287 The Mind of Evil: Episode Five

EPISODE: The Mind of Evil: Episode Five
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 287
STORY NUMBER: 056
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 27 February 1971
WRITER: Don Houghton
DIRECTOR: Timothy Combe
SCRIPT EDITOR: Terrance Dicks
PRODUCER: Barry Letts
RATINGS: 7.6 million viewers
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - The Mind of Evil
EPISODE FORMAT: 16mm b&w film recording recoloured using chroma dot recovery

"Well, in the event, in the highly unlikely event of UNIT finding us before the missile's ready, you'd make a very useful hostage. Remember that!"

The machine teleports away from the Doctor to go to feed on the more evil minds of the prisoners. The Master forces the Doctor to build a device to restrain the machine. The Brigadier works out the prison was involved in the missile hijacking and, using a food delivery van as a trojan horse, storms the prison. Mailer takes Jo & the Doctor hostage, but Jo tries to distract him so the Doctor can escape. Seizing Jo, Mailer trains his gun on the Doctor and a shot rings out.....

Another big action sequence in this episode as UNIT troops storm the prison, and a surprisingly blood thirsty one too as casualties are suffered in some numbers by both sides. It's odd to see the Brigadier and co blazing away at other human beings rather than at monsters! The major location for this episode, and the whole story, is Dover Castle which doubles for Stangmoor Prison.

Before this episode we'd not seen more than the main gate but much more is revealed as UNIT infiltrate the prison:

Unfortunately the film recorded at the site on 27th October 1970 was found to have a scratched negative resulting in a remount 4 days later.

The location looks superb onscreen, a good choice from the production team.

We get to meet another of the Brigadier's deputies in this episode, the pretty useless Major Cosworth played by Patrick Godfrey who was Tor in The Savages.

Godfrey also appears as Grant in the Doomwatch episode The Human Time Bomb which aired 5 days before this episode did! He later appears in Edge of Darkness as Oakley in Breakthrough, Blott on the Landscape as Mr Bullett Finch and the film Clockwise as the Headmaster.

As we explained, in Terror of the Autons, in the British Army a Major outranks a Captain. So Cosworth, not seen before this story or indeed after it, outranks Captain Yates. Judging by his treatment from The Brigadier in this episode, I suspect Lethbridge-Stewart feels that Yates is the better soldier!

BRIGADIER: I know exactly where that missile is. Here.
COSWORTH: Stangmoor Prison, sir?
BRIGADIER: It all adds up. Benton saw a Black Maria when the missile was ambushed and I saw the Doctor and Miss Grant. I'm convinced the Master has taken over the prison to be used as a hideout for that missile.
COSWORTH: Then I assume we'll be taking the place, sir. I'll draw up an assault plan.
BRIGADIER: Major Cosworth? COSWORTH: Sir?
BRIGADIER: Have you seen Stangmoor Prison?
COSWORTH: No, sir.
BRIGADIER: Well, I've just been looking at it. It's an old fortress. You'd need an army to get in there.

A somewhat poor choice of words there from Lethbridge-Stewart given that the Brigadier *is* in The Army! I assume his sentiment is that he personally doesn't have that many troops available.

Cosgrove continues to be ever so slightly annoying during the briefing....

BRIGADIER: Now we shall, as you realise, be very considerably outnumbered. However, not all of our opponents will be armed and none of them will be trained soldiers.
COSWORTH: And, of course, we shall have surprise on our side.
BRIGADIER: Exactly. Any questions?
COSWORTH: No, sir.
BRIGADIER: Right, carry on.
COSWORTH: An excellent plan, if I may say so, sir. A very good chance of success.
BRIGADIER: Thank you, Major Cosworth. I'm very relieved to hear that!

Prop Spotting!

We've already seen the missile control panel in the Master's shed earlier in the story where it served as the control panel for the Keller Machine and it also appeared in the previous story, The Terror of the Autons, in the satellite dish control room. In real life this is a panel from the ICT 1300.

Also in the shed we've another control panel, seen in first in the bunker in the Enemy of the World:

It later appears on the UNIT Plane in The Invasion:

The odd upright structure by the door was first seen in Doctor Who also in The Invasion where it's a Cyberman spaceship. It's turned up again in Spearhead from Space but since then it's blue boxes have become have grey.

More name dropping from The Doctor as he relates a tall tail of a previous occasion he was locked up:

DOCTOR: Huh. Did I ever tell you about the time I was in the Tower of London?
JO: No?
DOCTOR: No?
JO: No.
DOCTOR: Well, I shared a cell with a very strange chap called Raleigh.
JO: Raleigh?
DOCTOR: Yeah, Sir Walter Raleigh.
JO: Oh.
DOCTOR: He got into some trouble with Queen Elizabeth. Elizabeth the first, that is. He kept going on about this new vegetable of his he'd discovered, you see, called the potato. One day, he sat down, pointed a finger at me ....

As episode one of this story started, and the shot panned up the outside of the castle building, Liz & I turned to each other and both said three words to each other before collapsing in a fit of giggles:

Norman Stanley Fletcher......

Porridge has become such a definite work on the subject of prisons that it's hard to avoid mentioning it when talking about a show set in prison. Following a pilot, Prisoner and Escort, in the 1973 BBC series Seven of One which also spawned Open All Hours, three series and two Christmas specials were made by the BBC. Ronnie Barker is superb throughout ably backed up by Richard Beckinsdale.

Several of the rest of the substantial supporting cast have got Doctor Who form. We'll start with Fletcher's fellow prisoners: Tony Osoba, McLaren, is Lan in Destiny of the Daleks while the disgraced judge The Honourable Mr Justice Stephen Rawley is played by prominent actor Maurice Denham who is in the Twin Dilemma as Edgeworth. Incidentally the voice heard at the start of every Porridge episode sentencing Fletcher is Ronnie Barker himself! Brian Glover, Cyril Heslop, appears in Attack of the Cybermen as the crook Griffiths. Williams is Philip Madoc (Krotons, War Games, The Brain of Morbius & The Power of Kroll) while Jarvis is David Daker, Irongron in The Time Warrior & