Doctor Who: The Mind of Evil DVD review

The release of “The Mind of Evil” is an important one, because with it the Jon Pertwee era of Doctor Who is finally complete on DVD – and as a total viewing experience, his era is more complete than it has been since his run first aired back in the early seventies. For ages, several dozen Pertwee episodes existed only as subpar, 16mm black and white recordings. Over the years, the Doctor Who Restoration Team has worked diligently, using a variety of techniques, to get each of these half-hours as close as possible to their original vision. The work that’s been done to “The Mind of Evil” (parts of which were considered to be in the worst shape of the lot) represents the final pieces of the Pertwee puzzle, and it’s been a long time coming, given that the first such work the RT did on afflicted Pertwee episodes was in 1992. Fast forward to today - over 20 years later - and Steve Roberts and company have every reason to climb up on the roof and crow, for they have accomplished what at one time seemed impossible.

And what a story to finish up on! While not emblematic of the Pertwee era as a whole, season eight’s “The Mind of Evil” is more representative of the Doctor Who that almost was. It’s the unintentional addendum to season seven, which featured a trilogy of successive seven-part serials (“Doctor Who and the Silurians,” “The Ambassadors of Death,” and “Inferno”) that saw the show veering into harder adult sci-fi territory than it had in the six seasons prior. “The Mind of Evil”, which has “only” six episodes, turns that trilogy into a quadrilogy warranting serious discussion and admiration; they stand tall, and very much apart from nearly everything else produced for TV under the name Doctor Who. “Mind” is, in fact, the only other Who story from Don Houghton, the man who wrote the crown jewel of the four, “Inferno,” which, rather sweetly, gets its special edition upgrade on the same day this is released. Likewise, “Mind” is directed by Timothy Combe, whose only other Who directing credit is the aforementioned “Silurians” tale. Between the previous credentials of its writer and director alone, for the initiated, “The Mind of Evil” has all the right stuff.

A skeptical Doctor (Pertwee) and his assistant Jo Grant (Katy Manning) head for Stangmoor prison to see a demonstration of the allegedly revolutionary Keller Machine, which its proponents claim is capable of cleansing the minds of violent criminals, rendering them harmless. The prison already appears to be an unsafe place, with the inmates constantly on the verge of rioting, and soon enough the machine proves dangerous as well, when it is revealed to be adept at exploiting fears to the point of death. Soon the curtain is pulled back, and the Master (Roger Delgado) is behind the seemingly alien machine, but his plans are bigger than mind control. With the World Peace Conference on the horizon, and a Thunderbolt missile armed with nerve gas transported smack through the middle of the action, the Doctor will need the help of his friends at UNIT to avert this round of the Master’s sinister plans.

Before “The Ambassadors of Death” was released last year, my excitement was off the charts (and the DVD was a ridiculously enjoyable experience), but when it came down to writing about it, I found it an impossible task; sat down and tried at least a half a dozen times with no success. And as I sit here trying to think of deeper observations to make about “The Mind of Evil,” I feel similarly blocked. These serials are so different from the rest of the series that they almost can’t be talked about within the context of everything else. “The Mind of Evil” has been called a “James Bond style political thriller.” You know what else was called - by Steven Moffat, no less - a “proper James Bond thriller”? “The Bells of Saint John.” Tough to immediately name two Who stories that have less in common than that pair. If you played one after another for the uninitiated, would they even guess they’re from the same ongoing 50-year storyline? In any case, “The Bells of Saint John” has about as much in common with James Bond as a random episode of Happy Days: a scene with a guy on a motorcycle. “The Mind of Evil,” however? More so, for certain. Its over-the-top plot and convoluted plan of the Master’s smack of fare that’s lifted from a Bond movie. And the serial’s got an honest-to-god missile to play with – on loan from the military, who cooperated with and also worked on “Mind.”

A few stray observations, notes and trivia...

