Mindwarp

Chapter The 133rd, which features lots of people just watching stuff on a big screen.

Plot:

The Doctor is on trial for his life. He has been taken out of time by the Time Lords to face charges of meddling in the affairs of other planets, conduct unbecoming a Time Lord, and wearing a really terrible outfit (they have him bang to rights on the last one). Prosecutor the Valeyard presents a Matrix recording of events from around the period when the Doctor was taken out of time; the problem is, the Doctor can't remember any of these events very clearly. He and Peri had landed on Thoros Beta, home world of Sil and his kind, the Mentors. Crozier, a scientist working for the Mentors' leader Lord Kiv, is doing experiments in brain alteration. Also, they are holding captive a warrior king, Yrcanos, who SHOUTS a LOT BECAUSE he's PLAYED by BRIAN BLESSED!!! On the Matrix screen, the Time Lords in the trial room witness the Doctor being plugged into Crozier's mind-warping machine, and from then on he starts to behave out of character, siding with the bad guys, and turning against Peri and Yrcanos.

Is the evidence presented being falsified by the Valeyard? Did the Doctor's brain get scrambled by Crozier's machine? Is he pretending to be bad, just to outwit Sil and Kiv? Nobody knows. (Seriously, nobody does, to this day - it's not made clear to viewer, and the writer and script editor never really made up their mind.) Whatever caused it, the Doctor's behaviour changes back to normal towards the end, and he races to save Peri from having the Lord Kiv's mind transplanted into her body. He doesn't get there in time, though, as that's the moment the Time Lords choose to scoop him up and drag him off to the trial. Instead, Yrcanos arrives, but he's also too late - Peri's consciousness is gone, and Kiv inhabits her body. Yrcanos, who wanted to get married to Peri when all this was over, as improbable as that might seem, kills Kiv/Peri in a fit of rage - these events all being manipulated remotely by the Time Lords in order to destroy Crozier's research, as it would have had far-reaching consequences for the universe. This is a hell of an example of extrajudicial "meddling in the affairs of other planets", but the Doctor is too stunned by the death of Peri on-screen to make the point in his defence. The trial continues...

Context:

I have finished my first full season of Doctor Who for the blog! Obviously, if one watches Doctor in order from the beginning, this is not such a big deal; but when jumping about randomly, it's a reasonably important milestone. I have been blogging Season 23 AKA The Trial of a Time Lord since 2015, when I covered the finale story, The Ultimate Foe. Then, a few years later in 2018, Terror of the Vervoids and The Mysterious Planet came along within a few months of one another. Nicely, I did them all in completely the wrong order. The whole season is coming out soon on Blu-ray, the next in a series of very nice box sets that I have tried, with decreasing fortitude, to resist the temptation of buying. Needless to say, season 23, for which I have a particular soft spot, is pre-ordered! As with all the box sets so far, a story was chosen for a screening at the BFI to tie in. Luckily, it was the only one of the four that I hadn't blogged. I attended with all the friends that I have watched these BFI screenings with before over the last few years - David, Trevor and Chris -  the first time we've all four been able to attend at the same time for a while.  More details of the screening below...

First time round:

Every time I look back to the 1980s and watching Doctor Who, I see more and more ineptitude on my part regarding the operation of video recorders. Was it really that difficult? If I want to record something now, I just click a box on the screen display of an electronic programme guide, and forget about it. I hardly ever want to, though, and that's the clue. I record The Great British Bake Off for the family so that they don't have to deal with adverts using channel 4's catch-up service (you can skip them if you record it with the PVR). That's it. If anything else is on, even Doctor Who, I don't have to be that bothered: It Takes You Way, as demonstrated when I covered it for the blog last time, is still available on the BBC iPlayer nearly a year after it was broadcast. It's only possible to miss something these days if you try very hard. (An aside on that topic: it describes perfectly the Better Half's attitude to Russell T Davies's Years and Years - she cannot bring herself to watch it - far too traumatising - so she's running out the clock until it disappears from availability.)

In 1986, taping Trial of a Time Lord, the first story broadcast after my family obtained their own VCR, I very much was bothered. The episodes were unlikely ever to be repeated again, and the idea of the whole of the existing Doctor Who TV canon being released on VHS to buy was a pipe dream at the time. Maybe the urgency caused the ineptitude, but that first E180 tape on which I collected all the episodes of Trial was blemished early on. I somehow cut off the last minute and a bit of episode 5 (Mindwarp's episode 1). I remember - and, yes, I am ashamed at the obsessiveness of this - watching back and timing the length of the recaps of episodes 2,3 and 4 and taking an average, to see how much I was likely not to see the following week. Luckily, the recap on episode 6 (Mindwarp's episode 2) was on the lengthy side, I missed only a few seconds of dialogue, and could follow what was going on. That's how much it mattered to me. Familiarity breeds contempt, it's said, but maybe availability does too. Once everything can be gained at the touch of a button, is anything special? Or maybe this is the smokescreen of an old duffer, excusing why he couldn't bloody program the video. Anyway, the rest of the story was taped without incident, and then watched and re-watched over the next few years. I caught up with those missing few seconds in 1993, when the whole of the Trial season was released in a tin shaped like the TARDIS for some unknown reason.

Reaction:

The BFI showed the Blu-ray extended cuts of all four episodes of Mindwarp, with the first two episodes in 5:1 surround, but the last two only in stereo because of a fault that occurred halfway through. The sound and music were excellent throughout, but the visual quality of the initial scenes of the first episode was a little off to my eyes, fuzzy rather than pin sharp. This may have been something to do with the projection at the BFI, though, so I will be interested to see how it looks on a smaller screen at home. Starting with the few differences: most of the episodes have additional scenes, often ones in the Trial room: nothing earth-shattering, but it'll be nice to have them to view as an alternative. These versions aren't all about re-inserting cut material, though; as Mark Ayres explained on the day, the second 'extended' episode of Mindwarp is actually shorter than the broadcast version by two seconds: the discrepancy is caused by a different take being used for the scene of Yrcanos trashing the laboratory. Additionally, the incidental music has been re-recorded from scratch, as well as remixed, as it was the only post 1980-score that didn't exist as a separate recording. It's very faithful to the original, but I could definitely tell the difference (I'm a very big fan of this score, so know it quite well).

The story is a little slow to get going; the wash-up from the previous four-episode segment goes on too long, when one just wants the new plot to get underway. This four-parter integrates the overarching structure better than any of the others in the season, creating some moments of actual drama and intrigue in the trial room regarding the veracity or otherwise of the evidence being presented; it still, though, feels like it interrupts the flow of the Thoros Beta plot too often. This is the major flaw of the trial structure - it just gets in the way, and not just to insert any old innocuous scenes, but scenes where the viewer is told repeatedly that their hero is bad. Thank goodness then that the early material of the Doctor and Peri is so good, Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant playing their relationship with warmth and humour. It's just a shame that they only have an episode together before the plot separates them. Putting aside the unreliable narrator stuff that we only find out about fully later, and taking the scenes as presented, the last interaction they have is the Doctor torturing Peri. She then, almost despite herself, stops Yrcanos from killing him, and the Doctor flees, never to see her again. It's not the ending the two actors deserved, though Nicola's final scenes, and striking performance, are a great gift for her to play. I can't really criticise the decision to have the Doctor appearing to turn traitor, it does create the engine that propels the narrative, but someone should have decided what was the true version of events. As it was, it got left to the actors to find some sort of sense to proceedings, and the audience to make up their own minds about what was real and what wasn't.

Director Ron Jones continues his renaissance; after having started with some clunkers, his last two stories before this, Frontios and Vengeance on Varos, were good, and this surpasses them to my mind.  A diverse and interesting cast, all giving good performances, great sets and - a rarity on this era of Doctor Who - sympathetic lighting. I'd remembered the story's tonal shifts being a bit more jarring, but on this watch it seemed much more smooth. I'd recalled it veering from comic to dramatic all the way through. Watching with an audience, though, always highlights more comedy in a piece than one might notice when watching alone or in a smaller group at home. The laughs elicited from the BFI crowd by the blackly comic dialogue started early on, and they are all intentional. It doesn't veer at all, it's a black comedy from the very start ("Dirty old warlord", "I think it winked at Peri" "The skedaddle test"), with an ending that drops into dramatic territory, but that still finds time for funny lines until very close to the end (Sil's line during the tense final scenes  "If only you could have found a more attractive one" is expertly delivered by Nabil Shaban and got the biggest laugh of the day, but it's only seconds before Peri gets obliterated).

