The Mind Robber (1968) Review

The Mind Robber is a fantastic, surreal story delving quite literally into fiction, with a good moral message to boot.

PLOT

As the lava descends onto the TARDIS, its mercury fluid link breaks down for some reason, forcing the Doctor to use an emergency switch that sends the ship outside of reality. There, the crew are ensnared into a maze of fiction, controlled by a mysterious computer...

My main problem with the story is that they never explain how the computer managed to gain control over fiction to begin with. Is it even a world of fiction or simply a telepathic image created by the Master(hell yeah?)? If so, what are they doing outside of reality? And why do they want to conquer Earth for?

CHARACTERS

The TARDIS crew are all on fine form. I don't like Zoe's glittery catsuit, but that's a nitpick. And Hamish Wilson is a palatable substitute for Frazer Hines.

Bernard Horsfall(I think that's his name) does a great job as Lemuel Gulliver, being seemingly honest and mysteriously unreal at the same time. 

I liked the various monsters, even the obviously Batman-based Karkus.

The Master is a pretty interesting character, appearing both kind and affable, but also menacing from the computer's influence.

NOTES

*I loved the Doctor trying to apparently scare the Master with his Salamander impression. "Rewarding, huh?"

*The first episode is overrated. It certainly catches your interest and the cliffhanger is brilliant, but the episode meanders a lot in my opinion.

*Couldn't the Doctor just have said "the robots approached and then self-destructed because of a fault! And then everyone attacked the Master!"?

*And wouldn't that have fictionalised the Master as well?

*How come Gulliver was self-aware to an extent, but Jamie and Zoe were robotic?

*Also, Gulliver had a whole novel to quote, but Jamie and Zoe(whose entire lives were fictional now) just had a few sentences?

*What sort of timey-wimey event removed Karkus from comic book history?

*The notion that The Wheel In Space takes place in the 2010s or so is ridiculous. 30 years ago we were still in Snowcap Base, now we're flying around the universe?!

*Plus, wouldn't that have made the Cybermen invasion all the more memorable?

*Wouldn't there have been precautions taken to prevent another Cyber-invasion after the first two. The Moonbase was pretty defenceless.

*Why does Jamie wear something my dad would?

*I'm positive Moffat ripped off the "forest of words" in the Library two-parter.

*What was the guy's name that the Master wrote about in London? Captain Jack Ha-?

*Did they accidentally lose the final scene or something?

*What was the point of the clockwork soldiers if they had the White Robots?

BEST LINE

Everything Gulliver said.

CONCLUSION

An imaginative and fun story, although flawed in some aspects.