Cheap Doctor Who - The Mind Robber (Video) Price

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Customer Reviews of Doctor Who - The Mind Robber

I wish I believed in wishing wells
The Mind Robber is classic Who. It's really one of the absolute best. It stands out for a number of reasons. First is that it's the one story in the whole 26-season run of the show that is the most unlike all the others in almost every way. It actually looks and feels more like a Twilight Zone episode than a Doctor Who story. Second is that it's endlessly imaginative. It's like following the Doctor down the rabbit hole into a brilliant script by Lewis Carroll inhabited by minotaur, gorgons, Gulliver, and riddles. It's also extraordinarily well made, and includes some of the best and creepiest sound effects in all of Doctor Who (the sound of the toy soldiers walking, the large, creaking doors, the eerie white robots, etc.). Here's another reason: normally the Doctor seems pretty comfortable in the face of emergency. He's been all over time and space. Normally the companions are scared while the Doctor is not. Here we have something different: the Doctor is terrified. He doesn't know what to expect, he's never faced such an obstacle before, he's confused, and all he knows is that he "needs to fight." He's scared to death, and in Troughton's brilliant performance, it really shows. The Mind Robber came together so extremely well almost out of pure chance alone. The first episode was improvised by the script editor. He had issues with the previous story, The Dominators, and decided to scrap its last episode while adding another episode to the beginning of The Mind Robber. The white "nothingness" that is shown in the first episode came to be chiefly because of budget constraints. The eerie robots that Zoe and Jamie encounter were constructed for another BBC show and were found in a warehouse. Troughton, then complaining about Who's rigorous shooting schedule, nevertheless turned in one of his greatest performances as the Doctor. The brilliant segment in which the Doctor accidentally (and hilariously) changes Jamie's face was only stuck in the program because the actor who played Jamie got sick! <
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>In the story, the Tardis' emergency circuit sends Tardis and crew to a place where fiction is real, and, if you play along with it, you become fiction too. The Master (not the Doctor's nemesis but a different "Master") was a fiction author who was abducted and forced to support this realm of fiction. The "controller" needs a mind that possesses imagination in order to feed life into the fictional characters. The fictional characters therefore depend on the Master's imagination for their very existence. The Master has brought the Doctor there so that he, a timeless being, can take his place for eternity. This creates a confrontation that, in episode 4, makes for some fascinating political commentary. <
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>There are two things that are often said about the character of the Doctor, across all his incarnations: 1) He is the embodiment of the Enlightenment ideal. Unlike Spock, who in Star Trek is portrayed as being inferior to humans because he is a being of pure reason and logic, the Doctor is very blatantly meant to be superior because of his total embracing of scientific thought and reason. 2) Politically, the Doctor is a libertarian. This latter description, which I've heard several people make without referencing any particular story, really becomes apparent in The Mind Robbers. The Master tells the Doctor that the fictional characters are dependent upon him. The Doctor's only reply is that this means the Master is their prisoner. The Master tells the Doctor he needs to set aside his will for the greater good. The Doctor states that to do so and to work for the benefit of those dependent upon your work is the definition of slavery. He refuses. The Doctor sees that those who preach altruism and selflessness are trying to subjugate you. This is not said in the episode but is still made very clear when, even after it is made obvious to the Doctor that his choice will kill Jamie and Zoe as human beings (they will exist only as pure fiction), he does not change his mind. He will not subjugate himself to the greater good even if that means losing his companions. What does the Doctor do? He rebels! "I've never seen a robot...that can climb!" he says, as he escapes. <
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>Watch and enjoy this story that deserves repeated viewings. Many scenes will likely stand out in your memory for some time to come. For me, the image of a forest whose trees are tall letters making up familiar sayings is unforgettable, as is the scene where a group of children harass the Doctor with riddles. "What can you make out of a sword?" "Words!" the Doctor replies, as the sword turns into a dictionary. The Doctor, dictionary in hand, then stumbles upon a safe and a wishing well, both a part of his next riddle. He looks in the well and says, "I wish...huh, huh...I wish I believed in wishing wells," and nonchalantly tosses the dictionary into the well. The Master laughs sinisterly. Unforgettable.

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"We obey our creator, that is all that can be expected of any character."
Maybe it has something to do with the late '60's, but this has to be one of the most surreal, tripped-out "Doctor Who" storylines ever. The weirdness starts with the Tardis (that ever undependable vehicle) getting stranded in a blank void outside of space and time, and the Doctor's companions Jamie and Zoe getting lured out into this vast expanse of nothing by hallucinations of their homelands. It gets stranger still when the Tardis flies apart into pieces and the characters are left clinging to the detached console, whirling in an eerily silent slow-motion spin. But all of this is only a prelude to the truly bizarre, as the Doctor, Jamie, and Zoe must then find their way through a labyrinth, challenged along the way by verbal games, mental puzzles, and (most of all) fictional characters from literature and mythology. Basically, the three of them seem to be stuck in an English Lit major's fever dream. <
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>In the end there turns out to be a reasonably solid science fiction basis for all of it, of course. Still, this is a remarkably imaginative and unusual tale that plays around with the border between illusion and reality in intriguing and yet utterly entertaining ways. That along with the Doctor's infectious wit (Patrick Troughton is great as usual) and the wonderful chemistry between the characters all make this a rather understated but fine example of "Doctor Who" at its best.

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Say it! It doesn't exist!!
One of my all-time fav Who stories! (ok, yes, there are some hokey parts, courtesy of the BBC special effects department, but after all, it is a children's show) <
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>How irritating that the Beeb did not archive these earlier stories-- the 2 episodes we have of "The Faceless Ones" are wonderful, in addition to some other tidbits from an underappreciated era of Doctor Who. <
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>Well-paced, mind-bending, and some great run-around! What more does a fan of the programme ask? <
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>Oh, and don't forget Bernard Horsfall's brief appearance at the end of 'The War Games' (one of the Time Lord tribunal).