Hello, dear listeners, and welcome back to Flight Through
Entirety.
The only Doctor Who podcast who quite enjoys brain alteration.
I'm Brendan.
I'm Nathan.
I'm Todd.
And after our spending 4 seasons accusing Doctor Who of playing a
bit safe.
It's bloody Mind Wharf.
Before we get into some of the more traditional aspects discussed
of this story, I just have to say, it's really well directed.
The art direction is lovely.
We've turned the lights down.
Ron Jones has learned from vengeance on Barros, where sort of
everything was various shades of brown.
So instead we have dark blues and purples and bright pinks.
We have curved sets like Crozier's laboratory.
So he's really trying to get away from this notion of square walls
and dank brown colours.
The performances are fascinating to watch and mostly very good.
The costume designs, great.
The casting's excellent.
Um, you know, Ron Jones is really back on form for this his last
story.
The music is extremely good as well.
Richard Hartley, most famous for the Rocky Horror picture show, is
the composer of this story.
It's his only Doctor Who story.
And he does a really great job of it.
He gives the mentors a really sort of majestic theme, but at the
same time, you know you're not meant to be rooting for them.
Um, something I find fascinating that each time I watch this story
is none of the villains come across as, you know, we're evil
because that's the thing. really evil people don't believe that
they're evil.
In fact, I mean, is anyone really horrifically evil?
I guess the mentors are, but they're more kind of, you know, money
obsessed and kind of thoughtless and and, you know, lacking in
empathy.
They're amoral.
Yeah, crozier.
He's really amoral as well.
Like, he is kind of a terrible person.
But it's such a great performance.
He's so good.
Like when like when Kiv goes into cardiac arrest.
And he finishes his tea before he does anything.
Fish faced thing.
I mean, whatever he says.
He's got that way of delivering things, which is completely
affectless.
Like he shows no emotion at all and he's got a really growly voice
and everything is played just super, super straight. and serious.
I think he's really, really good.
Yeah, yeah.
He uses those eyebrows to crack effects too, in the latter
episode.
Like, you know, I think he gives Capaldi a run for his money when
it comes to highbrow acting.
Yeah, no, I think he's really tremendous.
And, you know, Trevor Laird, who is in it much more than I
remembered.
And I was Frax, the guard captain.
Yeah, who'll go on to be Martha's father, Clive, in the new
series.
I actually hadn't liked his performance as a child, but watching
it now, I think he is extremely good.
I think he's very good.
And Tuza, who you said you liked during the live tweet, Brendan
and I kind of slammed.
I think he's actually not bad either.
Which ones that?
So he's the leader of the rebels.
He's a bit he's a bit wet, but he's not as terrible as I
remember.
Okay, I just have to just say, I loathed him as a child.
I thought he was a terrible terrible actor.
He's come from the Jason Connery school of I'm a leader of the
rebels acting, right?
And we had a discussion about Martha's father and ages ago and I
said, oh, he was terrible in mind warp, but I really liked him in
the episode that we saw him in her time.
So when I started watching this, I'm going, oh, I'm waiting for
Martha's father, and I'm waiting for Martha's father, and, well, no
I thought my, episode 3 is when, is it 2 turns up in episode
three?
And I went, hmm.
I've been wrong all these years because that's not Martha's
father.
Who the hell is Martha's father?
And I went, oh, it's actually...
And I actually, well, I really liked him.
So I was under this mistaken impression that Martha's father was
the one I didn't like.
There you go.
He's super handsome too, I think.
He's very pretty.
Yeah, yeah.
And he's really good in this.
I think he's great.
And he has a sort of strange, like he does get angry in things, but
he's also a little bit sort of unflappable and stuff.
No one's chewing the scenery apart from Sill and Kyv and they're
self-consciously designed, I think, to be comedy roles, both of
them.
And they both play it extremely well.
I mean, and the other old mentor as well, I found in episode four
extremely funny too.
I mean, it still has just some, you know, he's sucking up to Kiv
and, you know, his dislike of Perry and, you know, there's so many
you know, the great Morgo, how wonderfully wise.
Like little lines like that, you know, he actually gets, I think
well, is one of the most striking lines in the story, which is, and
we'll obviously get to this again at the end.
But that horrific final scene, which is, again, I think, extremely
well done.
And really like a huge gut punch.
And he gets that comedy line about...
I only wish you could have found a more attractive body.
Yeah, more attractive body and he's kind of a bit embarrassed when
he delivers it and it's a funny line and it really works in the
context of this really, really horrendous, horrendous scene.
It's so well done.
The tone is sort of managed really well.
There's a massive kind of feeling of impending doom hanging over
all of episode four.
Yeah, yeah.
I think what I said about this in the live Tweed along is the
premise seems to be what happens in a Doctor Who story where
everything goes wrong?
Well, do you know what I think it is?
I don't think it is quite that.
I think that what happens is that the trial comes in and smashes
this story to pieces and it does it both inadvertently and
deliberately, but most obviously it comes in at the point where
the doctor is about to mount a heroic rescue of his companion and
he's pulled out of the story at that point.
And so the story goes pear shaped.
And the people at the trial claim that it was already too late, but
that's not how Doctor Who works.
We're supposed to think it's too late before the doctor comes in
that's how, you know, the climax happens.
So they deform this story.
But I think the trial deforms the story on a much more fundamental
level as well.
