UNADULTERATED BOORISH OPINION: UNSUNG CLASSICS - PART FIVE

Quite a while has passed since I've written something in this particular series. Thought it might be time to do another one...   

RE-ESTABLISHING THE GROUND RULES

It has been a long time since I've done an entry like this. So I thought I might establish, once more, what exactly constitutes an Unsung Classic. After all, I have ascribed all kinds of different titles to various stories throughout the years. There are Guilty Pleasures and Not as Bad as They Say There Ares. I even have a Was it so Bad? series. It can get a bit confusing!  

An Unsung Classic usually has a decent reputation. It's considered by most fans to be a solid story. It's not mentioned in the same breath as such Greatest Hits (Oh look! Another title and/or category!) like Genesis of the Daleks or Seeds of Doom or even Caves of Androzani - but I think it ought to be. It is, essentially, a well-appreciated tale that does not get the credit it deserves. 

So when I start discussing the merits of the story and expressing my outrage over it not getting better recognition, there's no need for you to remark: "The adventure is already well-regarded, Rob!". I know that. I'm saying that we all ought to be holding these stories in better regard than we do.

One other important thing about Unsung Classics: like Krynoid pods, they come in pairs. I always like to cover something from both the Classic and the New Series. So there will be two entries of this nature over the next little while. They might not immediately follow each other. But a second one will, eventually, get written. Otherwise, I feel out of balance! 

STARTING WITH THE CLASSIC SERIES 

So, let's get into it. Which story am I going to rant about this time? Will it be from New or Old Who? 

Just like a good Dalek tale, I've given the answer away in the title. We'll be covering the Classic Series first. The story I will be examining even hails from an era that I don't usually have many good things to say about. I wouldn't claim it's a terrible period of the show - no such time exists. But it is definitely one of my least favorite eras. In fact, one of the reasons why I like this particular adventure so much is because it doesn't really fit in with the other content around it.

As I have frequently expressed, Season Seven of the Classic Series is, pretty much, complete and utter brilliance. Yes, the seven-parters can drag a bit. But there is a certain grittiness to them that I greatly enjoy. This is a version of Doctor Who that frequently feels "the most real" out of anything the show ever produced. The characters are very three-dimensional and believable - both in the way they are written and performed. There's quite a bit of dramatic subtlety going on, too. Scenes will run for long periods of time without any incidental music under them. It's up to us to make up our minds about what we're seeing on the screen. Rather than having the music tell us how to feel. The whole tone of the show feels very mature. Like we are watching a drama that just happens to deal with science fiction ideas rather than an actual sci fi adventure. It's really quite beautiful. 

But then along comes Season Eight. From this point onward, most of the Third Doctor era is going for much more camp sensibilities. We're not talking in-your-face Season Seventeen stuff, of course. But, compared to Pertwee's first season, things are veering much more towards pantomime. Just look at how heavily Terror of the Autons relies on the Master's little theme tune to play almost every time he's in a scene. And listen to how over-indulgent the actual theme song is. There is definitely no allowance for ambiguity with this new villain. He is dark and sinister. And this is being crammed down our throat. The Master might as well be tying Jo Grant to some railroad tracks! 

This is just one of several problems that I have with this particular period of the show. I don't want to complain too much about it, of course. But I need to express it to get you to better understand why it is that I love The Mind of Evil so much.   

STILL STUCK IN SEASON SEVEN 

I still remember the first time I watched the Third Doctor Era. That huge tonal shift that we get in Terror of the Autons, very obviously, had me concerned. It was great to see the Autons coming back and the Master appearing in the show for the first time. I was even quite happy with Robert Holmes' script (the Master's very sudden change of heart(s) about assisting the Nestene invasion in the last few minutes is a bit of a stretch in credulity - otherwise, it's quite good). But I could also sense that, between seasons, some heavy decisions had been made by the production team about a change in direction for the show. And, overall, I really didn't like where it was going. 

Imagine my relief, then, when Mind of Evil comes on. Don Houghton, the same writer that delivered us the magnificent Inferno, seems to have not gotten the memo about all the changes that have been made. He delivers us a tale that feels like Terror of the Autons never happened. 

A great example of this is the way the Third Doctor is much more in keeping with his personae during the previous season. During Season Seven, he is obstinately anti-establishment. I love it, for instance, when he yells down at the guard in Ambassadors of Death that he doesn't believe in security passes. Whereas, in Terror of the Autons, he lets on that he's getting quite friendly with politicians. Given how he behaved in Season Seven, I found it hard to believe he would ever be able to get friendly with people with that level of authority. Within the first few minutes of Mind of Evil, however, we see him back to his old ways. The Doctor is making a fool of himself on a security camera and then completely talking over a presentation to the point where the speaker gets hostile with him. This is the Third Doctor that I loved. For one story, at least, he seems to be back. 

