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The Black Archive #7
The Mind Robber
‘We obey our creator. That is all that can be expected of any character.’
In a transitional season of Doctor Who between the base under siege formula and later, more grounded stories, no story was more experimental than The Mind Robber (1968), the debut of the visually inventive director David Maloney. Its creative solutions to production problems, including a main cast member’s illness and the need to add an entire extra episode, lift it from run-of-the-mill whimsy to one of the series’ finest moments.
Andrew Hickey has written books on topics including Doctor Who, and a novel, Head of State.
In a transitional season of Doctor Who between the base under siege formula and later, more grounded stories, no story was more experimental than The Mind Robber (1968), the debut of the visually inventive director David Maloney. Its creative solutions to production problems, including a main cast member’s illness and the need to add an entire extra episode, lift it from run-of-the-mill whimsy to one of the series’ finest moments.
Andrew Hickey has written books on topics including Doctor Who, and a novel, Head of State.
- GenresDoctor WhoNonfiction
110 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 2016
24 people want to read
About the author
Andrew Hickey
46 books82 followersI had a biography here but it was very out of date. Currently my main work is my podcast, A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs. The New Yorker compared that to the Bible, Oxford English Dictionary, and the works of Gibbon and Pepys, and said it "will eclipse every literary project in history". So that's nice.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
January 14, 2022
https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/3836799.html
My expectations were not completely fulfilled. I felt it leant a bit too heavily on the traditional fannish resources for Doctor Who - articles from DWM, Howe et al, Cornell et al - and not enough on other sources. In particular I missed any reference to Who's Next, by Derrick Sherwin, the writer of the first episode of The Mind Robber and script editor for the whole; his autobiography was published in time for the 50th anniversary rush in 2013, and Hickey's Black Archive study almost three years later. So there was a lot more telling me what I already knew than telling me new stuff.
Having said that, for those less familiar with Whovian reference books, it's a workmanlike summary of the state of play, comprehensibly structured and decently written. The chapters cover:
- the production of the story, and its roots in Platonic philosophy and Alice in Wonderland;
- the questions of authorship and the nature of fiction;
- a very short chapter on the story's structure;
- a defence of Season Six and brief bio notes on the main cast and crew;
- a much longer survey of the characters in the Land of Fiction, especially Gulliver, the Karkus and the Master himself;
- another very short chapter on why The Mind Robber is different to the First Doctor story The Celestial Toymaker;
- what a shame it is that a subtle story full of nuance is chiefly remembered for one male gaze scene [I plead guilty];
- why the Doctor is not from the Land of Fiction (only one reference is given for this argument);
- other appearances of the Land of Fiction in the Whoniverse, unsurprisingly omitting The Wonderful Doctor of Oz, published five years later.
My expectations were not completely fulfilled. I felt it leant a bit too heavily on the traditional fannish resources for Doctor Who - articles from DWM, Howe et al, Cornell et al - and not enough on other sources. In particular I missed any reference to Who's Next, by Derrick Sherwin, the writer of the first episode of The Mind Robber and script editor for the whole; his autobiography was published in time for the 50th anniversary rush in 2013, and Hickey's Black Archive study almost three years later. So there was a lot more telling me what I already knew than telling me new stuff.
Having said that, for those less familiar with Whovian reference books, it's a workmanlike summary of the state of play, comprehensibly structured and decently written. The chapters cover:
- the production of the story, and its roots in Platonic philosophy and Alice in Wonderland;
- the questions of authorship and the nature of fiction;
- a very short chapter on the story's structure;
- a defence of Season Six and brief bio notes on the main cast and crew;
- a much longer survey of the characters in the Land of Fiction, especially Gulliver, the Karkus and the Master himself;
- another very short chapter on why The Mind Robber is different to the First Doctor story The Celestial Toymaker;
- what a shame it is that a subtle story full of nuance is chiefly remembered for one male gaze scene [I plead guilty];
- why the Doctor is not from the Land of Fiction (only one reference is given for this argument);
- other appearances of the Land of Fiction in the Whoniverse, unsurprisingly omitting The Wonderful Doctor of Oz, published five years later.
September 16, 2022
Authoritatively written analysis of Doctor Who's 'The Mind Robber'. Recommended.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews