The Mind of Evil - Episode 3

I decided that I couldn’t take the audio version any longer and instead dug out my old VHS copy which sadly is in black and white. I suppose it’s better than nothing. This episode is where the problems of the six part adventure start to rear its ugly head. It’s weird how seven parters work but six seems to be a problem. I’ve not mentioned before now how Jon Pertwee and Katy Manning have been since the previous story. I think that Jo Grant has come on a lot since that previous story and doesn’t seem so green. The relationship between the two seems better and more equal that in Terror.

I still think that the cliffhanger is rather weak though it looks slightly better in the reprise. The only thing that lets it down is a brief shot with the dragon in the background and it does look like a bloke in a suit. Once the dragon had disappeared, it meant that Chin Lee was a good person now although I suspect that her usefulness is now coming to an end. As she is a goodie, she is rather boring. When we return to the prison, we see that the riot has progressed and its developed far more than I had heard during the previous episode. I think that was the problem during the Hartnell and Troughton episodes which weren’t on DVD and that is my attention would wander. Thankfully due to the fact I had the foresight not to sell my VHS copy.

The Master looks good in every scene that he’s in and there’s one shot where he smoking a cigar going towards the prison and he looks like he’s on the way to filming not actually filming. The thing about the Master is that he ends up helping the riot just after it’s been quelled and within a short amount of time has control over the prison. Even by the Master’s standards that’s quick and what it does do is lead to a nice little scene between Roger Delgado and Jon Pertwee where the Doctor gets to do a bit of action before being captured.

The cliffhanger is a bit better than the previous one but that’s because the Doctor is in danger and there is no clear sign as to how he’s going to get out of it. As the Doctor is handcuffed to the chair by the Keller machine, the Doctor gets more flames of fear as well as shots of Daleks and possibly even a Cyberman. The problem with the episode is that not a lot happens. Its all about the riot and that’s fine for a short amount of time but after a while I just wanted something to happen and it wasn’t until the very end that this happened. I think that a tiny bit of padding may have been used in this episode but its still a good story and there is still some good stuff to come.