Is Peri dead? Is the question that the Doctor asks and the
Valeyard responds with no which shows that he is willing to use shock tactics
to go overboard. It seems to be a sign of things to come which was a clever bit
of writing on the part of Philip Martin. There is a nice scene between Peri and
Yrcanos in which Peri decides she wants to be at home and talks to Yrcanos
about life and love. This is where the relationship between the two begins. Now
what I find interesting is that when Leela departs the show, I found the lack
of a long term build up to be a reason why her departure is rather
disappointing. In the case of this story it seems far more plausible and I
think that it’s due to the performances of Nicola Bryant and Brian Blessed.
The confusion about what the Doctor’s true mental state is
something that is confusing still. He starts off seemingly willing to help
Crozier, then decides he would prefer if Peri weren’t experiment and then seems
to be totally his normal self. Colin Baker does his best to try and clarify the
situation but he can’t completely answer the question. It might be easy to
understand on Thoros Beta but in the courtroom it seems that it’s not as clear cut
as it might seem.
This is the beginning of the end for Peri because she gets
used in the experiment to transplant Kiv’s brain to a suitable host. It’s is
quite a grim process that she goes through in this episode. She doesn’t really
get much to do apart from her nice chat with Yrcanos and then she is operated
on. The sight of her with a bald cap on is quite a shocking. When Peri/Kiv
starts talking then it adds to the shock. Yrcanos does the only thing that he
could do and that is kill Peri (or her body anyway).
The Doctor is on his way to help Peri but is lured into a
suddenly appearing TARDIS which leads to the events seen in episode one. His
reaction when he sees that Yrcanos has killed Peri is a totally mesmerising
one. This has to be one of his finest performances since Attack of the Cybermen.
He is very determined at the end of this episode and he is
determined to find out why he was taken out of time. Whilst this has another
close-up/zoom in that you all know I love, it’s the way that Colin Baker
delivers the line that makes this one of the best cliffhangers of the season so
far. It’s been a cracking episode. Partly because I know what was going to
happen but for the first time in this season I have been more impressed with
the performances than the story itself.
This episode is the final one for Nicola Bryant and in terms
of endings it is perhaps one of the most shocking since Adric died in
Earthshock (1982). It’s fair to say that Bryant hasn’t had the most enjoyable
time ever in the show but she has been surprisingly upbeat even when things weren’t
going her way. I would be surprised if she missed the show in terms of what she
was required to do. The Peri that we now get in the Big Finish adventures is a
stronger one than we get on TV.
As a four part adventure in its own right, Mindwarp has been
a very enjoyable story with the right mixture of comedy and darkness. It has
been written with the same enthusiasm as Philip Martin wrote in Vengeance on Varos and Ron Jones has
really impressed me with the pace and the sets that he used helped add to the effectiveness
of the story. It’s not very often that I have written this but Robert Holmes
has written the weakest story of the season so far. Eight episodes in and I
think that it is progressing well know that there are various elements that
going forward have the potential to be very good. Unfortunately, coming up in
the next episode is one of most controversial companions in Doctor Who history.
But considering how I have re-evaluated Bonnie Langford’s character in the Big
Finish plays, it is possible that this might mean a change but I suppose time
will tell.
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