“The Mind of Evil” must take place at least six months after “Terror of the Autons” (something about a year is even mentioned at one point). It must have taken the Master at least that long, if not longer, to put all of this together. Further, Jo Grant has grown by leaps and bounds since the previous story. It actually feels as though she’s been through numerous adventures with the Doctor and UNIT. She and the Doctor now have a great deal of respect for each other, and she’s shown to be quite capable of taking care of herself, including getting physical on a couple occasions.

Manning declares “The Mind of Evil” her favorite serial, and claims Pertwee felt the same. Perhaps this should come as no surprise, given that it’s unencumbered by many of the usual bells and whistles (i.e. monsters and technobabble) that normally fuel Doctor Who, and is a relatively straightforward piece that often keeps the actors front and center.

With the serial being from 1971, as well as its initial emphasis on mind-cleansing, at first glance you want to say it’s the Doctor Who reaction to A Clockwork Orange. Maybe…maybe not. This serial and the movie were actually in production concurrently, so Kubrick’s film couldn’t have been an influence, however, it is possible Houghton was a fan of the Anthony Burgess novel. The production notes, I believe, also suggest that the classic Star Trek episode “Dagger of the Mind” may have been an influence, though they also acknowledge that the themes of mind control were quite common at the time.

UNIT is at their very best in this unofficial quadriology. Their role is taken quite seriously, and never is the Brigadier or his staff the butt of a joke or a gag. In later seasons, UNIT wasn’t portrayed with nearly as much respect as in these early outings, and here it’s all serious hardcore espionage and adventure. “The Mind of Evil” has quite a bit of action, and it’s a classy-looking production. Director Combe even went over budget, and was never invited back to the series as a result. Pity.

No doubt some readers would like to know how the video quality stands up, and the answer is “Much better than I expected.” Episode one was, I believe, colored frame by frame with great success, however, the picture quality is probably the softest of the half dozen. The remaining five had the color recovery process applied to them, and are sharper, but of variable image quality ranging from pretty nice to most definitely acceptable. Certainly one must take into account the poor shape these episodes were in to begin with to appreciate how amazing this set really is.

Producer Barry Letts ultimately guided the series back to its more imaginative, family-friendly roots, which was probably for the best in the long run…but there’s no question that “The Mind of Evil” is a pretty special slice of Doctor Who, and it’s no doubt one of the most exciting classic Who releases of the year.

DVD Extras: Imbibing in some of these bonus features feels similar to what it must be like to receive a letter in the mail from someone who has recently died. The commentary track features the late Barry Letts, which is quite the treat. Additionally, the revolving roster of participants features Manning, Pik-Sen Lim (Houghton’s widow, who also plays Chin Lee in the serial), Fernanda Marlowe (Corporal Bell), Combe, Terrance Dicks, and stunt arranger Derek Ware – all moderated by the reliably enthusiastic Toby Hadoke.

“The Military Mind” is a 22-minute making-of filmed mostly on location at the castle which doubled for the prison. Among its participants is Letts once again (looking very frail; it must have been near the end) as well as the mighty Nicholas Courtney. Further, the clips used from “Mind” in this are all taken from the black and white version of the serial, which is quite the retro treat for those of us who first viewed the serial in that manner (granted, they have been cropped to fit the 16x9 aspect ratio, but that’s pretty commonplace on the docs these days). There’s also a “Now and Then” featurette on the locations (again, largely the castle), as well as a vintage piece entitled “Behind the Scenes: Television Centre” from 1971, which I frankly found rather tedious. Funny, because just last month “The Visitation” SE offered up a modern tour of the same building. PDF materials include Radio Times listings as well as images from a 1971 Kellogg’s Sugar Smacks promotion centered on the Third Doctor and UNIT. There’s also a photo gallery, the production notes subtitle option, and a trailer for upcoming Blu-ray release of “Spearhead from Space.”