Yeah, because we have these scenes where we're meant to wonder if
what we're seeing is real or we're meant to wonder if the doctor's
brain has been affected, but we never really get a chance to think
about it for ourselves because we immediately cut back to the
trial room with the doctor saying, no, that's not how it happened
and the value of saying, yes, that is how it's happened and
nothing is really brought to any conclusion.
Of course, famously.
Colin Baker sought answers for, okay, so in this scene where I'm
interrogating Perry on the beach, is this really happening, is the
doctor really mad?
Is it a ploy?
Has the content been manipulated?
And Eric Saywood said, I don't know, go and ask the writer.
And the writer Philip Martin said, I don't know, go ask Eric.
See, I think that story is problematic because I think the script
and again, I've really only noticed it this time, I think the
script is quite clear what's happening.
And I think what's definitely happening is that it is a ploy that
the doctor is pretending to be in with the mentors in order to get
close enough to them, to shut the thing down.
And that also, as the doctor says, pretty much everything the
doctor says in, I think it's episode 3 about what's going on is
actually what's going on.
So the matrix evidence is altered.
And I think the most obvious place where it's clearly being
altered is when Perry's tied up and being menaced by the doctor
and the doctor bends in and sort of conspiratorially speaks to
Perry.
And we all expect, and I think this is a very well written scene
as well.
We all expect him to say, no, no, it's a ploy just playing along
but he doesn't.
And I think that we're meant to understand that that's been
altered.
Yes.
And it's a real gut punch.
It really works terribly well, except I think that scene is
awful.
Yeah, I agree with you.
Not technically awful.
But I didn't really want to see it.
You know, we've seen back in the twin dilemma, the doctor being
horrible to Perry, and I don't think we need to see it ever
again.
No, and particularly Perry being tied up and physically menaced
again.
Again.
As a younger fan.
I struggled with this story because when the doctor gets brains
out.
Yeah.
Like, I'm very linear when it comes to things.
And so when I originally watched this and for many years, it was
sort of like, well, from this point to this point is when the
Matrix is lying.
And it's only really this time through that I've actually worked
out and gone, well, no, the Matrix, sometimes is actually telling
you the complete truth, and you can see it in Colin's performance
like it's actually very doctor-ish, like in certain scenes. and
you go, yeah, yeah, doctor.
Then there's other scenes where he's quite blank and you kind of
think, well, maybe there's some sort of bit of, you know
manipulation there, but not too much, just a slight sort of, you
know, something's happened.
And then there's the full on, it's been completely changed.
And it used to do my head in to try and work out when that was
happening.
And it is also, you know, the Doctor Who tradition is that up
until a new series, everything was sort of presented to you as if
you were there.
You know, everything was deliberately representational.
You never got any German expressionism in the sense that what we
were meant to be seeing was reality and it wasn't really being
distorted by the points of view of the characters.
And this breaks that rule.
Because much of what we see doesn't happen.
But I actually think that there is a problem that Colin highlights
in that anecdote that you told Brendan, in that I don't think
Colin knows what's going on in the script.
And so consequently, the whole thing is muddied by a performance
that isn't really telling the story that the script is telling.
So Colin plays it in a bunch of different ways.
There's his really, really funny comedy way that he plays it
immediately after the episode one mind jolt thing where he, you
know, um, your carnos goes on about getting weapons and he goes
weapons, you know, we'll...
No you wouldn't.
And he's really funny and silly.
And, you know, that Colin Baker comic timing is perfect.
And that works, you know, we've just had his brain altered, and I
think probably that's intended to happen.
Then when he meets still in the induction centre, and he's like
super over the top pantomime.
I'm evil and I only look out for myself, which is not, it's not a
subtle or convincing performance.
And it's hard to know what's going on.
And then after that, he switches back to just being completely
doctor-ish.
Yes.
And quite likeable.
And like, I don't know what that middle performance is.
And then it's muddied by the fact that when the doctor shoots the
rock in episode one, he's clearly seen to point the gun at the
rock and deliberately press the button, and then he denies that on
the trial and says it was an accident.
And when he originally says it was a ploy, he's playing it like
he's lying or he's trying to convince himself.
Yeah, like he can't really remember.
He's come up with his story.
But that is, I think, what we're meant to understand is
happening.
But because Colin doesn't play it with any conviction, it kind of
muddies the waters.
And, you know, it is the director's job, I think, to have an
opinion and to direct Colin and say what's going on.
And that's why I can't agree with Brendan that this is well
directed by Ron Jones in every respect because it's his job to
work this out as the director.
And in my opinion, inform the lead actor what is actually going
on.
And the direction of that scene with Colin with the thing.
That would have been, you know, he is the director, should have
found a way to make that work.
Yeah, well, I mean, the way to make it work with the phaser being
accidentally discharged is to show the doctor holding the phaser
but then when the phaser goes off to have it off screen.
Well, I think the problem is that the phaser is a physical prop
where a button needs to be pressed in order for it to light up.
If like the doctor's fighting the rock, right?
And the phaser is above his head and then slowly he brings his arm
down to offscreen and then you hear the gun go off.
So you can't see whether it's deliberate.
You can't see whether it's deliberate or not.
