The Mind of Evil - Episode 5

The penultimate episode of the story sees things go wrong at the worst prison in TV. Even on Porridge they had things run better.

I like how Mailer and the prisoners start to get the jitters and this forces the Master to stop spending time with Yates and deal with Mailer. I think that Mailer is a very good character and he seems to have just come off the set of ‘The Professionals’. He spends most of the time twirling the gun around like he doesn’t know what he’s doing with it yet he’s still a good character. Major Cosworth is a comedy character who seems to have come out of a Carry On film. It seems that he’s been put in purely because Yates is tied up with the Master and Benton is suppose to be sick. Part of me thinks that he doesn’t serve a purpose really to the story but another part of me thinks that he could have been a useful comedy tool in this story.

I remember writing how the Brigadier seemed side-lined in the previous story but he seems to be making up for that in this story. He’s really in his element and it’s the most active I’ve seen him this season. I like how he does a terrible Dick Van Dyke accent pretending to be a delivery man. When the Brigadier and the rest of UNIT storm the prison it’s a great scene though its another one from this era where it could have been improved with some incidental music.

It’s good to see the Doctor and the Master working together even though its not on the greatest of terms for the Doctor. It seems like the Master has realised that he cant control the machine the way that he hoped and by getting the Doctor involved it implies that he hasn’t thought things through. A bit like his Auton plan from the previous story. The performances from Jon Pertwee and Roger Delgado were very good and they were both just as good as each other and they compliment each other very well. Katy Manning puts in a good performance as well as does a nice move when she tries to help the Doctor get away by stopping Mailer in his tracks.

It’s also good to see the Doctor and Jo getting some nice quality time together as he ends a scene with him telling Jo about sharing a cell with Walter Raleigh. He’s such a name dropper. It’s been a while since the Doctor’s done it and its always fun when he does it.

The cliffhanger is a good one as the Doctor has a gun pointed at him and instead of ending there we actually get to hear the gun go off but to be honest the problem with this cliffhanger is going to be made apparent and I will point it out in the next review. It doesn’t feel like we are about to reach the final episode but it does feel like things have picked up.