The Doctor: Actually, I am known as "The Doctor."
Conventional wisdom holds that Mindwarp is one of the only truly watchable bits of the Colin Baker era, and, as was the case with Doctor Who and the Silurians, that's a very fannish viewpoint. On paper, it's better than anything else featuring the Sixth Doctor, including Revelation of the Daleks... but since I already said that that story is the best of his era, you know how this is going to end.
This is for all intents and purposes parts 5-8 of Trial of a Time Lord, to the extent that the on-screen credits call it precisely that and the DVD packaging calls this particular serial (deep breath please) The Trial of a Time Lord Parts 5-8: Mindwarp. Unlike The Mysterious Planet, this serial fully embraces the trial format, and we're left wondering whether scenes like the Doctor torturing Peri for information actually happened. Unfortunately this is a double-edged sword, because by the end of this serial it's abundantly clear that whoever is narrating this show is lying to us. Or use the Doctor's words, "the events happened, but not as we've seen them."
The story opens with the Doctor and Peri arriving on Thoros Beta, which is the home of Sil, who is a short funny capitalist whom we all have a hard time taking seriously - kind of like the Ferengi in Star Trek. Speaking of, this story also shows off some new Paintbox effects that will keep Doctor Who from looking that bad once Trek returns in 1987. They run across a werewolf-thing, who is chained up, and a crab-thing that isn't. Since Colin Baker is the Doctor, that crab-thing is going down.
It turns out that the crab-thing was one of Crozier's experiments. Crozier is a mad scientist hell-bent on putting people's brains into other bodies and staring intently at the camera all throughout the first episode. In fact, it looks like it takes Patrick Ryecart three and a half episodes to realize he's being out-hammed by Colin Baker and Brian Blessed, which may explain why he promptly starts chewing the scenery in episode 4, er, 8. Anyway, he's concerned that the crab-thing had become violent again even after his experiments, which may indicate that they aren't as successful as he thinks. That's bad for him, because he's tasked with placing the brain of Sil's boss, Kiv, into a new body before Kiv dies, and Kiv practically does nothing but threaten everyone with grisly fates if Crozier fails. This is bad news for the Doctor, because after he gets captured and subjected to Crozier's mind-probe, he starts working for the bad guys for two episodes. (Or does he?)
Crozier's other experiment is King Yrcanos, played by Brian Blessed. He and Peri escape with a seriously giddy Doctor and plot revenge. This leads to the aforementioned epic ham-off. This scene needs to be seen to be believed, but here are a few screenshots:
The Doctor betrays them all a few moments later and helps Crozier put Kiv's brain into a new body, albeit one with the same evolutionary dead-end as the original, and which is so bloody stupid I doubt anyone unfamiliar with this story will believe me: Kiv's brain is getting to be too large for his head.
...no, seriously.
Anyway, it turns out that the werewolf-thing from earlier is Dorf, Yrcanos's war buddy. From here it devolves into the usual capture-escape-run-around-in-tunnels formula that pretty much defines Doctor Who, except that the Doctor's still acting all evil. The interruptions back to the trial here are actually warranted, since we haven't seen the Doctor act quite this badly, even when he's pretended to be evil in the past.
Oh wait, yes we have! Remember when he actually strangled Peri in The Twin Dilemma? That's okay, I wiped it from my memory too, so you won't be getting a screenshot of that.
Still, the trial format works better here, because the Inquisitor and even the Doctor are just as puzzled over the Doctor's behavior as the viewer is. Unfortunately, so was Colin Baker. As he'll tell you twice on the DVD, once on the commentary and once in the "making of" documentary, he had no idea how to play the scene where he chains Peri up on the beach while the tide comes in. If we take the story at face value, then it eventually emerges that he was just faking at being evil, but Colin decided to play it as though it was all a fabrication made up by the Valeyard. (The third option, that he was brainwashed by Crozier's mind probe, was thankfully abandoned since there's really no way to snap him out of that.)
After two episodes of running around tunnels (but oh, what dark, strobe-lit and effective tunnels they are), the plot takes a dark turn as Crozier decides to dump Kiv's brain in Peri's body. The Doctor races to stop him, but is whisked off by the Time Lords to be tried for interfering. Then the Time Lords promptly stick Ycarnos and his army in a time-bubble so that their attack will come at the right moment, whatever that means.
Just read those last two sentences again and ask yourself if Eric Saward was doing his job at all this season.
Why in the hell does it take mystical interference to kill off a companion? (Answer: actually it doesn't. Kiv is in Peri's body before the Time Lords trap Ycarnos, which would suggest that Crozier can perform a delicate and brand-new operation flawlessly in a very short amount of time. ...which is an even more bizarre plot point.)
Meanwhile, the Doctor is shocked to learn of Peri's demise, and promises he'll get to the bottom of this. You know, after he clears his name, finds out what Glitz was after on Ravalox, finds out why Ravalox was moved in the first place...
Special mention goes to Nicola Bryant, for finally getting a chance to really (over)act once Kiv takes over Peri's body.
Number of "____yard" jokes: 1
Number of interruptions: 11, but as I said, these are more forgivable than the ones in the previous story.
The final score for this serial is 5 out of 10. It is not an average story; the story itself is excellent and with some better direction and the trial aspect dropped, it could have been the best Colin Baker serial. Hell, if the entire season had been written like this, the whole thing would have been watchable. But the first two minutes of episode 6 thoroughly demonstrate that Ron Jones was out of his depth when it came to choreographing action sequences, and we're left with too many unanswered questions about what was and wasn't real. The entire thing is put together and holds the audience's interest much better than The Mysterious Planet, but is let down by some terrible directing and the number of plot threads left hanging. Disappointed fanboys can perhaps find solace in another screencap from the Baker-Blessed Ham-Off:
And speaking of being left hanging, this is probably it for the Who Review until we get to Terror of the Vervoids on Friday.
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