I would like to think from an in universe point of view that that
is the 1st indication that stuff's been tampered with, but
unfortunately, I do have to agree with you there, Todd, that I
think it's just Ron Jones has screwed up a bit there, because
something we've discussed with Ron Jones is he's just, he's not as
stylistic as, say, Graham Harper or Fiona coming, you know, he
points the cameras and he shoots.
He's done a great job on the design here and for most of the
cast.
He's done a great job on characterisation.
I totally accept that column and he's dropped the ball there and
yeah, also with the phaser sequence.
Yeah.
But I mean, I'm going to go back.
To your point about Colin, I think there's a lot of lightness in
here.
I love his, like, the skedaddle test and the old young Crozier and
he gets the direction wrong where he's going and that's happened
in the previous story and will happen in the next story.
And I think it even happens in the 4 story.
Like this is this little...
Yeah, well, I think that that's one of his strengths is when he's
less competent, you know, he's super blustering and stuff, but
he's actually rather silly and a bit incompetent sometimes.
And I think he plays that so well and it is so terrifically
likeable.
And the other thing that he does, which I think you pointed out in
the live tweet, Brendan, is where the companion says, let's leave
or something like that.
And he just goes, hmm, and doesn't listen and sort of carries on
regardless.
And he doesn't seem obnoxious or arrogant there.
He just seems rather sweet and preoccupied.
He's in his own little world.
Yeah, yeah.
And I think all of those things are really good.
There's really a lot to say for this.
You brought up something about his, the face that he gives Sill in
episode 2 when the turncoat doctor.
And it's sort of, is it coquettish sort of face this turns and
looks at him, does this sort of look?
And I, every time I watch this, it always jumps out at me is why
are you giving that face?
Yeah.
Well, that whole pantomime thing where he says, oh, I look out for
myself now and all of that.
Like, still's not stupid.
I don't know what Colin is doing there.
And I don't find that to be necessary, Colin's fault.
The director needed to say, well, look, we're not going to use
that take.
We're gonna do something different.
And also too, when SIL offers the doctor later on his marshmallows
and the doctor takes that and there's his expression of absolute
disgust that comes over the doctor's face.
To me, that's always the point in the story where I kind of think
the doctor's brain suddenly, what the effect of that thing has
suddenly kicked it in like suddenly he's himself again, you know
it's just, it's just, in that moment, I just kind of go, you've
suddenly recovered.
Yeah, because that's the 1st indication to us that Colin is faking
it in order to impress Sill.
But I think the script is clear that all the way through Colin is
pretending to be cooperative in order to get close enough to the
mentors to bring them down.
And, you know, by the end, by episode 4 where he breaks your
carnos out of the cell and does the typical doctor-ish thing.
He's going to bring the mentors down, and of course, that's what
he was going to do all along because he's the doctor.
And unlike Philip Martin's previous script, it's going to give the
doctor a heroic moment in which he overthrows the government by
doing something positive, except that the trial, you know, blunders
in and wrecks the whole thing.
I have problems with the trial in this quite a bit because at
times, like in the 1st episode, the sagacity.
We get this word sagacity.
What does that actually mean?
It just means sort of wisdom.
Yeah, she's wise, sagacious.
You know, and the doctor complains about the actual trial again.
And so it sort of undermines it.
And then in episode 4 when everything goes wrong and sagacity
steps in to say what actually happened, I kind of think, is it
actually her dialogue, shouldn't it be the valid saying this is
because he's representing the high council, but she's saying it
and she's known it all along since the last 7 episodes, but said
you know, nothing to the doctor.
And so at times I kind of think she's actually working against the
doctor in these episodes.
I think it's just them dividing up the dialogue so that Michael
Jason doesn't have to do a big info dump at the end.
But you're right.
It's wrong to give her that dialogue. because she's the judge.
Not necessarily this should be the 1st time she knows about it, but
in order to be impartial, She needs to consider the evidence as it
happens, as it were, rather than having this preconceived thing
that she's going to pull out and say to the doctor, ah, but this
improper legal circles, the prosecution and defence share evidence
before they go into the courtroom.
Well, we've already established, I think, a. not properly... to
hear how trials were.
There's... years ago on Outpost Galafrail Gallifray Base, and I
apologise for bringing this up without remembering who you are.
So dear listener, if you're the person who came up with this idea
please let us know.
Someone said the way they would improve trial is that Mysterious
Planet and Mind Warp would just be ordinary Doctor Who stories, no
trial scenes whatsoever.
Then at the end of Mind Warp, the doctor gets abducted, and the
end of Mind Warp is, as we see what happens to Perry, but it's
also the doctor stumbling into the courtroom for the 1st time, and
them saying we had to intervene.
This has gone too far.
You are now on trial for your life.
At the beginning of the next episode, we have a recap of clips
from the 1st to 8 episodes and the trial of a time lord is only 6
episodes long as a season ender.
Someone on YouTube has actually re-edited the End of Mind Warp as
a cold open.
So with the doctor stumbling about and then being dragged into the
Tartars, and then into the space station, and then the titles kick
in.
Although I have to say that that scene, like the music, I think, in
that scene really, really sells it. and Colin just walking
backwards into the TARDIS and the music's really terrifying and
funereal.
And I actually think that it's very clear to us that something's
going to go wrong much, much earlier in the episode than the
doctor's abduction because the whole thing is set up as a race
isn't it?
Um, we know that Crozier wants to implant Kiv's brain in Perry's
body, but the doctor doesn't know that.