Doctor Who: The Claws of Axos Special Edition DVD review

“Look, Lois, ever since marijuana was legalized, crime has gone down, productivity is up, and the ratings for Doctor Who are through the roof!” - Brian, Family Guy, “Episode 420”

For no less than three different reasons, that remains some of my favorite Family Guy dialogue ever written. It’s anyone’s guess how many Doctor Who fans watch the show in altered states of mind, but now, here in the States, folks in Washington can at least do so openly and without fear of persecution. They can hold massive, marijuana-fueled Who marathons, and any such festival will most surely want to include “The Claws of Axos,” which is not necessarily one of classic Who’s greatest stories, but it’s certainly one of the trippiest.

The plot is no great shakes. It’s a standard alien invasion yarn, that’s hook is “they appear to come in peace, but actually have ulterior, sinister motives.” This is the sort of sci-fi tale that’s been told thousands of times, and by that measure, “The Claws of Axos” will not rock your world. However, Roger Ebert’s old rule – one by which I live and never pass up the opportunity to quote - is, “It’s not what a movie is about, it’s how it is about it.” And it’s the “how” of “Axos” that makes it such a classic. Just recently one of my Whovian brethren, Lee Hurtado, of The Hurtado Street Theater, was telling me how he got into Who, and explained that even though he’d seen several stories prior, it was “Axos” that eventually sold him on the series. The serial is so damn committed to its own weirdness, that you really cannot take your eyes off of it, and it does sort of beg the question, for the uninitiated at least, “What the fuck is this!?!?”

The first ten minutes of the first episode alone declare, like Laverne and Shirley, “We’re gonna do it our way,” due in no small part to the character Pigbin Josh, a filthy, disgusting, seemingly homeless man (played by stuntman Derek Ware), whose sole function in the story is to be the first victim of the claws of Axos, so that the viewer knows right off the bat that the golden Axons are hostile, despite their benign presentational ruse later on in the tale. Anyway, during this first ten minutes, the action cuts back and forth from the arrival of the Axons, to the Doctor and UNIT, to this character, Pigbin Josh, wandering around in the snow, doing an awful lot of talking to himself, and none of it intelligible. Thankfully, somebody has transcribed some Pigbin speak and put it on the official BBC classic Who website for all to attempt to decipher:  

“Furge thangering muck witchellers rock throbblin' this time o' day Ur bin oughta gone put thickery blarmdasted zones about, gordangun, diddenum? Havver froggin' law onnum, shouldnum? Eh? Eh? Arn I?”

Ahem. Ah, well, yes. If you’re an American fan raised on the Peanuts, you’ll quickly begin referring to him as Pigpen Josh, because that makes more sense to a Yank. Now if only Josh were the end of The Weirdness of Axos, which would’ve been a wholly appropriate name for this tale. The Axon ship, years before Farscape’s Moya, is a living ship. Its organic interior is the sort of thing to be hallucinated in the most unsettling of LSD trips, and even as I sit here trying to think of how to describe it, I’m resigning myself to falling back on some sort of clichéd “it defies description” type of line. Really it does, much of which is due to Who’s low budget. Had millions been pumped into this, we may have had a place from which to start talking, but as is, it’s just weird a hodgepodge of bizarre soft angles, vaginal doorways and the occasional crab claw. Oh, and plenty of acid slides. 

Nothing will prepare you for the arrival of the eyeball of Axos, which dangles in exactly the same way a limp penis might, and issues commands and orders in a creepy, hollow voice. Then there are the golden Axons themselves, who are such a striking creation that even in a story that’s as visually whacked as this one, they’ve sort of become the thing “Axos” is most well known for. Or are they? Because later in the story, the Axons reveal another form, which is a hulking, red mess of tentacles - a look which is almost as iconic as the golden versions of Axos. It is debatable, I suppose, which Axon form is the more iconic; the tentacled version has actually been turned into an action figure, while the golden has not (updated 01/06/2014 - now it has), which could be part of the debate. In any case, the fact that the production team achieved two entirely different looks for this race that are both iconic to such degrees is high praise indeed.

