It is with deepest regret that DWO announces the passing of Classic Series Doctor Who Script Editor & Producer, Derrick Sherwin.

Derrick began his work on Doctor Who as Script Editor for the following stories: The Web Of Fear, Fury From The Deep, The Wheel In Space, The Dominators & The Mind Robber. He then took on the role of Producer for The War Games & Spearhead From Space.

Derrick also wrote the 2nd Doctor adventure, The Invasion, which was the first story to properly introduce UNIT. It was also his idea to exile The Doctor to Earth for Jon Pertwee's early 3rd Doctor stories.

Derrick's other career highlights include acting credits for; Here Lies Miss Sabry, United!, The Scales Of Justice and even an uncredited cameo appearance in Spearhead From Space as a UNIT Commissionaire.

DWO would like to extend our sympathies to Derrick's family and friends.

[Source: DWO]

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day 226: The Mind Robber, Episode Five

Dear diary,

I do have to wonder if part of the reason I'm liking The Mind Robber so much is that the episodes are so short. I stuck today's on while I was eating lunch and before I knew it - everything had finished! This one only clocks in at around the 17-minute mark, and the same is true for the other parts of this story - they're all shorter than your average Doctor Who. I don't know if it makes things more focussed, but it may be helping towards my enjoyment, certainly!

The other thing that's really appealing to me is that, for all the silliness of a story in which Gulliver and Rapunzel watch the climactic fight on a castle rooftop with pirates and superheroes firing laser guns, there's some genuinely sinister imagery throughout these five episodes. I've commented on how odd the first episode is, and the final shot of the TARDIS being blasted apart is a real sign of the programme moving out of its comfort zone, and we've the clockwork robots stalking the entire story, but today perhaps takes the crown.

The scene in which Jamie and Zoe tempt the Doctor inside a police box, filled with enthusiasm is fantastic. The way their faces stretch into huge, forced smiles is genuinely creepy, as they tease that things 'aren't over yet'. The shot that follows, of the cardboard cut-out TARDIS falling to the floor, to reveal the Doctor caught in a perspex piece of machinery is similarly unsettling, and then to add to it all, the group of Cockney children press their noses up against the case and laugh at his misfortune. Forget your Daleks and Cybermen - this is the kind of scene that would have left me scared as a child. It's not simply that the Doctor has been captured, it's that things are slipping away from his control more and more.

The various fights peppered throughout this final episode aren't necessarily anything all that special, but the final destruction of the Land of Fiction with the White Robots destroying everything they can get their guns trained on is very well done, as the set burns around our regulars. It felt a bit sudden when the episode simply finished, the Doctor having confirmed that they would be returned to their proper place in space and time (probably), but it's a rather well done ending to the tale.

I need to comment, one last time before I move on, about how this story would have suited as a successor to The Celestial Toymaker. It would have been a brilliant reveal had he stepped out during this episode to announce that he was the one in control of all this, and that the Master was simply the last victim to fail one of his games and be trapped there forever.

Way back when, during the Toymaker's first appearance, I said that ti would have been a hassle to have him turn up every time you wanted the Doctor to change his face (since turning the Doctor invisible the last time they met was supposed to be a viable way to get William Hartnell out of the series), but I don't think it would feel unusual to have the TARDIS team returned to the ship in this story, only to find that the Doctor suddenly looks different - and there's no way to change back with the Land of Fiction gone! Cue the titles!

In some ways, I'm glad that this doesn't simply serve as a follow up to that other story, as it gives The Mind Robber the room to breathe on its own as a slightly odd tale nestled in Season Six. It's been a mixed bag so far this year, what with an alien planet story that felt like a Season Two tale and an 'outside time and space' tale which feels like a sequel to Season Three. The quality of the stories has swung wildly (honestly, there was a point when I wondered if I'd actually make it to this story!), but the next one brings us closer to the kind of thing I've come to expect from Doctor Who of late. Here's hoping that - like The Mind Robber - I'll find my fond memories don't live up to just how good the story is…

a 

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Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day 225: The Mind Robber, Episode Four

Dear diary,

I’d completely forgotten that the real threat to the Doctor and his companions here was that they could become fictional characters themselves. I could recall their meeting with the Master in the heart of the Land of Fiction, and I knew that he wanted the Doctor to take over running the place, but all the stuff with the ticker tape and the Doctor choosing to take a different course of action had been completely wiped from my mind. It’s a shame, really, because it’s a great idea, and I’m a bit sorry that more hasn’t been made of it: it would have been good to see the Doctor actively having to guess which course of action would help them escape, and which would get them trapped forever.

