The Mind of Evil
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| 056 - The Mind of Evil | |
|---|---|
| Doctor | Jon Pertwee (Third Doctor) |
| Writer | Don Houghton |
| Director | Timothy Combe |
| Script editor | Terrance Dicks |
| Producer | Barry Letts |
| Executive producer(s) | None |
| Production code | FFF |
| Series | Season 8 |
| Length | 6 episodes, 25 mins each |
| Transmission date | January 30–March 6, 1971 |
| Preceded by | Terror of the Autons |
| Followed by | The Claws of Axos |
The Mind of Evil is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in six weekly parts from January 30 to March 6, 1971.
Contents |
[edit] Synopsis
The Third Doctor and Jo are sent to investigate the Keller Machine, a device that purports to be able to treat hardened criminals, created by Professor Kettering. However, neither the Keller Machine nor the Professor are what they seem...
[edit] Plot
The Third Doctor and Jo visit the remote Stangmoor Prison to examine a new method of “curing” criminality, whereby the negative impulses are removed from the brain using the Keller Machine to enact the Keller Process. Professor Kettering, who is managing the delivery of the Process at the behest of the absent Emil Keller, reconditions a number of inmates including Barnham, a hardened criminal who is reverted to a more innocent and childlike state by the Process. The Doctor’s suspicions about the Keller Machine are heightened following a string of deaths, including that of Kettering himself, which seem to occur when the Machine is operated. Each death seems to be triggered by visions of personal phobias – and the Doctor is seemingly threatened by an inferno when he gets too close to it.
Meanwhile, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart and the troops of UNIT are handling the security arrangements for the first World Peace Conference. Captain Chin Lee of the Chinese delegation, whose delegation leader is dead, is behaving strangely in an attempt to heighten tension in relations with the United States. It emerges that her actions are done under the influence of the Master. She uses the transmitted power of the Keller Machine in her plans against the American delegate, Senator Alcott, who barely survives her attack. Captain Chin Lee is deconditioned by the Doctor, and tells him that Emil Keller is indeed the Master, whom the Doctor had previously trapped on Earth by stealing his dematerialisation circuit.
Back at Stangmoor a riot has broken out and resulted in a dangerous criminal who was next in line for the Keller Process, Harry Mailer, seizing control of the prison. Jo is briefly taken hostage, but she enables the guards to retake the prison. The Master, who had heard of the Stangmoor riot by eavesdropping on UNIT, arrives and meets Mailer, to whom he supplies enough small bombs for Mailer and his prisoners to retake control of the prison. The Doctor returns to the prison to be captured by the Master, who sets the Keller Machine loose on the mind of his old foe, weakening the Doctor considerably. The Master is losing control of the Keller Machine, which contains a dangerous alien Mind Parasite, and forces the Doctor to help him contain its power. This done, the Doctor is imprisoned once more.
The Master has come to Stangmoor to engage the prisoners as a private army, and uses them to hijack a UNIT convoy transporting a deadly Thunderbolt missile nearby. The stolen missile is then pointed at the Peace Conference and Captain Mike Yates, who was detailed with leading the convoy, is taken prisoner by the criminals. Left in the dark, the Brigadier decides the Thunderbolt missile must be in Stangmoor and comes to the rescue in a ”Trojan Horse” style assault. UNIT troops take control of the prison, killing Mailer and the other leading rioters. A freed Yates makes contact to the tell UNIT that the Thunderbolt is being kept in an abandoned hangar nearby.
The Keller Machine is growing stronger and breaks free of the temporary restraints placed on it by the Doctor. The Doctor contacts the Master, who has gone to the hangar with the missile, and offers to return the dematerialisation circuit of his TARDIS in exchange for the missile. The Master agrees to this proposition on the guarantee he alone will come. The Doctor has worked out that Barnham, having been subjected to the Keller Machine once, is immune to its growing power and uses the prisoner as a shield in transporting the Machine to the hangar for his show-down with his enemy. In the ensuing fight the Thunderbolt is triggered and the Machine destroyed, but the wider devastation from the missile is minimal. The Master uses the chaos to escape with the dematerialisation circuit, killing Barnham in the process. He contacts the Doctor by telephone to taunt him that he is now free while the Doctor remains trapped in his exile on Earth.