Crozier suggests it to the doctor and the doctor really
unconvincingly tries to tell him, and no, that's a terrible idea.
She's a woman, such a flippity.
Yes, yeah, but what he doesn't know is that he knows that Perry's
been taken from the cell, but he doesn't know that Crozier has
decided that she's a perfect donor and that he's going to go ahead
with it.
And so he lets your Karnos, gives your Karnos his head a bit and
you know, goes and frees the slaves and trades jokes with the
mentor and stuff like that.
And he's not moving urgently enough.
And so we're worried that he's going to come too late to save
Perry.
And the moment that they say shave her head, and then we can't
back to her and we see that her head's been shaved and she's in
that helmet.
It's kind of, what are they going to do?
Like, that's really it.
And so for about half the episode, if not more, we know that this
story is going horrifically wrong.
And I think we'll talk about whether we think this is a good idea
or not later, but it's so good and so terrifying for such a long
time.
You know, it's the 1st time that um, you know, that this show has
made me feel so, so incredibly anxious, um, just watching it.
And my 1st experience watching it.
Do you remember when it 1st came out, Todd, it was shown on
Saturday night and they edited 2 episodes?
double episodes, wasn't it?
Yeah, so there are cliffhangers, all of the odd-numbered stories
episode cliffhangers I actually don't know as well because I
watched this over and over again.
But I recorded it and I'd had terrible experiences trying to
record Doctor Who. still really angry about snake dance episode
one, which I thought I would never, ever get to see again when the
video failed.
So I had to walk the dog while it was on.
And so I walked the dog.
I got back home.
I saw that the tape had recorded, so I just rewound it a few
minutes to see whether it had recorded okay.
And Colin said, you killed Perry.
So I've never watched this kind of unspoiled, unfortunately.
It's so funny because when I was watching this as a kid, we had to
go out to somebody else's house for a dinner party.
So I had to record it.
And I didn't set it correctly.
I didn't, you know, VCR things were very new.
Do you know what they are, listeners?
Do you know what they are?
But luckily when we were over there, one of they had one kid
similar age.
And so I managed to wrangle, we need to watch Doctor Who.
So I actually managed to watch it.
I mean, if I hadn't have watched it, then I wouldn't have got to
watch it.
That was how I watched episode some 13 and 14 and we had to go to
someone's place and they heard that I'd been watching this for 6
weeks and it was the final episode and they kind of had pity on me
and let me watch it.
This is when I had great difficulty watching as a child, not
because I didn't have it, but just because the visuals of the
opening episode and those dark colours and the rock and sort of
you can't quite see what's happening in the fight thing.
That all scared me so much.
I have a memory of the 1st time I tried to rewatch it because I
think I mentioned with Frontier, so it was a handful of Doctor Who
stories, which I didn't watch for about 5 or 6 years because they
had scared me so much.
And this was one of them.
And when I was on this particular rewatch, there was a massive
storm brewing outside and I was sitting on the sofa under a Duna
my parents were out somewhere.
I think it must have been school holidays.
And yeah, so watching Mind Walk with a massive storm raging
outside.
It was brilliant.
Brendan, you're not allowed to watch that one.
It does begin very brightly, however, on the beach.
I think that's kind of unsuccessful, but I'm grateful that they
attempted it.
And I think the planet in the distance behind the TARDIS looks
terrific.
You know, they were trying new technology again, which, of course
they used also the beginning of episode one.
They're trying to push the envelope on those things.
They do that more successfully in greater show in the galaxy a
couple of years later with the planet in the background.
But here all the blues and the pinks all blend in, so you can't
tell half the time what's going on.
But it's nice to have some outside location work.
Yeah I agree.
Can we talk about some of the other characters?
Sure.
Go for it.
So I like the leucosa.
I think he looks fantastic.
I think the makeup is really strong.
He's a werewolf.
Hey, it's a great performance.
Yeah.
And makeup is also, I think, pretty, it stands up today.
I think so too.
And the fact that he always has his mouth open, like that's the
actor doing it, he's always baring those teeth so you can see them
all the time.
And that little bit where, you know, Carnos and he fights over
Perry, like where Perry's patting the dog and and Jochanus kind of
turns on him for paving like a dog and he just goes jealous, you
know.
Like all of that's very sweet.
I think he's a really, really good character and a great
performance and I'm really kind of sad when he dies. yeah, yeah.
And Brian's reaction as he a carnos to that.
Like, he's clearly grieving, but at the same time, he's kind of
happy that his friend has died a warrior's death.
Like he deserves.
That's a wonderful scene, actually, because he's really he's
really shaken.
Yeah, yeah.
I often think that critics of this particular story just go, oh
Yukanos is like so over the top and just dominates everything.
But when you actually watch this show, Yes, there's the big
moments, but then he pulls it back and there's a warmth and
there's a real character going on there and I really like what he
does.
I think he's extremely good.
And it's something that Brian Blessed always does very well.
I mean, not when he's the king in Blackadder, but when he's
Augustus in I Claudius, sometimes he's hugely big and bombastic
and terrifying and loud.
But he's got that very soft voice that he does where he pictures
it a little bit higher, and he does this as Jocanos, and I think
he's extremely good.
And I think pairing him with Nicola Bryant is genius.
It's extraordinary.
Like her performance in this entire story is phenomenal.
Perry, the way which Perry is written and combining her with him
and just the whole interaction.
And, you know, you look at the interviews on the disc and how he's
you know, Brian just talks about, you kind of been in love with
Perry, but of course Nicola's going, I don't buy it.
But in the performance, I actually buy it, that there is a
connection there and he loves her and maybe she can learn to love
him.
Like, I can see why later on, decisions are then made to try and
make a lovey dovey.
I can see why they, you know, we're going to try and wrap it up in
a bow, but it's a great dynamic.
Yeah, I agree.
And giving her in her last story, someone like him to play off.
Like, if you think about it as, as, you know, Perry's story, the
last time she really sees the doctor, the doctor's betraying her
and that's kind of awful, and that he doesn't come through and
save her.
But Jocanos and her are really funny, like she bosses him around.
She gives as good as she gets.
She's still kind of scared of him.
But that scene, you know, the way that she tells him off, the way
that she uh, she sort of patronises him.
And then that scene, and it's super cheesy and corny, you know
what is this earth thing you call love, that final scene, and the
music is kind of treakly and stuff, but it is so good.
And she's so terrific in it.
It's the best example I've seen of that kind of, what is this
other thing you call love scene because they don't come to the
same understanding of what love is, but they just accept what the
other person's saying.
Like that wonderful bit where, yeah, he passionately believes in
why fighting is a good thing and he makes a good case for it.
And then he says, and then when we die, we fight some more, and
she just laughs her head off.
Yeah, of course you do.
And it is also, because it's so dark and doom laden at that point
she kind of exposes his whole belief system as just sort of
fundamentally futile and sort of crazy, but the response to that
is just to laugh at how absurd it is.
And he laughs and there's a real warmth between them.
It's a really, really great scene, which could, like on paper look
you know, horrifically cheesy.
And then the other thing, when she's taken out of that cell.
And I think they spoil this for me like completely in episode 12.
But that scene where he says die well, my lady.
And she's leaving, and being very brave, and they touch one
another's hands.
I think he's so good.
And for such a big cartoon character is your Canos, to dial it
back so much and to have a little bit of sort of realism and
warmth there.
I think is really good.
You know, if you've got the opportunity to cast Brian blessed to
do something like that, then you do it.
You know, he's really good.
It's astounding that he'd never been in Doctor Who before, and
he's really good in this.
There's a real strength to pair in this, which harks back to
Planet of Fire.
Like, you know, the spunk that she had back then.
And you can see the maturity in the character now, especially in
laughing with Yakana.
So, you know, once you probably would have not reacted that way.
Yeah, and I just think Nicola just, you know, this is this is her
moment.
Yeah.
And it, of course, leads up to the horrific death and her being
actually Nicola playing Kiv.
Yeah, so this is horrible.
She's like mentally annihilated and then has her body taken over
by a creepy old man, and this is just the culmination of the many
creepy old men that had wanted to get their hands on her body, and
it is, you know, exactly where the character's been going right
since her 1st episode.
She exists to be manhandled by men and it's awful.
And, you know, we complained that Liz Sladen's character had a
terrible time travelling with the doctor, but no one has had a
worse time than Perry.
And no one's bodily autonomy has been threatened in the way that
Perry's has.
And this is the culmination of all of that.
But her performances Kyiv is actually nothing like Christopher
Ryan, who's really funny and silly and a great comedy role.
So there's a sense in which it doesn't work in the story.
But it's a grotesque and terrifying performance which she pulls
off in the most amazing way.
And her final line when your carnos breaks in, which again is
heartbreaking given the tender way that they parted and what he's
forced to do.
Like, it's such a good choice, and it is, again, giving the chance
for Nicola to do some really, really fabulous, terrifying acting
and to drop the accent as well.
Protect me or I'm your lord and master.
Yeah, yeah.
And really well played by Brian Blessed as well, who has to have a
big reaction to it, but he doesn't just scream no, like he's Ewan
McGregor shouting at a green screen.
His face crumples and he shuts his eyes.
He doesn't want to see it and then he jumps into action and just
destroys everything because there's no point anymore.
Um, the conclusion I came to with this one is just, it's actually
a really, really, really well-made Doctor Who story. which should
never have been made.
Yeah, it's a horrific mistake.
And I think it's bizarre.
Look, I think killing the companions is always, always a bad
idea.
And they kind of get away with it with Adric because he's part of
an ensemble and because no one really liked him very much.
But with Perry, she's been a character that we've known for a long
time.
She's been someone that we like and is plucky.
We've got a backstory, you know, she's a student, she was
travelling.
And like I believe that what you need to do with the companions is
to show that travelling with a doctor makes their lives better.
And they don't always successfully do that in the new series, but
that seems to be kind of the idea.
I don't think the companion should look back on their time with
the doctor and regret it.
Because, you know, like I want to travel with the doctor and you
want to travel with the doctor.
Yes, yes.
And like if they don't appreciate it, it was like what we said
about having a reluctant Tegan, you know, we want to travel with a
doctor.
If Tegan doesn't want to travel with a doctor, we don't like her
but we can't sympathise with her.
And so that's a problem and they eventually solve it with Tegan
because they drop all that nonsense quite soon.
But having this likeable companion, the only companion who's
travelling with the doctor at the moment, the only person who saw
him regenerate from Pete into Colin, you know, the doctor's only
friend.
This is not a time where there are secondary tertiary characters
that the doctor knows.
