N.B. there might (or might not) be spoilers in this article!
There’s more than a hint of A Clockwork Orange‘s Ludivico technique in the Keller process – each being a revolutionary method of treating criminal behaviour that is both extremely effective and monstrous at the same time.
“Interfering with the mind … it’s a dangerous business.”
The Doctor, The Mind of Evil: Episode 1
The process is explicitly cited as a ‘civilised’ replacement for capital punishment, but the ethics of brainwashing prisoners is not something you would consider your typical Saturday teatime fayre.
Unlike Alex and his three droogs, we do not know Barnum’s backstory, but the way he is treated in this story, by Jo at least and in the genuine remorse she expresses at his death, suggests our sympathies are meant to lie with him. It says something that prison hardcase Mailer is frightened of him in his post-treatment catatonia.
Throw in the once-again ‘vicious, complicated and inefficient’ machinations of the Master involving a peace conference, a nuclear missile being transported on the sly and an alien parasite that ‘feeds on the evil of the mind’, together with a bucketload of UNIT and prison riot action and you’ve got a story that fair rattles along, never outstaying its welcome.
Indeed, it seems churlish to comment that its first four cliffhangers are essentially the same. (Even my son exclaimed “It’s the same cliffhanger again!” at the end of Episode Four.) Watching the episodes weekly rather than back-to-back, it would have been easier to forgive (or forget) this. Even so, it’s such a cracking tale that this doesn’t spoil your enjoyment.
Appropriately, given its subject matter, The Mind of Evil is a full-on aural assault on the viewer’s senses – death by Radiophonic Workshop, you might say – with Dudley Simpson’s score and Brian Hodgson’s sound design combining to eerie effect. On top of the riots and gunfire, it must rank as one of the loudest Doctor Who stories ever! Not to be outdone, the visual effects team also give us a nice wibbly-wobbly-shimmy effect when the Keller machine goes on the rampage.
“Thank you, Brigadier. But do you think that for once in your life you could manage to arrive before the nick of time? “
The Doctor, The Mind of Evil: Episode Six
The Mind of Evil is a story with a serious theme set against a backdrop of hallucinatory terror and realistic violence, but it does have its lighter moments. We learn that Benton is ‘a bit too delicate for intelligence for work’, that Jo can handle herself in a squabble, disarming prisoners with ease on at least two occasions – and that she’s also better at draughts than the Doctor. It appears that Mike Yates has a thing for Chinese women in uniform (considering Captain Chin Lee to be ‘quite a dolly’) and that the Brigadier really does cut it fine with his rescue attempts.
Finally, it would be remiss not to mention the considerable efforts of Babelcolour in recolouring Episode One essentially by hand. As with The Ambassadors of Death, it’s remarkable to think that the 2013 DVD release enabled us to watch the story in full colour for the first time since 1971.
Indeed, like much of The Mind of Evil at times, it’s a malenky bit bezoomny. But all the better for it!
"The prison guards in this story weren't very good – the criminals kept breaking out and taking over!"
"Jo makes her mind up about the castle at the beginning of the story – 'it looks like Dracula's castle.'"
"In this story, there is an alien in a machine that looks like a Dalek." [It also looks a bit like it's wearing a policeman's helmet! - UT]
