The original TV soundtrack, with new linking narration by a member of the cast, this 6-part adventure from 1971 stars Jon Pertwee as the Doctor with Katy Manning as his companion Jo Grant. The Doctor is caught up in events at Stangmoor Prison, where Professor Keller’s new machine is said to be able to remove all evil impulses from the minds of the prisoners. Nicholas Courtney and Roger Delgado also star as the Brigadier and the Master.
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Doctor Who in an “action packed” prison drama Jon Pertwee’s second year on DOCTOR WHO is generally less well regarded than his first, which is odd because it ends with a story which is widely regarded as something of a DOCTOR WHO classic – THE DAEMONS. Maybe the fact that the main villain in this year’s run of stories is always the Master has something to do with it, but in THE MIND OF EVIL, that has yet to become the established form and so it remains a cracking story in its own right, stylistically rather a throwback to the more “adult” styles and themes developed in the previous year, and as it might be some time before this story does come out on DVD due to the amount of restoration work required, this is a very welcome audio release to have.In story terms it would seem that about a year has passed since the events of the previous story, the season opener TERROR OF THE AUTONS and the Master (in the guise of one Professor Emil Keller) has set himself up as the inventor of a seemingly widely used “humane” alternative to capital punishment, the Keller Machine which is in reality an alien mind parasite that lives off the evil sucked from men’s minds. Or something. Anyway, the Doctor wants to attend the demonstration of this machine at the notorious fortress prison at Stangmoor, which is where the story begins. Meanwhile, UNIT are trying to dispose of an illegal nerve gas missile whilst trying to keep things calm at a particularly delicate World Peace conference.Over the course of these six episodes (squashed tightly onto 2 CDs) DOCTOR WHO shows its most action packed side with the plottings of the Master as he tries to juggle his dealings with the Keller machine to get control of Stangmoor in order to get his hands on the missile. Never one for a simple solution, that Master. There’s plenty of action and more than one bizarre assassination along the way – men drowning in bare rooms or being scratched to death by imaginary rats (very Orwellian!) – and it all rattles along to a relatively sensible conclusion where the various story strands are woven together. Also, it’s never handled in a particularly gruesome – or nightmare inducing – way and remains firmly within the boundaries of general acceptable taste that the programme always aspired to and the moral code the Doctor always maintained remains intact despite this unusual rather gritty “real world” intrusion into the series’ style.Some people find Jon Pertwee’s Doctor to be hard work and it’s true that he can be a bit blunt, authoritarian or even pompous at times, but his ability to take control over a situation and general air of anger at the stupidity on display by the human species is pretty strong stuff. People more used to more recent interpretations of the role might need to be reminded that, given time, you can warm to him, and his stories are never less than entertaining. For a lot of people of a certain age, he will always be fondly regarded as THEIR Doctor.Nicholas Courtney as the rather avuncular Brigadier Lethbridge Stewart gets one of his finest scenes here as he disguises himself as a delivery man in order to gain access to a prison overrun by its inmates. Katy Manning who plays the Doctor’s companion Jo Grant provides her usual sterling support and in fact Jo’s character was rarely better served than in this her second story. Richard Franklin as Captain Yates and John Levene as Sgt Benton cement their respective places as popular supporting characters. There are also excellent guest performances from some television stalwarts like Neil McCarthy (who gives a lovely and rather touching performance as Barnum, one of the criminals sentenced to be a victim of the machine), Michael Sheard (as a rather likeable Doctor) and William Marlowe who, as Mailer plays one of the nastier characters that was ever to be seen in the series.Richard Franklin performs the (sometimes quite complex) narration very well, helping to smooth over the more visual aspects of some of the strong action sequences, of which there are many, for this was the story that rather defined on-screen action in the series, an element which does sadly rather get lost in the audio format. Three episodes to a disc does mean that the enjoyable little interview with him is very brief and is tucked away in 2 short bursts at the end of each disc and doesn’t tell you very much.The audio format does generally serve this era of the series very well as it allows you to enjoy the strong stories without being distracted by the shortcomings of the studio production, but sadly the “action” aspect of this particular story does mean that it is less well served here, but as an introduction to early 1970s DOCTOR WHO, it’s still quite a lot of fun and worth a go.
I bought this for a ‘friend’ who is quite a fan of Jon Pertwee. And of Michael Sheard, come to that – especially in his more shouty, moody roles. This one doesn’t quite qualify on that score, as he plays a rather kind (ie. wet) prison doctor. But he does get locked in a prison cell with Jo (as indeed, separately, does Jon Pertwee) for some considerable time which, I am reliably informed by my ‘friend’, makes her A Damn Lucky Woman. Her incarceration with The Doctor makes her Even Luckier, apparently. I’m not sure that the writers planned for an audience interpretation quite like that, but there we are.Anyway, this particular episode of the television series is currently the only one of Mr Pertwee’s yet to be released on DVD. My ‘friend’ would probably be a bit more put out by that fact if Mr Sheard were playing one of his more sinister creations because, let’s face it, you can’t ogle an actor much when you pause him on CD now, can you?It is one of the best written episodes, involving some quite serious Earthbound tensions between The Doctor and The Master. Oh, and the Brigadier’s presence completes the triumvirate of ‘Real Men’ (or so I am told). The only thing is, this soundtrack is rather too heavy on the commentary (it is being provided by the man who played Captain Yates, but even so…). Surely anyone who listens to this is the sort of person who can tell what episode of Doctor Who they are dealing with from just one bar of the theme tune? They hardly need to know every single move that every single character makes.Even with the commentary, it is impossible to convey the horrors of The Doctor’s experiences with The Keller Machine, a sinister creation that can read minds and uses the information it discovers for evil (sort of like a wife really. Or a taxman). Nothing Major Yates insists on relaying to us can really give us an accurate mental image of Jon Pertwee being tied to a chair ( that chair is quite ‘Lucky’ too, apparently) while the Keller Machine extracts all his nightmares about electronic bird scarers, The Crowman and a gigantic bonfire. Or maybe it was Daleks, Tom Baker and the hell of the ‘Inferno’… I’ll have to go and have another listen.