The thing that really stood out for me today, which I don’t think I particularly appreciated yesterday, is just how well the Medusa effect works. I know the snakes in her hair are all done as stop motion, but it’s pulled off pretty well – certainly it’s one of the better effects we’ve seen from the series. There’s something about the blank, expressionless face (with those huge eyes, too!) which really is quite scary: my joke about turning it into a Weeping Angel doesn’t seem so far fetched the more that I look at her!

We’ve also got the White Robots back, on the hunt for the Doctor and his companions, but I can’t tell if they were always supposed to be a part of the story or if they’re just being used interchangeably with the Toy Soldiers as the Master’s guards. They only show up inside the void during the first episode and inside the futuristic scenes here, while the Toys are the ones on the hunt outside, in the rest of this realm. Could it be that they’re one and the same, but when surrounded by all the fictional characters they take on a more whimsical appearance.

While I really like the design of these robots, I can’t help but wonder if it may have been even better to have the Toy Soldiers in the story right From Episode One. All that stuff in the void is brilliant – but how much more memorable would it be if the robots that surround them from nowhere are the Toy Soldiers, looming over them with their headlamps flashing? It’s that perfect type of surreal image that the programme is so good at delivering, and it’s a bit of a shame that it didn’t happen. I imagine it’s because they had almost no budget for that first week (which is why these White Robot costumes were taken from stock), and thus weren’t able to get the tall chaps built until the following week. Still, a shame!

Today’s addition to the growing cast of fictional characters comes in the form of the Karkus, a slightly bizarre superhero in the guise of a Mexican Wrestler (the Doctor’s impression of the character allows us a brief return of Salamander). He’s from a series of comic strips published in the Year 2000, and over the years, I’ve often seen Zoe’s knowledge of him used to signpost that she’s obviously from the same year. It strikes me, though, that the implication is expressly that she isn’t. Having established that the Doctor isn’t aware of the character, she has to ask, ‘you’ve been to the year 2000, haven’t you?’ as though she doesn’t know for sure. The biggest issue this causes is that we see a reversal of the Doctor/Zoe dynamic from the last episode - she’s the one trying to convince her companion that the wrestler isn’t real, and he’s the one unable to believe it – despite just making his gun disappear because he doesn’t believe it’s possible!

Then there’s the Master’s on-going work of fiction: The Adventures of Captain Jack Harkaway. I think most fans have those little things which they believe in their own mind whether it’s stated on screen or not – and this is one of mind. Surely this series is based on the adventures of a certain Captain Jack Harkness (his name changed by the publishers to be more enchanting), as he recounts his tales of battling aliens through time and space? I’d love it if one of Jack’s stories made reference to a battered old police box and an ageless traveller, which brought the Doctor to the attention of the Land of Fiction in the first place from his place in this man's mind!

(Mind you, Zoe’s not quite on form when she hears of these tales. He claims to have written 5000 words a week for 25 years, and Zoe is shocked to announce that it would total ‘well over half a million words!’

Well, yes. It would. It’d total six and a half million words to be exact!)

a  a

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day 224: The Mind Robber, Episode Three

Dear diary,

The thing I'm finding odd about The Mind Robber is that I've got a snaking suspicion I shouldn't really like it. I mean, it feels completely out of keeping with pretty much everything we've ever had in the series before (despite all my comparisons to The Celestial Toymaker - this is weirder!) or since, and it really feels a bit out of place. In some ways, it's almost like they're really scraping the barrel of things to do with the programme.

I wonder if it's just that Season Five has completely altered my perception of what Doctor Who is supposed to be? During the Hartnell era, things were different every four-to-six episodes, sometimes swinging in wild directions (going for high comedy in things like The Romans or pure, educational history in The Aztecs, not to mention odd sidesteps into being an inch high or fighting the Daleks for twelve straight weeks), but the Second Doctor's era has felt far more uniform.

Suddenly, we're plonked down into this strange place, where following the white void and TARDIS behaving erratically stuff in Episode One, we're suddenly in a world of fiction, in which characters such as the Unicorn or Medusa can be perfectly real, and the Doctor can have a chat with Gulliver. It just feels like it's pushing the envelope that bit too far for me, and I really should be talking about how it simply doesn't work, and how it was one of the worst ideas in the show's long history.