So, I’ve pretty much gotten to the point where I’m realizing exactly how balls out crazy I’ve made “Axos” sound, which was sort of the point, because you’ll see things here you can’t unsee, or see in any other Doctor Who story. Should you, as Dazed and Confused advised upon its release, “See it with a bud!”? Most certainly, if and only if that’s your sort of thing. The story works just fine, however, if you’re sober. For a more coherent breakdown, and one mired in actual criticism, I turned to the aforementioned Lee Hurtado, who, to the best of my knowledge, does not engage in the sorts of activities spoken of here. He laid it out thusly:

           

“There was alchemy at work in the story, something that brought its disparate elements together in a way that shouldn't have worked as it did. The limited production values, the garish visual aesthetic of the Axons, a plot that's at once simple and well over the top, and (of course) the marvelous performances of [Jon] Pertwee and [Roger] Delgado - all combined to create something I recognized as truly alien, and therefore truly original. From then on, my fate was sealed. I was, and am, the Doctor's.”

On a completely different, and in my opinion far less interesting level, anyone who owned the original DVD of “Axos” no doubt knows that the quality of Episodes Two and Three was dodgy at best. New tech has emerged since then, bringing both eps up to a quality comparable to Episodes One and Four, and therefore totally justifying this special edition. For the hardcore Who nut, this isn’t just double-dipping for double-dipping’s sake, it’s quite possibly an essential.

DVD Extras: Almost everything that was on the original DVD (including the commentary with Katy Manning, Richard Franklin, and Barry Letts) has been ported over onto this new double-disc set, except for a ten-minute documentary entitled “Reverse Standards Conversion: The Axon Legacy,” which was a look at the restoration given to the story for the original DVD release; that information is not applicable to this new release, so it has been excised. No new doc, detailing the recent restoration work, was produced to take its place, however there is a fresh, new article up at the Restoration Team’s website detailing the work that went into this special edition.

New to the table is a 26-minute making of doc entitled “Axon Stations!,” which, amusingly, goes into detail about the sheer drugginess of this story, and also spends time discussing the story’s writers, Bob Baker and Dave Martin (the former went on to write Wallace and Gromit). Quite possibly the best extra, however, is “Living with Levene,” in which Toby Hadoke spends the weekend with John Levene (Sgt. Benton), who comes across as a fascinating eccentric, and quite possibly Doctor Who’s most uncelebrated MVP. Finally, partially new to the table is 73 minutes worth of rare “Axos” studio recording, some of which appeared on the old disc in a much shorter version (inexplicably duplicated here as well on Disc One). The Radio Times listings are also presented in PDF form. Additionally, there’s a coming soon trailer for the long awaited release of the unfinished story “Shada,” which will be hitting DVD in January, in a box set along with the 1993 documentary “More Than Thirty Years in TARDIS.”

Doctor Who: The Daemons DVD review

And the hits just keep on coming. “The Daemons,” the onscreen title of which is “The Dæmons” (note the “æ” ligature), is yet another serial deserving of the label classic. It’s one of the most memorable and popular storylines of Jon Pertwee’s era, and probably the first Doctor Who tale to so clearly take mankind’s belief in a higher power to task, via that old chestnut from Arthur C. Clarke, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

The tale turns on the opening of an ancient burial mound in the tiny village of Devil’s End. The event, which will take place at the stroke of midnight on April 30th (Beltane), is to be broadcast on BBC Three, which, in reality, didn’t come into existence until many, many years later. The whole thing is reminiscent to someone of my age of Geraldo Rivera’s opening of Al Capone’s vaults…only in this instance, something is found, or more precisely, unleashed. The Doctor and Jo (Katy Manning) head to Devil’s End to investigate, only to discover the Master (Roger Delgado) is behind the sinister goings-on. He’s summoning forces that have existed since the dawn of man – an alien called Azal, who belongs to a race known as the Daemons, and he’s very displeased with mankind’s lack of progress.

