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| The Master pressures the Doctor into helping him control the dangerous Keller Machine. |
6 episodes. Running Time: Approx. 147 minutes. Written by: Don Houghton. Directed by: Timothy Combe. Produced by: Barry Letts.
THE PLOT:
UNIT is handling security for a World Peace Conference being held (of course) in London. Everything is running smoothly - until the Chinese delegate is murdered. Brigadier Lethbride-Stewart suspects Chinese Captain Chin Lee (Pik-Sen Lim), whose account of the incident has glaring holes in it. As incidents mount, he demands the Doctor report to him at once.
The Doctor is pursuing his own concern: The Keller Machine at Stangmoor Prison. The machine has been presented as a new method of treating criminals by removing all negative impulses from the mind. The Doctor already sees this as dangerous, even before he witnesses the unusually violent processing of Branham (Neil McCarthy), who is left in a childlike state.
The Doctor believes that the problems at the World Peace Conference are connected to the Keller Machine. When he comes into contact with Chin Lee, who matches the description of Professor Keller's assistant, he is certain of it. And that's before he comes face-to-face with Professor Keller himself - a man better known to the Doctor and UNIT as The Master...
CHARACTERS:
The Doctor: Interrupts repeatedly during the demonstration of the Keller Machine, to a point that I think he could be accurately labeled a heckler. He is authoritative enough that when things start going wrong, the prison's governor listens to him despite his bad behavior. The Doctor not only speaks fluent Chinese, but even is able to address the peace conference's replacement Chinese delegate in the man's specific dialect, quickly earning the delegate's respect and trust. When he is first exposed to the Keller Machine, the fear he experiences is that of burning - a fear drawn from his memories of watching a parallel Earth destroyed in flames, a nice continuity nod to the same writer's Inferno.
Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart: After spending most of Terror of the Autons deferring to the Doctor, it's a relief to see him back to his crisp and competent Season 7 self. He doesn't need the Doctor's help to figure out that Chin Lee was involved in crimes around the conference; he's more than capable of picking out the inconsistencies in her story all by himself. Also, despite his initial skepticism of a connection between problems at the peace conference and the issues at Stangmoor Prison, he's not so stubborn that he fails to notice when an incident occurs in the proximity of the prison.
Jo Grant: Though she lacks Liz Shaw's qualifications and has a ditzier surface persona, she's neither stupid nor useless. During the first escape attempt by convict leader Mailer (William Marlowe), she is not only able to get away from him - she manages to stop his efforts entirely. She can't do the same when Mailer teams up with the Master, but she still keeps alert for opportunities and puts the ones she's given to good use. She connects well with the Doctor on an emotional level, pushing him to eat and refusing to let him wallow in his grim mood after the Master coerces him into helping control the Keller Machine.
The Master: As good as Roger Delgado was in Terror of the Autons, he's better here, thanks in part to a script that gives him more complex material to play. A mid-story encounter with the Keller Machine leaves the Doctor appearing dead. When the Master discovers him, he reacts with genuine concern. Though he's happy to threaten the Doctor repeatedly, there's real fondness in the interactions between the two. This is an aspect of the Doctor/Master relationship that was particularly strong in the Third Doctor era. Other eras would repeat that they had once been friends; but with Pertwee and Delgado, you felt the friendship, something that wouldn't really be true again until Peter Capaldi's tenure. Oh, and this - only the Master's second story - establishes his fear of the Doctor being superior to him, as seen when the Keller Machine gives him a vision of the Doctor, looming over him, sneering down on him, and laughing.
Capt. Yates: Is put in charge of escorting an illegal missile to be destroyed, lest it be discovered and complicate the conference. It goes without saying that the missile is targeted by the Master. When this happens, Yates stubbornly gives chase. His recklessness gets him caught, but his basic competence allows him to get free and report in, paving the way for the action climax.
THOUGHTS:
The Mind of Evil was writer Don Houghton's second story for the series, after Season 7's splendid Inferno. While it doesn't reach the same level as his first effort, few stories do - and The Mind of Evil is still a fine serial, and one that makes particularly use of the series' ensemble. I find it a genuine shame that this would be Houghton's last contribution to Doctor Who.
One of the elements I best appreciate is that every character gets something to do. With the action spread out, most of the episodes see the Doctor dealing with one situation while the Brigadier deals with another, allowing both men to be entirely competent. Supporting characters are also well-used. Jo gets multiple opportunities to show her ingenuity; Capt. Yates acquits himself well in his own face-off with the Master; and Benton is fallible, sometimes to comedy effect, but is still able to play a major role in the story's big set piece at the end of Episode Five. In short, everybody gets a page.
The story effectively contrasts the strengths and weaknesses of the Doctor and the Brigadier. For all the Doctor's brilliance, his protectiveness toward Jo becomes counter-productive. The first episode cliffhanger almost ends in his death because he insists on dealing with the machine alone; he's only saved because Jo prioritizes new information over the Doctor's instructions to stay away from the room. Lethbridge-Stewart is sometimes rigid in his thinking, but he relies on his people. It's the records kept and retained by his staff that let him catch Chin Lee in her lie early on; and during an operation late in the story, he trusts Benton to lead a key part of the assault despite a failure earlier in the serial.
I thoroughly enjoy Jon Pertwee's performance here. At the start of the story, the Third Doctor is his usual, imperious and rather arrogant self. However, in the scenes with the Chinese delegate, he shows a Doctor who knows when to dial that back, behaving entirely respectfully even as the Brigadier seethes with impatience. Still later in the story, after helping the Master to temporarily rein in the machine, he is left exhausted by the effort - to the point that it falls to Jo to draw him back to life when he appears to want nothing more at that moment than to just give into his weariness. The script provides all these varied notes, and Pertwee hits each note perfectly.
The color recordings of these episodes were destroyed in the 1970s, and for decades this story was only available in black & white. This is how I first viewed the story, and it actually lends itself rather well to monochrome. That said, the recoloring done for the DVD release is extremely welcome. There are a few moments in Episode Two when the color fades in and out a bit, but it's otherwise so steady that I wouldn't have been able to tell that it was a recoloring job. From what I've read, re-releases have further improved the color realization, as well.
OVERALL:
The Mind of Evil is a good story. Action is generally well-staged, and Don Houghton's scripts use the ensemble to excellent effect while at the same time telling an enjoyable suspense story. I remembered liking this one - and I'm happy to say that the story lived up to my memories of it.
Overall Rating: 8/10.
Previous Story: Terror of the Autons
Next Story: The Claws of Axos
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