And to do that to her in the most horrifying way possible, I just
think is a really, really bad mistake.
And it's something that the show hasn't done since.
Like the show has had upsetting companion departures and sort of
slap dash crappy companion departures as we see next year.
But this is a big nasty, cynical mistake.
Do you think because of the nature of the trial and what they're
trying to go for, like all roads led to this point because of the
way in which he set it up and wanted it to happen?
Well, I think they choose, like they choose to do a story where
the trial breaks into the show and ruins it.
And, you know, so they fridge her in order to make the doctor
upset in the next story.
And they throw it away much worse than they do in, um, oh, what's
the plasmaton story, Brendan?
Time fly.
You know, where we're all off to the Great Exhibition and we've
completely forgotten Adrik 5 minutes in.
And they even lampshade that, you know, at the beginning of terror
of the vervoids where the Valiard complains that we've just, you
know, he's a new companion.
Yeah, that's right.
And we're supposed to assume that some time has passed.
The doctor's been off preparing his defence.
The court's been in recess.
We haven't, you know, there's been weeks or whatever.
And that's cheating.
That's not good enough.
And it is kind of an admission that really we're not interested in
the companion as a person or as a character.
And the introduction of Mel, and we'll talk about this next week
really kind of cements that.
You know, we don't really care what her relationship with the
doctor is provided there's a woman to be kind of captured and
menaced and scream and ask the doctor questions.
We're fine.
Yeah, the problem is, if you look at, say, Star Trek Next
Generation, which at this stage is just around the corner, in the
1st year of that, we have skin of evil, where Tashi Yar is killed
midway through an episode, and even though the plot has to be
resolved, the nature of the show then allows them to discuss
Tasha's death and have a funeral scene at the end.
And it's also not forgotten.
There are several episodes after that that bring up Tasha.
Like her sister is in an episode when data is asked about his
humanity.
He relates the fact that he and Tasha were briefly involved and
he's also reluctant to, so, you know, she's a real person.
After the best of both worlds, where Picard is kind of killed and
resurrected as a Borg and then brought back.
We have a whole episode dealing with the emotional fallout of
that.
Doctor Who doesn't do that.
Doctor Who can't do that by its nature of being this series where
we go off and have rollicking adventures.
Even in the new series.
Okay, so Rose's dad dies, Pete Tyler, we kind of have some stuff
dealing with that, but even then it's just 5 minutes in an episode
and it's to move the plot along.
Donna's death of personality.
You know, again, we don't have a cliffhanger leading into the next
doctor.
By the time in the next doctor, we're meant to believe some time
has passed.
With Amy and Rory dying, if you like.
Again, some time passes before the next episode.
When Clara dies, the doctor gets his memory wipe.
So the show, the show sets up these whole things of companions
dying or being in some way inaccessible and not being able to
continue their relationship with the doctor.
But because of the nature of the show that all has to be swept
under the carpet.
It's actually a problem with the very premise of the show, isn't
it?
So when the show starts and the doctor can't control the TARDIS
then he can't go back and see how Barbara and Ian are going on
earth and he can't drop them off.
And then once he can control the Tartars, he kind of becomes a
horrible person for never going back for Sarah Jane Smith.
He has to drop her off.
He's got no choice, but he could go back and visit it, but he
chooses not to.
And the new show tries to interrogate that, but not really very
successfully, certainly not in a way that makes the doctor not
appear callous.
And you have this series of companions in the new series who
declare openly that they'll never stop travelling with the
doctor.
And so they have to be prevented from travelling with him in these
sort of increasingly complicated and baroque ways.
I think that maybe Martha's departure is handled the best.
I agree with you with that.
She makes a choice.
Yeah, and it's not that she doesn't like the doctor or she regrets
her time with the doctor, but something inherent in her character
which is looking after people, the 1st time we see Martha, she's
managing her family on the phone and that's what she leaves to
do.
And it's a choice that's presented as a positive choice, something
that she should do, is leave the doctor to look after her family.
Andrew Hodson, friend of the podcast, has a theory which he calls
contract roulette, which is the companion will just leave on
whatever planet the story happens to be set when their contract
runs out.
And that explains Stephen.
It is the only explanation for what happens to Mel.
Yep, it's literally the explanation for what happens to Vicky.
Yeah, yeah.
And Dodo.
Ben and Polly?
Ben and Polly.
Yeah, you know, they just leave wherever they happen to be.
And it works out for Ben and Polly.
It kind of works out for Doto because that story is on earth.
It's weird that even at this stage of the program, they would
never think to shoot something on a city street that just goes for
5 minutes where the doctor drops someone off at the end of a story
like he does to Rory and Amy in the god complex.
And I guess he does that to Sarah.
Yeah, I mean, it was after Mind was produced, but not that long
after because the ultimate foe was actually shot next.
Episodes 13 and 14 was shot after this.
And it was during the production of that, that JNT said, oh, maybe
we've gone a bit far and let's add in that stupid little love
heart vignette.
And that's that scene which I talked about before.
That's the die well, my lady, see.
And I think that's ruined by that marriage thing.
And I think the marriage compounds the problem that Perry has, for
all of her run, been someone that men lust over, and that's what
happens to her.
She gets married off.
I have a problem with it because she's essentially disappears from
a holiday and she's never seen her again.
You know?
Like her family get no closure, you know?