It is a real ensemble piece. Patrick Ryecart's restrained amoral villainy is very cool, and he's ace at deploying a withering look. Christopher Ryan and Nabil Shaban are excellent as the two chief Mentors; they inhabit their suits well, disappearing into the characters to the point where you forget they are acting at all. Bigger than all of them, though, bigger and louder than anyone or anything else is Brian Blessed. There is nothing small about the performance, but would anyone want it any other way?  The first episode, which his character spends lying on a bench, is good enough, but the energy rises up once Yrcanos does, and thereafter the narrative rushes to keep up with Blessed's insanely OTT creation as he rips through the scenes and devours the scenery. If you need someone to match Colin Baker for bombast, who else are you going to call? That this very powerful character doesn't sideline the regulars in any way, unlike what happened in some earlier Colin Baker stories, is testament to a nice balance achieved in Philip Martin's script - everyone gets a chance to shine.

Towards the end of the screening, I stopped taking notes as I was just getting caught up in the action; but one aspect of the ending proved problematic for me on this watch. The Inquisitor takes over the 'narration' during the scenes of Yrcanos caught in a bubble of time, being manoeuvred to kill Peri. It works dramatically - it has much more force coming from the supposedly neutral arbiter rather than the villainous Valeyard - but how does she know all this stuff? It's the Valeyard's presentation to her, and - we later find out - the bits she's reporting on never actually happened. So, who told her they did, to the extent that she could talk of them with such authority? The corrupt high council that's framing the Doctor perhaps? But, then, isn't she showing signs of prejudicial insight into the wider politics of what's going on by admitting it? Why not leave all the explaining to the Valeyard, as it's got to be less suspicious coming from him, being his evidence and all? And isn't she later revealed to be a goodie, and not involved in any of the plotting anyway? Like most of Mindwarp, we'll never know the exact truth.

Connectivity: 

It Takes You Away's Ribbons, a blackly comic grotesque, with an acquisitive nature and odd speech patterns, is not a million miles away from the character of Sil in Mindwarp. Additionally, both stories have at least one character forcibly removed from a space/time location by powerful forces. 

Deeper Thoughts:

 Matrix evidence for the Prosecution: BFI Mindwarp Screening and Q&A, 14th September 2019. It was a very pleasant September day, with the sun shining down as I made my way across the bridge from Embankment and walked along past the Royal Festival Hall. There followed a pleasant brunch in the BFI café bar with my fellow fans; the usual group of us has got larger, as we're regularly meeting up at these events with Dave and Tim too, lovely people and Doctor Who production royalty too, having worked on the show for many years of the post-2005 run. After rushing to get the waiter's attention to fetch the bill just in time to get our seats, the four hours of entertainment began. I am amazed at the love and care that goes into these events, making them very good value for money - you wouldn't get a 4-hour matinee for 15 quid anywhere else in London. In fact, my brunch came to just about as much as my ticket.

As our hosts Justin Johnson and Dick Fiddy walked on to stage, I took a glance around to check for anyone recognisable: Steve Ricks was in the same row as us, wearing his immaculate replica Sixth Doctor costume, and I spotted about four other people who were cosplaying old Sixie elsewhere; plus, I spotted Mark Ayres, Nev Fountain and Nicola Bryant nearby too. Justin introduced this as a celebration of Trial of a Time Lord, and it was indeed a wonderfully good-natured and positive event throughout. Things kicked off with a minute's applause for the late, great Terrance Dicks, followed by the usual quiz, with giveaways and many Dick jokes. The first two episodes were then shown.