Since most everything that happens on Doctor Who must have some sort of scientific explanation, Barry Letts couldn’t do a straight-up horror tale, but with “The Daemons,” he gave viewers the next best thing, and that’s a tale of science masquerading as, or rather being mistaken for, mysticism, and according to “The Daemons,” which Letts wrote with Robert Sloman under the pen name Guy Leopold, it’s been going on for centuries. The central premise of the story is a great one, and “The Daemons” drips atmosphere and sports one memorable moment after another. There are many different reasons to appreciate all the many different classic Doctor Who stories, but for sheer fun, “The Daemons” is right up there with the best of them. Certainly if you appreciate Hammer horror films – especially fare like The Devil Rides Out, written by Dennis Wheatley, whose work was a clear inspiration for “The Daemons” – then this you just gotta see. (Of course if you know who Dennis Wheatley is, maybe you already have.)

Now all of that said, don’t peel the curtain too far back, otherwise you’ll notice that “The Daemons” is riddled with what I like to call “Yeah right!” moments; the sort of stuff you have to deal with when viewing an action movie, which, when it comes right down to it, is what “The Daemons” basically is: a low budget sci-fi/horror/action film. For instance, in this five-episode tale that’s set entirely within the confines of a tiny English village (which in turn is enveloped by a massive heat barrier for most of the story, so nobody can enter or exit Devil’s End), the Doctor and the Master do not meet until the final episode. It’s mind-boggling that the Doctor never marches several hundred feet over to the church (the Master’s base of operations) to simply confront his enemy head on, especially since he’s been battling the Master in story after story throughout all of Season Eight, which “The Daemons” closes out. To my eyes, that’s a pretty serious “Yeah right!” aspect of the story.

Also to my eyes, neither of the monsters in this tale are realized as well as they could’ve been, due mostly to ill fitting tights. Bok, the stone gargoyle come-to-life, is cuter than he is threatening, and Azal is one of those great examples of how much more effective it is to not see the goods. “The Daemons” does such a fantastic job of teasing the viewer as to Azal’s appearance, that it almost has to be a letdown when he’s finally shown. It sort of is (seriously – keep an eye out for the tights), and the less said about Stephen Thorne’s booming, one note performance as the beast, the better. (This is the same guy who played Omega in “The Three Doctors,” FYI.)

Now all of that said (ahem…), “The Daemons” remains benchmark, must-see classic Who. It’s one of the best UNIT stories, with the Brigadier (Nicholas Courtney), Mike Yates (Richard Franklin) and Sgt. Benton (John Levene) each getting their moments on the spotlight. The Doctor and Jo are both in prime form, with the story thematically being something of a culmination of her season-long introduction to the world of the Doctor, as well as their mentor/student relationship. The script is crammed with great one-liners, with my personal favorite being the moment in which one of the townspeople thinks the Doctor is part of the BBC TV crew because of “the costume and the wig.” To which Pertwee, aghast, replies, “Wig!?”

Then there’s the local white witch, Miss Hawthorne, played to utterly kooky perfection by Damaris Hayman, a character that’s sort of emblematic of how much fun this story is. Another great character is Professor Horner, played by Robin Wentworth. He only appears in Episode One, but every single utterance that comes out of his mouth is priceless. It’s almost a shame he wasn’t kept around for the rest of the story. Words escape me for how perfect Roger Delgado is here. But then, words always escape me for how good he was as the Master. There have been many Doctors, and there have many fine debates over which is the best, but anyone, with any amount of taste, must surely admit that Delgado’s Master has never been bested (and maybe, at this point, never will be). “The Daemons” has finally found its way to DVD, but there’s more to the matter than just the quality of the story. What of the disc itself?         

