs down so they can head out of the forest. As they do they come across the man the Doctor encountered earlier. The Doctor introduces Jamie and Zoe and tells the man they are going to escape. The man warns them against this and says he has never even contemplated escape. Zoe questions the man as to who has created these tests for them. The man, yet again, says it is the doing of the Master. When the Doctor questions him on the army of robots the man denies any knowledge of such a thing. The Doctor hears them approaching and he, Jamie and Zoe hide in the letters whilst the man takes guard. Once the robots have approached the man turns and talks to the Doctor revealing his whereabouts.

From his control room, the Master orders them to be rounded up and led away.

As they are rounded up, Jamie sarcastically thanks the man but the Doctor says that he does not think that the man can see the robots. The man bids goodbye and disappears again. Now that the robots are seen in full light, Zoe realises that they are huge deadly toy soldiers. The soldiers lead them out of the letters and into a large blank area.

Seeing this, the Master delightfully announces that his missions is accomplished.

Jamie says that he thinks he has been here before. They hear a galloping horse and look up to see the unicorn that Jamie dreamt of in the TARDIS. The unicorn begins to charge. Despite all common sense the Doctor gets Jamie and Zoe to stand still in the face of the oncoming beast.

Episode 3

The TARDIS crew turn the unicorn into a statue by loudly declaring, "It doesn't exist". They walk on and reach a house where the Doctor is tasked with the Jamie face puzzle again. This time he gets it right and Jamie returns to normal. They discover that the house is the entrance to a labyrinth. The Doctor and Zoe leave Jamie behind. They encounter the Minotaur. Jamie, pursued by a soldier, climbs up a rock face with the help of Rapunzel's hair and enters a citadel through a window. He finds a series of computer banks which show a readout on the Doctor and Zoe's encounter with Medusa. Zoe cannot resist the urge to look at Medusa, though to do so will turn her to stone.

Episode 4

As the Doctor and Zoe avoid looking at Medusa, Jamie sees a readout describing how the Doctor slew the monster with a sword. Such a sword appears at the Doctor's side, but he refuses to use it because Medusa does not exist. He uses a mirror, turning Medusa to stone. The computer gives a failure reading, though Jamie does not know what it means. He continues to explore the citadel.

The Doctor and Zoe exit the labyrinth and encounter the Karkus, a cartoon character from the year 2000. The Doctor accidentally dispels the Karkus' anti-molecular ray disintegrator by commenting that no such weapon exists. The Karkus attacks them. The Doctor can't get rid of the Karkus, because he has never heard of the character before and cannot say for certain that the Karkus is not real. Zoe, however, beats the Karkus into submission with her martial arts skills and he allies with them. He takes them to the citadel, where they find Jamie. Zoe accidentally sets off an alarm, but they do not hide and let the White Robots take them to the main control room. Here, they meet the Master, a kidnapped Earth writer who underwent the same tests as they when he first arrived. He explains he is getting old and needs the Doctor to replace him as the creative source for the Land of Fiction. The Doctor refuses. While he is talking, Jamie and Zoe sneak out into a library where they encounter the White Robots again and are trapped in a giant book.

Episode 5

The Doctor refuses the Master's offer and escapes through a skylight. The Master hypnotises Jamie and Zoe. He gets them to trap the Doctor and links him to the Master Brain. The two battle, summoning a multitude of fictional characters to fight each other. The Doctor is careful not to explicitly reference himself or his companions in a fictional manner, less they then become fiction. The Doctor prevails in the battle. He releases Jamie and Zoe, who override the Master Brain, causing the White Robots to destroy each other.

The Doctor unplugs the Master from the Brain and they all retreat to a side room. The White Robots destroy the Master Brain, and the TARDIS reassembles itself and normality is restored.

