The Mind Robber is genuinely one of my favourite Troughton era stories, and one of my favourite Classic Who stories period. I think it's largely because Troughton's era, as great as it is, does tend to come across as quite formulaic and repetitive, so having a story as buck-wild as this dumped right in the middle of it feels like such a breath of fresh air
I absolutely LOVE The Mind Robber, it's just such a creative and engaging serial. It has a ton of memorable scenes as well, like the joke with Jamie's actor switching and the fight with the Karkus. Honestly it might be my favorite Classic Who story
For me, the Mind Robber is my favourite story because it's a perfect demonstration that Doctor Who can be incredibly creative without a large budget, production/runtime issues and no contemporary lead character. It's something I wish the show would consider a bit more.
Now I want an episode where the Doctor confesses to his deepest fear that he never left that place. It would be one hell of a reboot if they ever wanted to do that. Imagine the discourse!
The funny thing about those robots is that Doctor Who borrowed monsters from Out of the Unknown, and one episode of Out of the Unknown that had previously aired borrowed the Daleks for it's weird metaphysical episode about dreams and imagination.
Yes, this episode is really cool and creative with its trippy dream-like atmosphere and all that, but what _really_ makes it one of the best episodes of all time, is the scene where Zoe wrestles a cartoon supervillain twice her size and absolutely _demolishes_ him.
Stu is such a horror writer, I swear to God. Everything he sees is just "Ah yes, this thing that society takes for granted has a sinister and controlling nature" Airports, writing, technology, humanity, school... I am more of a romance writer, so everywhere I go I see "Bittersweet beauty" and shit like that.
Amusingly enough, the famous Master (the War incarnation) himself ended up in the Land of Fiction in one of the War Master audios. He proceeded to trick and murder numerous famous fictional characters because even in the Land of Fiction where reality has its own rules, he's still the Master.
As a 6 year old watching the original broadcast. The unicorn, clockwork soldiers and minotaur absolutely terrified me. I remember finding it very disturbing when the TARDIS broke up. It was seen as indestructible.
Loved this as a kid when it was repeated weekday evenings on BBC Two as it captured my imagination even more than most of Who, but based on subsequent DVD rewatches it's fair to say it does end abruptly with a brief final episode that doesn't wrap things up all that neatly. How fortunate we are that as creative a serial as this survived when so much of the Troughton era was discarded. Your explanation that "everything after this in Doctor Who is fictional even in-universe" sounds like my head canon reasoning for some Red Dwarf series taking place inside an unreality bubble. And yes, I am yet to see any logic for excluding Emrys Jones from the list of Masters. As far as I was concerned when I first saw this, his character *was* just an earlier incarnation of the Delgado/Ainsley role.
Dont know if you've listened to legend of the cybermen, the big finish sequal to mind robber, but it literally does your fan theory that they never left the land of fiction as one of its cliffhangers before (of course) going back on that idea and reverting to the status quo
We are so lucky that the mind robber survives. It is a story where it’s charming visuals are part of what makes the story so good, and without them, the story would feel incomplete. A classic
The "Doctor is fiction" thing solves any issues you may have with any later episode... Obviously fake backdrop SOLVED... Bubble wrap monster SOLVED... Bad acting SOLVED... I did however think that the TARDIS being alive (per "The Doctors Wife") solved a lot of the why/how he always arrives just before an alien invasion etc... But the Master Brain would want me to think that...
Honestly that could make for a brilliant story, sort of like the despair squid episode of Red Dwarf where the Doctor's attacked and seemingly killed only to wake up back in his Second incarnation, much older and all alone with the horrible realisation that everything that happened was all fictional Which can tie into the ending where he breaks free of this illusion and snaps back to reality where he confesses that still being trapped in the land of fiction is one of his deepest fears the more and more he lives with all the friends he meets and exciting adventures he has while eating away at the back of his mind is the notion that all of it was fictional
That would be a good Who story though: the Doctor getting trapped in the Land of Fiction and he notices this because that week’s doctor who episode is cliched even by the show’s standards. They could really go bonkers with this!
I've had an idea for a Doctor Who episode where the TARDIS falls into a parallel universe like in the Age of Steel (the Doctor doesn't treat it like a big deal because they can recharge the TARDIS in a day or two) but when they go and explore, they find out that they are in the real world, where every adventure they have ever been on is just an episode in a long-running science fiction TV series called Doctor Who. The episode could then go a number of ways, such as a more traditional storyline the Doctor bringing a load of DVDs of the show back to their world only for the villains within to escape the DVD and run amuck in the Doctor's world for... reasons, or a more introspective storyline of the Doctor just exploring this reality where they are a beloved sci-fi hero and observing their effect on the world. Could be interesting.
