Review of The Mind Robber (#45)

DVD Release Date: 06 Sep 05
Original Air Date: 14 Sep – 12 Oct 1968
Doctors/Companions: Two, Jamie McCrimmon, Zoe Heriot
Stars: Patrick Troughton, Fraser Hines, Wendy Padbury
Preceding Story: The Dominators (Two, Jamie, Zoe)
Succeeding Story: The Invasion (Two, Jamie, Zoe)

When I drew up my schedule for this year’s series of review posts and settled on Hidden Gems as a theme, I was delighted when it rolled back around to the Second Doctor’s turn. Although The Mind Robber may be considered mid-list, I have often used it as one of the better adventures for introducing new viewers to Troughton. There are enough bizarre twists and story conceits to keep it fresh. It also doesn’t hurt that even though there are five episodes, they only total about 99 minutes.

As the Doctor, Jaime, and Zoe watch lava begin to surround the TARDIS (the cliffhanger from the end of The Dominators), the fluid link malfunctions, forcing the Doctor to make a risky flight decision. The crew ends up somewhere outside of time and space, a featureless void that really saves on set costs leaves them wandering lost when someone lures them outside the TARDIS.

Soon our heroes encounter all sorts of odd creatures and people, in surroundings that seem to operate primarily on puzzles and words. Poor Jaime gets turned into a cardboard cutout of himself, his face missing, and the Doctor has to put his face back from puzzle pieces. Of course, he flubs the job, giving Jaime a new face (and conveniently giving an on-screen excuse for replacing Fraser Hines with Hamish Wilson for the episode, while Fraser recovered from chicken pox).

The Doctor soon deduces that they are in some sort of Land of Fiction, which is why one of their new friends (who turns out to be Lemuel Gulliver of Gulliver’s Travels) speaks so oddly: he can only use the words his author has given him. Worse, their foe is trying either to get the Doctor to replace him as the creative force behind the scenes or to trap the TARDIS crew in the words, turning them into characters themselves.

The sheer metatextual irony of fictional characters within a TV show bemoaning the fact that they’re about to be turned into fictional characters in a(n in-universe) written story is simply mind-boggling. It wouldn’t take many more fractal layers of story-within-a-story’ing to really give one a headache.

But it’s also delightful because if you’re a Doctor Who fan (or at least a fan of Troughton’s era), it actually takes a while for it all to sink in. The viewers have immersed ourselves so thoroughly in the show that at first we simply share the Doctor’s horror that he, Jaime, and Zoe might soon lose their free will—their very existence—and become nothing more than ideas in someone else’s story. Only when we pause for a moment does it dawn on us how meta that actually is.

And that, of course, is the beauty of a good story. Blurring the line between the imagination and reality is what keeps us coming back for more. Even when it gets weird.