Cast

Crew

References

Literature

Writers

TARDIS

Story notes

  • The story follows directly from the end of the previous story, The Dominators.
  • Working titles for this story were Man Power (also Manpower), Another World and The Fact of Fiction.
  • Radio Times credits Bernard Horsfall as "A Stranger" for Episodes 2 and 3, and as "Gulliver" for episodes four and five. On-screen credits read "A Stranger" for episode two, and "Gulliver" for episodes three to five.
  • Christopher and David Reynolds' surname is spelt as "Reynolds" for episode two, and as "Reynalds" in episode five and for both episodes in Radio Times. (The correct spelling remains uncertain.)
  • Philip Ryan (Redcoat) is credited on-screen for episode three, but is uncredited in Radio Times.
  • Hamish Wilson played Jamie in episodes two and three when Frazer Hines contracted chicken pox.
  • Episode one is the only episode in the series' history to have no writer's credit, either on-screen or in Radio Times.
  • This story was planned as a four-part serial, but was increased to five after the previous adventure, The Dominators, was reduced from six to five episodes. As a result, the first four episodes were only between nineteen and twenty-two minutes in length and episode five was the shortest Doctor Who episode ever at just over eighteen minutes. For this to happen, the first episode was cobbled together by the production team, making Peter Ling very unhappy.
  • Before Jamie, as played by Hamish Wilson, gets turned into a cut-out for the second time, he shouts, "Creag an tuirc!" Frazer Hines joked on the DVD commentary that this is Scottish Gaelic for "vodka and tonic". However, it is actually the motto of the MacLaren Clan of Scotland, meaning "the boar's rock". These are also Jamie's last words in his last regular serial, The War Games, as he charges an English redcoat on the fields of Scotland.
  • The White Robots that close in on Jamie and Zoe in the void outside the TARDIS were previously used in an episode of the science-fiction television series Out of the Unknown, "The Prophet", originally transmitted 1 January 1967. This episode now no longer exists in the BBC archives.
  • The character Gulliver speaks only lines written for him by Jonathan Swift in Gulliver's Travels.
  • Christine Pirie (Princess Rapunzel) also contributed a voice-over reading from an extract from Louisa May Alcott's 1868 novel Little Women for the scene in episode three where Jamie climbs through the castle window only to find himself in a hi-tech control room, but was uncredited for this on-screen.
  • The Blackbeard and Cyrano de Bergerac shown here are the fictional depictions of real historical figures. (In-universe, the same applies to Medusa and the minotaur.)
  • This is one of the stories chosen to be shown as part of BSB's Doctor Who Weekend in September 1990.
  • The Master of the Land should not be confused with the renegade Time Lord known as the Master, who first appeared in Terror of the Autons, more than two years after this story was first aired.

Ratings

  • Episode 1 - 6.6 million viewers
  • Episode 2 - 6.5 million viewers
  • Episode 3 - 7.2 million viewers
  • Episode 4 - 7.3 million viewers
  • Episode 5 - 6.7 million viewers

Myths

  • Hamish Wilson, who played Jamie in episodes two and three, is Frazer Hines's cousin. (Hamish Wilson is no relation at all to Frazer Hines. However, Ian Hines — who played one of the Clockwork Soldiers in this story — is his brother.)
  • Zoe recognises the Karkus as a character from a "strip cartoon of the year 2000". This is not actually a reference to the real life 2000 A.D. British comic strip anthology (which is best known for introducing the character of Judge Dredd), as this episode predates the beginning of that strip by about ten years.
  • A scene in the white void when Jamie and Zoe get mind controlled was originally shot with both characters naked. (No evidence of that exists)

Filming locations

Production errors

If you'd like to talk about narrative problems with this story — like plot holes and things that seem to contradict other stories — please go to this episode's discontinuity discussion.
  • As the camera pans across what Jamie has been made to believe is the Scottish landscape, a seam is clearly visible, revealing the "landscape" as multiple paintings bound together.
  • After the TARDIS breaks up, Zoe is clinging to the console. In long model shots, she is lying on her right side. In close-ups, she's on her left. Said model shots also have Zoe's arms as disproportionately long and bandy.
  • Occasionally, when Zoe and Jamie are in the white void, the line where the wall and floor of the studio meet can be seen.
  • When the Doctor gets Jamie and Zoe into the TARDIS, the end credit "PRODUCER - PETER BRYANT" can be seen on the scanner.
  • The light-maps on the Master's monitors show layouts that are not the same as the actual layouts of the tunnels.
  • In the Forest of Words, when Jamie is standing on top of the giant "S" it is clear that the proportions of the other letters he is supposedly seeing in the distance are completely different from the ones by where they are standing — i.e. the letters Jamie sees in the distance are far shorter than they are in the length and width of their surface; however, the height of the "S" he is standing on is far greater than its length and width.
  • Near the end of this episode, Jamie is reading the ticker-tape upside down.
  • When Zoe is fighting the Karkus, Christopher Robbie mistimes a stunt, making it clear she's not flipping him over her shoulder.
  • The lens of another camera can be clearly seen in shot in episode one.

Continuity

Home video and audio releases

DVD releases

This story was released as Doctor Who: The Mind Robber.

Released:

PAL - BBC DVD BBCDVD1358

Contents:

Notes:

  • Region 2 UK DVD cover

    Region 2 UK DVD cover

  • Region 1 US DVD cover

    Region 1 US DVD cover

  • Region 4 Australian DVD Cover

    Region 4 Australian DVD Cover

iTunes releases

This story was released in standard definition as part of the Doctor Who: The Classic Series collection Doctor Who Sampler: The Second Doctor, which additionally includes Revisited: Patrick Troughton, The Second Doctor and the story The Tomb of the Cybermen. This story is available for purchase with the whole sampler collection or as individual episodes.

  • Second Doctor Sampler collection iTunes cover

    Second Doctor Sampler collection iTunes cover


VHS releases

  • This story was released on video as The Mind Robber in episodic format in May 1990 in the UK, September 1990 in Australia, and February 1994 in the US.
  • UK VHS cover

    UK VHS cover

  • Australian VHS cover

    Australian VHS cover

  • Full Australian VHS cover

    Full Australian VHS cover

  • US VHS cover

    US VHS cover

External links

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