The Master of the Land Of Fiction is unfortunately their own entity, but the people who wrote the war chief made various nods towards him being the master in future works after The War Games
@@AshleyTMDW Indeed. That's why I emphasised the 'potential' part. Just like with Big Finish Masterful audio, though. There is room for doomed Master lives. Especially considering Delgado was never the Master's first life.
I've long thought that this is what The God Complex was trying to emulate. I like The God Complex, but I don't think it's anywhere near as fun as this. Oh, and on The Doctor having Deja Vu, he does say "Somebody tried to move the Earth once before..." In The Stolen Earth. So they probably DO get deja vu.
The mind robber is one of my favourite Doctor Who episodes. It's amazing and absolutely nonsensical. I love it. I also like to think that this is the first Master. I like your theory that The Doctor never escaped the land of fiction. Intresting!
I have had this very same idea before. Especially more so seeing the trailers for the upcoming 60th special where they're bringing in characters from the Doctor Who comics. NPH might not be the celestial toy maker but a variant of the Story Master.
I'm pretty sure _The Mind Robber_ was inspired by Luigi Pirandello's surreal comedy "Six Characters in Search of an Author", which is worth checking out. Better still, listen to Spike Milligan's version in the _Goon Show's_ "Six Charlies in Search of an Author".
Yeah it does recapture that Anywhere Anywhen presence from the Hartnell era instead of just constant base under siege stories (while I did like quite a lot of them, after watching them all in order I felt quite burned out from that type of story as I felt it had lost a lot of the appeal of a box that can go anywhere and it would most likely be a base under siege story).
did you know that Paul Cornell wrote a sequel to the Mind Robber that involved the Daleks invading the Land of Fiction it was a Christmas Special and was titled Pride & prejudice & Daleks.
G*reth R*berts novel 'The Well Mannered War' ends by basically saying everything Doctor Who after 1979 was in the Land of Fiction (doubtless a dig at the JNT era) Mind Robber is a weird one, but it is memorable, I'll say that
Thanks mate! What interesting insights! The Mind Robber is a masterpiece- May 1968 was an interesting month what with the Paris riots and the Beatles recording the white album demos and everything else. They certainly caught the zeitgeist...
I'm hoping that with Meep the Beep & Wraith Warriors that the Land of Fiction in the 14th Doctors specials are involved in someway with the land being the location where the Doctor fights the Toymaker or 14 being a creation of the land.
This was strangely one of my first dr who stories when I was about 6 or 7. Got it on video in second hand retro shop. Wild times of buying dr who’s just because they had dr who on the cover.
!!! Your essay is on metafiction! Metafiction, my favourite concept ever. I genuinely want to read your essay. What are your favourite pieces of metafiction other than The Mind Robber?
To me The Mind Robber is about being your authentic self and not being subject to controlling narratives, a theme very much at home with the psychedelic aesthetic. If you're just following a script, acting according to what's been written about you ahead of time, i.e. the countless narratives we're fed about how we shall live, then you've become a fake version of yourself, you've been turned into fiction. And being fictional means you can't think for yourself and can only say the words you've been given. It's kind of profound in my opinion, although it's taken to kind of an absurd extreme where it's like you can never do anything predictable, but remember we're in psychedelic territory. It almost seems hypocritical how anti-fiction The Mind Robber is considering that, you know, it is fictional. And yet there's no other way for the story to be told. It's not like you could tell a similar nonfictional story! But yeah, there doesn't seem to be any good kind of fiction in its worldview. Fiction only oppresses and dehumanizes people, even its own writer. Or maybe The Mind Robber itself is supposed to serve as an example of good fiction and we have to look for what separates it from the bad fictions within the story. It seems worth noting the Land of Fiction contains at least two real, historical people: Blackbeard and Cyrano de Bergerac. Presumably it's not historically accurate versions who live there, but the legends.
The stupid bad budget excuse negatively affects the writing and it’s why Doctor Who suffers from writing flaws like oversaturating popular villains and recycling plots in uninteresting ways. What makes the Farscape episode Won’t Get Fooled Again good at recycling a plot and being batshit insane is that starts with meta won’t repeat previous events and the episode slowly builds up into insanity.
I hope it's okay to ask, but do you already happen to *know* that you won't make another video on "Kevin Can F*ck Himself"? In other words: Shall I seize hoping based on the (near-)fact that my hope would forever be in vain?
Good review and video for my favorite 2nd Doctor story of all time- In my ideal world, Doctor Who would be this level of weird every week, with it going and even weirder territory every now and then. Although, if I'm allowed to be completely honest, telling Zoe at the end that she's a fictional character was a bit cringy- Never will hear the word: "Piece" the same way again lol. Too overdone of a joke🙃
I actually like your fan theory, but something like that is giving them far too much credit. Well, too much credit for the modern era anyway. Maybe in 1969 (or with Big Finish) they'd get creative like that. Honestly, I don't even watch the show any more it's become so dire (and I've been a fan since 1973). At this point, Big Finish is Dr Who for me so I'm grateful for them at least.