And there's no thought about that.
You know, if they're going to do it, maybe they could have just
said something along the lines, like you actually defeated the
mentors and saved Perry, but she wanted to leave.
She'd had enough.
You returned it to earth.
And, you know, and not they couldn't have shot that.
Do you know what I mean?
Like, it's not like they couldn't have shot that.
But I guess the problem with that is that there were so many
problems with Eric Saywood leaving and having to get Pip and Jane
to write an episode in 4 days and, you know, all that sort of
thing.
So, you know, but again, it comes down to the fact that this whole
season should have been completely written before a single frame
was shocked.
Yeah, exactly.
They had the time.
You know, if they'd thought 3 weeks before, when they did
eventually think of, oh, you know, let's marry Perry off to Brian
Blessed, if they'd thought of it while they were still shooting
Mind Warp, they could have said, you know what, let's shoot a
scene where the doctor bursts into the lab and grabs Perry and
runs out again and tag that on the end of part 14.
Yeah.
You know, the doctor says to Male, right?
I'm dropping you off in your proper timeline and then there's
something I have to do.
But the show isn't interested in the stories of the characters at
this point.
They really just perform a plot function.
And I think even at the time, that was kind of unsatisfactory
particularly, I think, because JNT had done such a good job at the
beginning of the 80s, making us care about the characters.
Again, you know, like Nissa leaves in terminus because of contract
roulette.
But they do kind of sort of attempt to set up her departure.
And I think we talked in the actual episode about how they could
have done that better, how they could have given her a bit more
agency rather than just, I'm staying here because they're not
going to pay me next week.
But, you know, Turlow's departure is sort of well set.
Tegan has given a great leaving scene, which critiques the program
you know, and works really well.
Niss is a rival as well handled.
Tegan's arrival as well handled, all of that stuff about the
companions, which is kind of, I think, a reaction against the sort
of rather slapdash approach that Graham Williams had taken. you
know, I'll wait, we forgot to book Mary for next year.
You know, we, oh, we forgot to book John Leason for next year.
You know, like that was all sort of very slapdash and there's, of
course, the, you know, horrifically insulting departure of Leila
which is just appalling.
So John Nathan Turner does a good job of that at the beginning, but
now it's just all gone to hell, I think, in the trial.
And the trial is also the 1st time, too, that Doctor Who hasn't
been a series of adventures presented chronologically.
The 1st time explicitly that we now have a whole bunch of Doctor
Who stuff that we haven't seen and things that we haven't seen
properly and things that we have to conjecture happened because
the show's been careless or presented out of order.
So like Mel's arrival is never seen, for instance, and that's a
mess.
And we never see them getting to know one another. you know, we
don't know what happens after he leaves the trial.
Like there's a big kind of hole in the kind of story that's told
by Doctor Who as a result of the trial.
Yes.
It's a mess.
We've said that last week.
The trial part of this is a mess.
Yeah, yeah.
Only you talked about the incidental music and how wonderful do
you think it is?
I'm not as enamoured with it in this story.
I like the stuff at the end, but the actual transition from the
trial back into the evidence.
There's this sting that he uses in this story.
Actually, they do it in all three, but in this one, there's this
diddle-lun, or something like that.
I don't know what it is, but every time I watch this story, I
actually get a headache, halfway through episode three, it's
just...
I think it's because you're channelling the mentor from episode
four.
I have no idea, but that piece of music just drives me insane for
the rest of the story.
Something I actually quite like about the some, a couple of the
trial room scenes in this one.
There's one particular one where we come back to the trial room
and we're focussing on the screen and Colin jumps up into shot and
the camera moves over to him and the composited shot of what's
happening on the trial screen moves in the correct way as well.
And Colin says, I don't remember that.
It's one of the very few dynamic shots in this courtroom set and
it works well.
I think too, the scene where Perry is picking her way through the
sea and then we come back to the trial room and the vision
continues on the screen while some kind of action and dialogue is
going on in the trial.
That's the 1st time we've seen that.
That doesn't happen in the mysterious planet.
But in spite of that, I think that the trial scenes are more
ineptly directed than they were in Mysterious Planet.
I agree with you because you get to see the black floor and the
joins with the wall. and it's just like, really?
Like, you know, I think Nicholas Mellon was trying not to show
that, but Ron just plonks the camera and there it is.
I think we said last week, didn't we, that it would have been
better to have the trial scenes directed consistently by one
director.
That's right.
And you know, bring in a really good director to do that.
Bring him Graham Harper or Fiona coming, even though you're giving
them a pretty rubbish job to do.
Give it to someone who will, if you like overdirect those scenes
and not just go, right, it's a room with 3 walls, they'll go, right
well, what if I, you know, what if I shoot from down here and hold
the camera up at a 45 degree angle and that sort of thing?
Because all you've got is 3 people standing or sitting in boxes
talking and you've got to do something with that.
Ratings.
They did go up.
So after last week's disaster of 3.7, it jumps up to 4.8.
Then it drops back to 4.6, 5.one and 5 million.
So it takes 7 episodes to break the 5000000 barrier and it sort of
places, the 1st episode 76, the rest are all in the 80s.
Is the publicity at the time, you know, that a new story is
starting?
A new piece of evidence?
Because it is a sort of a part one sort of spike, isn't it?
So they try and sell it like, it's a new story, but you've still
got that whole trial. five, part six, part seven, part eight.