[edit] Cast
- Doctor Who — Jon Pertwee
- Jo Grant — Katy Manning
- Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart — Nicholas Courtney
- Captain Mike Yates — Richard Franklin
- Sergeant Benton — John Levene
- The Master — Roger Delgado
- Corporal Bell — Fernanda Marlowe
- Major Cosworth — Patrick Godfrey
- Professor Kettering — Simon Lack
- Captain Chin Lee — Pik-Sen Lim
- Fu Peng — Kristopher Kum
- Senator Alcott — Tommy Duggan
- Prison Governor — Raymond Westwell
- Dr Summers — Michael Sheard
- Chief Prison Officer Powers — Roy Purcell
- Senior Prison Officer Green — Eric Mason
- Prison Officers — Dave Carter, Bill Matthews, Barry Wade, Martin Gordon
- Linwood — Clive Scott
- Barnham — Neil McCarthy
- Mailer — William Marlowe
- Vosper — Hayden Jones
- Charlie — David Calderisi
- Fuller — Johnny Barrs
- Main Gates Prisoner — Matthew Walters
[edit] Cast notes
Features a guest appearance by Michael Sheard. See also Celebrity appearances in Doctor Who.
[edit] Continuity
- An insight into the Master's motivation and his relationship with the Doctor is given when the Mind Parasite turns on him and attacks him with images to evoke his deepest fear: the Master is confronted with and recoils from giant images of the Doctor laughing at him. See also The Caves of Androzani.
- The images the Doctor sees when the Mind Parasite attacks him are of past monsters (including the War Machines, a Cyberman and the Zarbi) but culminate with the horrors he witnessed in the earlier serial, Inferno. He tells Jo as he recovers, "Not long ago I saw an entire world consumed by fire."
[edit] Production
Working titles for this story included The Pandora Machine, Man Hours and The Pandora Box
[edit] In print
A novelisation of this serial, written by Terrance Dicks, was published by Target Books in March 1985.
[edit] Broadcasst and VHS release
The Mind of Evil is unique amongst the Pertwee-era stories in that the BBC does not hold colour copies of any episodes in their entirety. Approximately four and a half minutes of colour footage from Episode Six exists from a domestic Betamax recording made by a fan in the USA (the fan did not have enough money to buy a new tape to record the entire story, so recorded segments of it onto the end of an existing tape). Black and white 16mm film recordings exist of all six episodes and the story was released on VHS in this format on 5 May 1998.
[edit] External links
- The Mind of Evil episode guide at the BBC website
- The Mind of Evil at Doctor Who: A Brief History Of Time (Travel)
- The Mind of Evil at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
- List of clips from missing Doctor Who episodes with information on clips from The Mind of Evil
[edit] Reviews
- The Mind of Evil reviews at Outpost Gallifrey
- The Mind of Evil reviews at The Doctor Who Ratings Guide
[edit] Target novelisation
| The Master television stories | |
|---|---|
| Third Doctor: | Terror of the Autons • The Mind of Evil • The Claws of Axos • Colony in Space • The Dæmons • The Sea Devils • The Time Monster • Frontier in Space |
| Fourth Doctor: | The Deadly Assassin • The Keeper of Traken • Logopolis |
| Fifth Doctor: | Castrovalva • Time-Flight • The King's Demons • The Five Doctors • Planet of Fire |
| Sixth Doctor: | The Mark of the Rani • The Trial of a Time Lord: The Ultimate Foe |
| Seventh Doctor: | Survival |
| Eighth Doctor: | Doctor Who |
| Minor appearances: | The Caves of Androzani |
| See also: | The Curse of Fatal Death |
| UNIT television stories | |
|---|---|
| Second Doctor: | (The Web of Fear) • The Invasion |
| Third Doctor: | Spearhead from Space • Doctor Who and the Silurians • The Ambassadors of Death • Inferno • Terror of the Autons • The Mind of Evil • The Claws of Axos • The Dæmons • Day of the Daleks • The Time Monster • The Three Doctors • The Green Death • Invasion of the Dinosaurs • Planet of the Spiders |
| Fourth Doctor: | Robot • Terror of the Zygons • The Android Invasion |
| Seventh Doctor: | Battlefield |
| Tenth Doctor: | The Christmas Invasion |
| Minor appearances: | The Time Warrior • The Seeds of Doom • The Five Doctors • Aliens of London/World War Three |
| See also: | UNIT dating controversy |