The direction of the story is very much in keeping with the preceding season, too. Again, we have long stretches of no incidental music to suggest how we should react to what we're seeing. In general, things are kept understated. Even Delgado seems to be reigning the character in. That great scene of him in the limo listening to sinister music while chomping on a cigar would have been played up a whole lot more in Terror of the Autons. Here, it's kept to a bare minimum. The sequence still shows us that the character is pretty dark and twisted. But it doesn't have to go too over-the-top about it. Which makes it a much more fun moment than if they had tried to make it bigger. 

Is Mind of Evil completely free of the changes Season Eight heralded? Of course not. We do, for example, get that "UNIT family formula" that begins to present itself over and over again in every story. Mike Yates gets a bit cheeky. The Brigadier is outraged over some minor bit of behavior that a subordinate shows that he feels is inappropriate. Benton has something really crappy happen to him. You could almost make a drinking game with the consistency of this pattern. In some ways, I get that this kind of thing creates a sort of fun familiarity with the UNIT staff. But it also just smacks, ever-so-slightly, of lazy writing. Like the way we always knew in Star Trek that the character we'd never seen before wearing the red tunic was not going to make it out of the story alive! 

MORE THAN JUST A SEASON SEVEN VIBE

If Mind of Evil was merely a return to that 'ole Season Seven atmosphere I would hardly try to qualify it as an Unsung Classic. There needs to be more than just a few well-loved traits from a better time. There also needs to be a great story. Fortunately, Mind of Evil accomplishes this beautifully. 

One of the things that the Seven-Parters of the previous season did to avoid dragging on was to occasionally shift the emphasis of the story a bit. To create a sort of more concentrated storyline within the larger one. Doctor Who and the Silurians, for example, takes an episode or so to focus on a hunt for that wounded Silurian that fled from the caves. Ambassadors of Death focuses for a time on the Doctor launching into space to have a talk with the aliens that are searching for their ambassadors. It's a sort of digression from the main thrust of the story that keeps us engaged and marks time in a creative way. 

Mind of Evil is only one episode less and uses that same trick effectively. Sometime around Episode Five, the whole adventure takes a bigger focus on the UNIT operations as they must figure out a way to storm Stangmoor Prison and bust out the Doctor. It's a great little diversion that creates a pretty nice shoot-out sequence. The Brigadier is also quite heroic for a bit. This would also be one of the last times that UNIT is genuinely useful to a plot. After Mind of Evil, the only purpose they ever seem to serve is to demonstrate that bullets are useless against the current menace they are facing! 

Mind of Evil, in general, does a great job of filling its six episodes. Something that so many six-parters fail miserably at during this particular era. Most just use a bunch of Captures-and-Escapes to fill their extra minutes (have a look at this to better understand what I mean: https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2019/11/complete-and-utter-silliness-capture.html). What Houghton does, instead, is create multiple strong plot threads that will weave in and out of each other several times over. I love how interlinked everything is. This is, perhaps, the story's greatest strength. There are a lot of nice layers going on within the actual story, itself. The Peace Conference, the Thunderbolt Missile, the Keller Machine at Stangmoor. They all have something to do with each other and the back-and-forth between all these Set Pieces is a far better way to fill those six parts than just: "Oops! We're incarcerated again! How will we get out this time?!" It actually almost annoys me that they never hire Houghton again to write a story. 

BEST STUFF IS THE KELLER MACHINE

Okay. Let's keep building on the positives of this adventure and harp less on the things I didn't like about the other stories around it! 

Probably the greatest highlights in Mind of Evil come from the Keller Machine, itself. So many great things happen with it. Some nice intrigue involving it builds up in Part One. Barnum gets too much evil sucked out of him (becoming a sort of low key version of Tommy from Planet of Spiders). Some weird deaths occur that give the Doctor important clues. And then, of course, there's the nice callback to Houghton's previous script as we move into Episode Two. It actually adds a nice dimension to the Doctor's character and shows in a subtle way that the show is not an "etch-a-sketch program" as much of TV was, at the time. Previous stories can still have a bearing on the latest one. 

Of course, the Keller Machine keeps getting cooler and cooler. The Rogues Gallery of villains that we see as the Doctor keeps confronting the mind parasite are another nice nod to the past. Although, it really does say something about the Doctor's psyche that Koquillion seemed to strike such fear into his heart! 

And then there's the most fascinating hallucination of them all: what the Master ends up seeing. The image of a giant Doctor looking down upon him laughing mockingly at his inadequacy is an image that will always stand out for me. Lots of other fans seem to have fond regard for it, too. Easily, one of the best moments for the Delgado Master.  

But it's not just the hallucinations that make the Keller machine so great. It's a genuinely effective story device. Houghton uses it to make a bit of a statement about human nature. The way the machine pursues Mailer instead of the Doctor and Jo is one of his more obvious points. But the gorgeous plot twist with Barnum becoming the source of the mind parasite's ultimate undoing is fantastic. It becomes an even deeper statement about how an evil nature brings nothing but grief. Earlier in the tale, the Keller Machine got greedy and drained too much from Barnum. Its own selfish desire creates the one thing that can neutralise it. 