Yeah, no, I mentioned last week, the thing before Doctor Who
wasn't even on the chart.
So Doctor Who's doing this heavy lifting to try and get the
audience to watch.
But anyway, you know, it takes, as I said, 7 episodes to break
that 5000000 barrier.
But at least it's gone up from the threes.
So overall, like, if you were giving a mark of this story out of
10, what is a place for you, like, as a story?
For me, it places at a six.
And that's mainly because of the ending.
If the ending had later been modified with the doctor actually
rescuing Perry, I'd rate this story much higher.
It's a bit like in the new series, Sleep No More, when they were
talking about doing a sequel for Sleep No More, to actually
explain what was going on in it, I reserved judgement on it, but
Mark Gaterson said, no, we're not doing a sequel.
So Sleep No More is in my bottom 5 Doctor Who stories of all
time.
Mind Warp isn't.
You know, mind warp, it's, for me, a 6 out of 10 because there are
so many things it actually does well and so many good elements of
it.
It just falls apart in the last 5 minutes because it's going
against the traditions of Doctor Who.
But it's not critiquing the traditions of Doctor Who.
It's just saying, how about we do a story where we kill the
companion because um, an external force acts on the doctor?
Okay, lunch.
If you're gonna break the conventions of Doctor, in the way
Earthshock did.
You have to think about why you're doing it because Earth Shock
gives Adric a journey.
It gives a foreshadowing to what's going to happen.
Mindwarp gives a foreshadowing to what's going to happen to Perry
but also everything in the plot implies that, no, no, that's not
going to happen.
That's not going to happen.
And then it pulls out the rug from under you.
And it feels unfair to the viewer.
The 1st 95 minutes of this story are presenting a different idea
to the last 5 minutes.
And there's not enough critique of the convention, the doctor, to
justify the bait and switch.
I can't give it a mark out of 10.
No, no, no, no.
I never do, but I think it's mostly well directed by Ron Jones
certainly better than his previous story.
It's better than Philip Martin's previous story.
I think the sets look great.
I think Colin is good despite the flaws in his performance, which
weren't his fault.
I think the music's good.
I think pairing up Perry and Brian Blessed is a stroke of genius.
Seal is great.
Christopher Ryan as Kiv is great.
I think it's got an enormous amount going for it.
And I would put it up there in Colin Baker stories with 2 doctors
or Revelation of the Daleks.
I think it's an extremely good story, but I think it's massively
horrible and cynical and it really, really exemplifies everything
that I hate about this particular era.
So like I enjoy watching it.
I enjoy experiencing that feeling of impending doom.
I think it's amazing, but it's such a bad idea.
I agree with like 90% of what you're saying.
I'd probably, by the end of it, my head, as I said, I get a
headache and I'm always, I feel it's a bit all over the place.
I love so many elements of it and there's other things where I'm
well, basically the trial stuff where I'm going, yeah, really.
So I'm getting this one a 6.8.
Which is down from my 7.5 from last week.
So very finely calibrated.
I am very finally calibrated on these ones.
For me, this is the weakest segment of the trial.
And I thought that's something I'd never say.
Well, there is now we're taking off from Forrest.
Beta, I think.
I'm not sure.
I can't quite remember.
But please come back next week, as I think we all deserve a bit of
a cruise, so I booked us all some cabins on the Hyperion 3.
Don't worry about your room numbers, because we'll just be able to
get into any room we like.
Anyway.
Do come back for that.
You can find us at flight through entirety.sexy, flight through
entirety on Facebook and iTunes and at FTE podcast on Twitter.
This week, we also announce our upcoming Tom Baker commentary, and
the 4 options are...
The hand of fear.
The Sunmakers, The Stones of Blood.
And the horns of Nimon.
You can find a link to the poll in the show notes and also at
flightthroughentirety.sexy.
Over on Bondfinger, we are in the midst of the Timothy Dalton era
so that's Bondfinger.com, Bondfinger on Facebook and iTunes and
Bondfinger cast on Twitter.
Until then, may none of your borrowed bodies be obsessed with
fish.
Thank you very much for listening and good night.
Good night.
See you soon.
That was Flight 3 Entirety, starring Todd Bealby, Nathan Bottomley
and Brendan Jones, theme arrangement by Cameron Lamb.
This episode, Dark Colours, was recorded on the 1st of April
2017.
The next episode will be released on the 14th of May.
This episode is dedicated to the memory of Moray Watson, who
passed away this week, and who was so lovely and charming in Black
Orchid.
Thanks, Sir Robert.
You were a hoot.
Mind Warp, 1st of April, 2017.
Maybe we should have a 1st of April kind of joke, another thing.
The new doctor's going to be played by.
This is the best show in the history of Doctor Who.
Sorry, April Fool.
No, Bob just said, I preferred to Trial of Time Order is the best
story of the 1980s and I just had to refrain from saying, really
you know, the competition isn't all that.
But the competition does include enlightenment, for God's sake.
Oh, let's see.
Snake dance.
Like through entirety, April, April fool's gag.
We're finally having a homosexual of the show.
Imagine that.
Applied to Entirety has its 1st straight companion.
Today is heterosexual day here at Flight.
That's it. scratching my balls as we speak.
Oh, great. you recording this?
And it's up to him whether it goes in or not.
We're in trouble.
Okay.