L to R: Fiddy, Hartley, Ayres

After these, the first mini-panel concentrated on sound, with composer of Mindwarp's incidentals Richard Hartley, and composer, remixer, sound guy for the Blu-ray range and all-round maestro Mark Ayres interviewed by Dick. Richard reminisced about his first chat with 80s Who producer John Nathan-Turner, in JNT's office, which was camp and 'just like a set'. Richard was a great friend of 60s Who producer Verity Lambert, who laughed when she found out what he was working on, and told him horror stories about how difficult it had been to get the show off the ground in the early days. He'd taken the gig initially so he could record in the BBC's studio in Maida Vale, but then didn't get to use it (probably as Who was not thought of well enough to book the prestige places back then). Mark had approached Richard recently to see if he could re-record the music. The written scores still existed in the archives, so Mark dug them out, and Richard sourced the original equipment and sounds, trying to avoid the temptation to improve things. In the end, it probably took four times as long as it did originally, as "the BBC were very mean" back then, and only allowed him a week to write, and two days to record. This work allows all 14 episodes of the Trial season - and the extended versions of each of those 14 - to have 5.1 surround remixes. The box set also includes edits of the four Terror of the Vervoids episodes with the trial framing device removed, and these are also in 5.1. Mark, somewhat wearily, remarked that what had started off seeming like an easy job had ballooned, as in the end he remastered 32 episodes rather than 14.

L to R: Johnston, West

The plan was for the final two episodes to be shown next, but a few minutes in the picture froze. They've finally shut Brian Blessed up! They tried again, but then the audio sounded like it was emanating from underwater. They've finally made Brian Blessed quiet! While technical trouble-shooting ensued, Justin did an impromptu interview with Russell West, the actor that played the Raak (a top-heavy sea monster) in the first episode of the story, who was invited up from the audience. This was the most fun moment of the day for me, as West was so witty and energetic, and it's not someone who even a die-hard fan was likely to have seen interviewed before. He explained that he had a single day's rehearsal with the rest of the cast, he particularly enjoyed working with Nicola (who wouldn't?), that the costume was heavy but very fragile, and once he was down, it took three people to lift him up again. Best of all, he said, responding to the running gags thus far from anyone on stage about Brian Blessed's 'subtle' performance, that it really was toned down compared to what he did in rehearsals. The mind boggles. Reportedly, there was frequently a torrent of filth emanating from the booming bearded one, and he once introduced himself with "I'm Brian Blessed and I'll **** anything that moves!!!!". Lovely.

L to R: Johnston, Newman

The technical fault still continuing, Justin invited Phil Newman onto the stage, who unveiled another special guest - Lord Kiv. Phil had obtained the original foam latex costume at auction, and even got to wear it in Dimensions in Time, an anniversary skit from 1993 which involved a Doctor Who / Eastenders crossover and lots of old villains portrayed by costumed fans - "It's canon!" as Phil rightly exclaimed. The malleable Mentor stayed on stage  - Dick Fiddy remarked that he'd had a few people on that stage over the years that were harder to interview - as the remaining two episodes finally got going. Once the story was finished, there were some sneak peeks at some of the Value Added Material on the Blu-ray box set: the trailer starring Colin and Nicola, some very funny outtakes, Toby Hadoke getting to front a cookery show in documentary The Doctor Who Cookbook Revisited, and some clips of the latest Behind The Sofa edition, doing a Gogglebox on the Trial episodes. It all looks glorious.

The Lord Kiv

The main panel was next, with Doctor and companion actors Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant being their usual funny, self-facing, talented selves. The opening question was on how they felt when they found out that Doctor Who was going on hiatus in 1985 (the eighteen month period before Trial of a Time Lord was shown, when Doctor Who was off the air). Nicola's surprising answer was that she was relieved, but that was only because she found out from a journalist calling her to ask about "the death of the Doctor". Thinking this meant that Colin had died, she slammed the phone down then rang round everyone she could think of in a panic until she got hold of someone who put her straight, hence the relief. Colin was told by John Nathan-Turner, who tried to make him feel better by telling him that he'd signed his contract for the following year, so would still get paid. His eldest daughter had just been born, so Colin treated it as if the BBC had given him a year's paid paternity leave. He still got a call, however, from the "BBC Department of Not Giving You Money" who said to him that, if he were to find any work, he should inform them so they could stop paying him. Colin's answer, based on his training as a lawyer, was to say "I can arrange to call you every day, and ask you if you're making Doctor Who today, and if you're not, I'll go and do what I want, how's that?".