Using one conflict to resolve another is always a favorite plot device for me. It's one of the reasons that I actually like Tsuranga Conundrum more than most fans do (https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2019/05/unadulterated-boorish-opinion-was-it-so.html). So the fact that the Keller Machine becomes a key point in unravelling the Master's plan brings me great delight. I also love the sad twist with Barnum at the story's climax. Houghton decides to rob us of a completely happy ending. In so doing, he gives us a bit more of that realism that I loved Season Seven for. Having a pure heart does have its benefits. But, sometimes, Evil will still win. 

A FEW FLAWS

Mind of Evil is a magnificent story. But it isn't perfect. I have already discussed some of its plot holes in another entry (https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2020/06/complete-and-utter-silliness-few-of-my.html). So I won't dwell long. 

The two biggest problems with Evil are pretty obvious. The first is the fact that victims of the Keller Machine in Part One die of fright but also show physical manifestations of what is scaring them. This makes no sense. A person can believe they are being attacked by rats or drowned to death and that can cause heart failure. But they shouldn't have tiny bite and scratch marks on their flesh or water in their lungs. By this same logic, shouldn't the Doctor have gotten burnt a bit at the end of Part One? 

The other great goof is the Doctor's escape from the Master when they are in the Governor's office at Stangmoor. Some very obviously-placed drinking water spills across the floor and the Master slips over it several times. It's a damned silly escape sequence. 

Beyond that, the quibbles are pretty minor. Mailer's failed attempt to arrange a prison break feels just a bit like some capture-and-escape padding (another prisoner plants a gun for him - but where did he get it?!). The fact that Jo is a hostage during both prison breaks and has next-to-nothing bad done to her also takes away from that realism I love so much. The show did actually acknowledge the existence of sexual assault in its very early days so it could bring it up, here, too. You'd think there could have, at least, been a bit of dialogue to the nature of: "Let me work a deal with the Governor, first. He'll be more agreeable if she's not harmed. Once we get what we want from him, then we'll have some fun with her!". I just find it a bit hard to believe that a woman is stuck in a building full of convicts out of their cells and the Elephant in the Room doesn't get acknowledged at all.

Could these flaws be the reason why Mind of Evil did not become a Classic? Surely a Greatest Hit is a work of perfection. So if a story does have a few problems - as minor as they may be - won't that disqualify it from ever becoming a fan favorite? 

With that in mind, let's look at Genesis of the Daleks: a highly-revered tale that makes it into most peoples' Top Ten. In many cases, it's a fan's Number One. While Genesis has its merits, it also has its problems. It has so much trouble filling its six parts that it actually starts putting in captures-and-escapes right in the first episode. It has the worst cliffhanger resolution in the history of the show. Its final episode also drags horribly as Davros must stall endlessly while he waits for his Daleks to return to wipe out the Kaled Scientific Elite who refuse to follow him. These are the bigger negative issues with the plot. There are a few minor ones, too. But, already, I'd say the "sins" of Genesis of the Daleks far outweigh those of Mind of Evil. And yet, the Dalek Origin Tale is still considered a crowning gem in the history of the show. If an adventure wrought with that many difficulties can be considered a Fan Favorite, there's no reason this Unsung Classic can't have a similar level of notoriety. 

FINAL CONCLUSION

And so, as Mind of Evil concludes, we return to the more paint-by-numbers storytelling that we will get for the main bulk of the Third Doctor Era. The Master will keep dabbling in things he doesn't understand. UNIT will fire constantly on monsters they cannot harm. The Doctor will complain endlessly about the stupidity of the Military Mentality (but still keep working all the time with a military organization!). During brief respites, he will tell us how much better we need to take care of the environment. And, of course, Jo will trip and fall and get into trouble. In the final season of Pertwee, Sarah Jane will come along and trip and fall and get into trouble but also talk a lot more about Women's Rights.    

But, for six glorious episodes, Season Eight was allowed to borrow from the formula of its previous year. Which was, essentially, to avoid having any kind of real formula. Stories moved in whatever direction they needed to and were competently told. Characters were three-dimensional. The drama felt real rather than forced. The subject matter was mature but still allowed for moments of levity. This is what Mind of Evil brought back just one more time. And I am eternally grateful for it! 

But, as I said, this story is more than just one Last Season Seven Hooplah. It's a genuinely gripping tale that deals with some of the deeper concepts\s of the Nature of Man rather than trying to be overtly left-wing or topical. Which, to me, frequently makes for a stronger Who story. The show has always had certain political leanings - that's undeniable. But, when it strives harder to delve into Immortal Truths than modern agendas, it frequently produces better content. 

Mind of Evil is a stunning example of this kind of storytelling. Yes, Inferno will always be Don Houghton's best script for the show. But this one does pretty damned well too. 

There it is: The first UNSUNG CLASSIC essay in ages. Hope you enjoyed it and weren't too upset by my Negative Third Doctor Sentiment. 

I have already picked out which story from New Who is also an Unsung Classic. We'll be looking at it shortly. Perhaps even next....