And yet… there's just something about it that really, really, works. I'm finding myself genuinely caught up with it, and in a stark contrast to the last story, I can't imagine letting my attention wander - I'm simply glued to the screen. It's all pretty standard fare (the majority of today's episode revolves around the Doctor and his companions wandering through - essentially - corridors), but it really does keep you attached. I wonder if part of the praise needs to be passed onto our three regulars. While there's plenty of other characters in the episode, it still feels as though they're the only ones there. Maybe it's because we know that they're the only ones who can be described as 'real'? All the other characters come and go in the blink of an eye (Jamie clambering through the window to meet Rapunzel, only to find that she's vanished is great), making our heroes the only focal point.

It's great to have Frazer Hines back today, too. I spoke yesterday of how Jamie's face being changed felt perfectly in keeping with the story's theme of tests and surreal images, and the same is true of his return. In some ways, it feels like a shame to have the resolution be identical to the scene we saw yesterday - the Doctor having to put Jamie's face back together - but I think I prefer it to them just arriving somewhere to find that, ta-da!, Jamie is back to normal. Though Hamish Wilson turns in a fair performance as the highlander, no one can ever live up to Frazer - he is Jamie.

And he's back to being perfectly in keeping with the Second Doctor. There's a moment when they've entered the mysterious house, and the door slams shut behind them. In the exact same second, with the exact same Scooby Doo-like move, the pair turn in shock to find the source of the noise. Wendy pad bury also makes the turn, but she's not quite in time with the others. You get the sense that she's still finding her feet a little. That said, she's lovely when she's on screen alone with Troughton, and they way they hold each other close while the Medusa attacks is lovely.

It has to be said though - Zoe just doesn't get it, does she? In the opening moments of this episode, the Doctor manages to stop the charging unicorn by convincing his companions that it isn't real, so can't hurt them. He even explains this to them (and to us). A little later, they use the same trick to face off a minotour - but Zoe don't understand how it's not real when it's right there with them. The cliffhanger today is based on the same premise - the threat is only there because Zoe won't accept that it can't be. I'm hoping they'll slip in a few lines about how she finds it hard to accept because she's so used to dealing with facts, but I seem to recall having the same issue with this on my first viewing of the story.

Oh - and how has no one made a Weeping Angels re-edit of that cliffhanger?

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day 223: The Mind Robber, Episode Two

Dear diary,

This story really is a spiritual successor to The Celestial Toymaker, isn't it? We've got the Doctor and his companions transported to a dimension outside their own, where they're forced to take part in strange games, while an omni-present figure watches on. I wonder if anyone watching at the time may have put two and two together and assumed that the Toymaker would be making his return here? We even get one of the regulars being taken away and replaced with a new actor (they didn't actually go through with it during The Celestial Toymaker, of course, and Jamie is only temporarily removed from events here, but still…)

The strange thing is… I'm not sure that I'd be totally against having the Toymaker return. Sure, his first story wasn't exactly a classic, but done in a style like this, where we're kept guessing and the whole episode is filled with a sense of dread, I think I'd be all for it.

A couple of weeks ago, I saw an episode of The Avengers - The House That Jack Built - for the first time, and couldn't help but spend the rest of the evening imagining it as a Toymaker story for the second Doctor. No, no, hear me out!

The story largely concerns Emma Peel being trapped inside a large, country house which has been completely restructured inside using advanced electronics to confuse her and drive her mad, to the point that she tries to kill herself (at least, that's the plan). For a long time, Mrs Peel finds herself running round and round in circles, unable to escape the house until she smashes her way to the central control room, where she finds the mind behind all this.

He's an ex employee (I think… I'd sort of lost track by that point) who had set all this up to get revenge on her. He'd been dead for a long time, and his body was preserved, sitting inside a glass box in the centre of the room, taunting her. Having decided that it would be a good basis for a Doctor Who story, I couldn't shake the image from my mind of the Second Doctor reaching the centre of the maze and finding William Hartnell's incarnation sat frozen in the box. Admittedly, it might be a bit too sinister for the Doctor Who audience, but it's probably put my mind in the right place for this story! Troughton really suits a situation where he's left to piece the puzzle together, and we're seeing the darker, more serious side to his Doctor come out again - the threat feels all the larger because of it.

There's a lot to like in this episode. The removal of Jamie feels totally natural, and I'm not sure it would stick out as particularly odd even if I didn't know that he was away with Chicken Pox that week. It fits so nicely with the rest of the events we've seen today that it's perfectly reasonable to think that it was scripted simply to cover a week's holiday. It also serves as a great way to set up some of the odd things that we've got going on in this one - from Zoe being trapped in an over-sized glass jar, to the Doctor being surrounded by schoolchildren who proceed to quiz him with riddles to assertion if he'd be 'suitable' or not for some unknown task.