Talking of then Controller of the BBC Michael Grade's decision to take Doctor Who off the air in 1985, Colin outlined that it wasn't a financial decision at all (a lot of work already done for the following year had to be abandoned at much cost), and Doctor Who was just one of a raft of old shows Grade binned, just because he didn't like them; interestingly, another one was Come Dancing - another show, like Doctor Who, that's returned to prime time in the 21st century. Colin also recounted an anecdote that Grade, who after making these sweeping changes with the flick of a pen went on a skiing holiday, found himself haring down a slope alongside a man who turned to him and said "Oi, Michael Grade, I'm from the Sun - why do you want to kill Doctor 'Oo?". Both Nicola and Colin were shielded from the worst of the falling out between John Nathan-Turner and script editor Eric Saward; Colin knew they weren't getting on, but massively underestimated the size of the rift. Colin still seems a little bit miffed by Eric's comments (in an interview after he quit his job during the making of Trial when that rift went beyond mending) about disapproving of the casting and performances of Colin. From the comments Colin made, it seemed like Eric had been seen as a close colleague before that, invited to Colin's house and so on. Later, when asked about Slipback, a Saward-scripted radio Doctor Who story put on during the hiatus, Colin said "I'm so glad you asked me about that, I can't remember a thing about it". He did though have an inkling who wrote it: "Maybe that's why I elided it?!"

Nicola and Colin appear to be still very much the close-knit team after all these years; the only time they disagreed was talking about the very expensive opening model shot of the series. Colin thought it was a waste of money, and could have been replaced with a dialogue exchange along the lines of "Where am I?" "You're on a big space station". Nicola did not seem convinced by this: "It was state of the art" she said, and Colin replied without a beat, "So were we". They explained that the softening of the relationship of their screen alter-egos was down to the two of them; the script had the same hostile bickering as per the previous season. (Colin's theory was that incoming writers are mostly only interested in developing their own characters, so just look back at previous scripts or episodes to see what the regulars are like, and cut and paste that in to their scripts.) The two of them decided to play it as if their characters had got over all that, and were now gently joshing one another from a baseline of friendship and affection. After the first take doing it that way, they expected the director to tell them to go again, as it was supposed to be played as an argument, but that never happened. It breaks my heart that they didn't try this much earlier on. It was also revealed to be Colin's fault that Peri ended up "married to Brian Blessed". He had rationalised the Doctor's behaviour in Mindwarp the only way he could, that most of it didn't happen, but then asked the production team what had really happened to Peri if that was the case. The line added to the Trial finale marrying Peri off to Yrcanos was the hasty addition that resulted from that chat.

The Q&A turned at one point, inevitably, to Colin's sacking (after Trial, he was told that his services were no longer required). He retold the tale of being bold and insisting on seeing head of drama Jonathan Powell once he was told the news, and in that meeting Powell telling him that it was nothing about him or his performance per se, it was just that it was generally thought best to change the lead actor every three years. He was offered four episodes more at the start of the following year's batch, but Colin - wary of committing himself for months before getting only a small amount of work - asked for one more full year and then he'd bow out. Both men left the interview saying they'd think about it, and Colin never heard another thing, and hasn't seen Powell since. Colin said "I was being selfish in that moment, and I forgot about you" meaning the fans in the audience. He felt he had so much more to offer (and he was right). "Thank God for Big Finish" he added. The Radio Times picked up on the selfish line in a rather unfair online headline the following day, but I don't think anyone in the audience that day begrudged Colin thinking about his career in that moment.

One final Brian Blessed story to end on. Colin bemoaned the sort of thing he would get into trouble for in the studio, but which Brian seemed to get away with: it was nearing 10 'o clock on one shooting day, the time in the evening when recording stopped, and there was one scene to get in the can. Colin and Brian had to walk round a corner, and then Brian was to deliver the line "Right, let's find the Mentors". Brian could not remember the word 'Mentors' when it came to it. Mindful of some youngsters in the room, Colin let us imagine that the second most rude word in the English language was 'red', and the most rude one was 'blue'. What Brian ended up saying was "RIGHT, LET'S GET THE RED-ING BLUE-A-RONS!!" Wearily, as the clock struck ten, the production manager said, "Ok, we'll have to get that one tomorrow then".

In Summary:

This story is massively undervalued to my mind, and everyone should give it a re-watch when it comes out on Blu-ray. In other words: Let's. Do. The. Mind. Warp. Again!