There’s no question that with this release, “The Daemons” looks and sounds better – much better – than ever before. This is a story with a problematic history of video and audio quality, and I grew up watching it in black and white, because for years all (well, mostly all…but we’ll get to that shortly) that existed were tapes made from the 16mm monochrome telerecordings. In the early ‘90s, “The Daemons” became one of the Restoration Team’s first projects. Using their own “black magic,” a color version was released on VHS in ’93. I remember being pretty bowled over by it at the time, but by today’s Who DVD standards, it would no doubt look pretty creaky. So another round of work has gone into “The Daemons,” although I’ve honestly no idea what exactly was done to it, or how they got it to the level of quality displayed here. Sorely missing from this release is any kind of featurette on the restoration. Perhaps such mini-docs are considered redundant at this point? They shouldn’t be, as not every fan buys every Who DVD. The Team has recently started updating their site once again (after a period of inactivity), so hopefully they’ll put up an article on this release some time in the near future.

Back to “mostly all,” from above…Episode Four has always existed in its original PAL color videotape form, and as a result, Episode Four looks and sounds amazing on this DVD. The problem is that one ends up comparing the other four episodes to it, and they can’t help but come up a little short in comparison. The location film sequences, of which “The Daemons” has many (more of this story was shot on location than in the studio), still look somewhat muddy at times, but presently this is surely about as good as it gets. It’ll break both of your Whovian hearts to know that, if not for archaic BBC shortsightedness, the entire serial could look as great as Episode Four. Mind you, that’s not a specific criticism of this DVD, just an observation of the cruelty of fanboy life. On the flip side, the videotaped studio material looks really nice, although every once in a while there seems to be some brief color bleed, but I’m talking matters of split seconds here. On the scale of "massive overhaul" type restorations, I’d put this one ahead of “Terror of the Autons,” but still not as near-perfect as “Planet of the Daleks” Part Three, which (for me anyway) remains the gold standard.

DVD Extras: It is in this area that “The Daemons” DVD truly falls short. Although the commentary track featuring Manning, Franklin, Hayman, and director Christopher Barry is a nice one (particularly the contributions from Damaris – the woman’s a hoot), it’s a massive oversight and shame that Barry Letts and Nicholas Courtney weren’t secured for participation. I know for a fact this was Letts’ favorite story, because he told me as much when, upon meeting him back in the late ‘90s, I asked him what his favorite story was. Nicholas Courtney went so far as to call his autobiography Five Rounds Rapid!, after a piece of dialogue from the story – one that is quite possibly the Brigadier’s most famous.

Now there’s a competent enough making of on here (amusingly) called “The Devil Rides Out,” which features the same folks that are on the commentary, plus a few others, including some archival interview footage with Letts (yet not nearly as much as one might’ve hoped for), yet Courtney’s nowhere to be seen. It sure would have been nice if the ’96 doc “Return to Devil’s End” could’ve been secured for this release, as it isn’t owned by the BBC, but its inclusion would’ve made up for some of the other oversights. Rarely do I complain about what’s not present on a classic Who DVD, but this is a case where I feel I must, as the extras here just don’t quite feel like they’re doing “The Daemons” justice.

Aside from the commentary and the making of, also present is a very nice 33-minute documentary called “Remembering Barry Letts,” which traces the man’s career, and features both of his sons discussing him at length. This is a sweet, warm piece, and even though there’s nothing in it that’s “Daemons” specific, it’s a welcome addition. There’s six minutes worth of silent “amateur” 8mm film footage that was made during the original “Daemons” shoot; doesn’t sound all that interesting, yet it really rather is. The entirety of Episode One is also presented as it looked after the very first colorization test in 1992, along with a short piece on the ‘92 colorization from a show called “Tomorrow’s World.” These seem like somewhat baffling inclusions (talk about redundant!) given that they don’t reflect the current work put into this story, although the ability to do a “now and then” comparison of Episode One 1992 vs. Episode One 2012 is fairly enlightening in regards to the strides that have been made in technology over the past 20 years. (Again, here’s where a short piece on the current restoration would’ve fit in nicely.) Finally, there’s the usual photo gallery, production notes subtitle option, Radio Times listings in PDF form, and a coming soon trailer for “Nightmare of Eden” which will be out next month.