Then we've got plenty of great images to take away with us, from the forest of words (though it's a shame they don't really match up between the studio set and the shot of the letters from above) to the Clockwork Soldiers, marching through the 'trees'. They make a brilliant noise while they seek out our heroes - suitably creepy. And then we end with a unicorn charging towards us! As ever with things like this, it doesn't quite work, but it's good enough to be passable. I like that there's no answers to all this yet. I vaguely know where things are going, but it's been so long since I last saw the story that I can only remember bits and pieces from the resolution. I'm enjoying beings swept along with the tale, though. If anything, I might be a bit disappointed when we find out it isn't the Toymaker watching from afar…

a 

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day 222: The Mind Robber, Episode One

Dear diary,

The Mind Robber was the first Doctor Who DVD that I picked up on release day. Up to this point, I'd been dipping into the classic series DVDs based entirely on which cover appealed to me most in the shop (and what a wonderful way that was to experience the programme! These days, even the stories that I haven't seen occupy some place in my mind, with some scrap of knowledge about what's to come. Way back when, it was down to reading the blurb and looking at the cover art - which is why hit took me so long to pick up The Leisure Hive…), it was now March of 2005, and with the Doctor's return to TV imminent, my interest was starting to peak in the programme.

I can clearly remember lots of key bits from all five episodes of this story, so clearly it made some kind of an impression on me - I don't think I've actually seen it since the first watch eight years ago. I've always just had it filed away as 'a good one'. To that end, I decided that today's episode would be one to show Ellie. During the Hartnell era, I made her watch part of The Web Planet with me, because I wanted to see her reaction to a 'bad' Doctor Who story. I figured today was a chance to make up for it with what I'd call a 'good' one (even if I'd also call it 'the most bizarre episode of the 1960s'…)

We sat in silence right the way through the episode. Occasionally, I tried to say something, but was met with a firm 'shh' as she pointedly watched the screen. Having reached the end, I asked her to sum up her thoughts. She thought it was awful. At one point, she described it as 'worse than the one with the ants'. Ah. Worth a try, I guess.

Still, I was pleased to find that, having come through all the episodes before this one, I thought it was even better than I remembered. I was already making a mental note of how I wanted to write today's entry: commenting that it's completely unlike anything we've ever seen from the programme… but it's not! Just two stories on from The Wheel in Space, we've another scene in which the Fluid Links break (temporarily, this time) and the TARDIS console room is threatened by an outpouring of mercury vapour. A few minutes later, the scanner starts to show images of nice places (or, more specifically on this occasion, places that Jamie and Zoe would like to be) that aren't really there. I'm pleased that at least Jamie makes mention of the fact this has happened before.

It actually all works for the better that we start in such a dull (sorry!) and familiar way - everything in the second half of the episode feels so much more out of place and odd when it's come immediately after this real feeling of normality. Ok, yes, you can see the join in the set when Jamie and Zoe are out in the void (and once you've seen it, it's impossible to un-see). Yeah, when the robots turn up, they stand about six feet away from our two companions, who look at them several times before confirming that they're the only ones there (this was the only time Ellie spoke during the episode - asking if the robots were part of 'the Silence', and if Jamie and Zoe were forgetting them).

But in spite of all this, it's really rather creepy. The Doctor sitting in the chair, pulling pained expressions while he fights a mental battle with an un-seen force is well done, and then we end on that fab cliffhanger - the TARDIS blows apart! If you're putting together a list of brilliantly effective cliff-hangers for the series, this one would need to be somewhere near the top of the list.

While I've got strong memories of this story in my mind and a general feeling that I'd enjoyed it before, I also seem to recall thinking that things headed down-hill after the first episode. I'm hoping that the improvement of even this one since last time is a good sign of things to come!

a 

It is with deepest regret that DWO announces the passing of Classic Series Doctor Who Actor, Bernard Horsfall.

Bernard was perhaps best known to Doctor Who fans for appearing in four, Classic Series adventures:

The Mind Robber as Lemuel Gulliver
The War Games as a Time Lord
Planet of the Daleks as Taron
The Deadly Assassin as Chancellor Goth

DWO would like to extend our sympathies to Bernard's family and friends.

[Sources: Alan Pulverton]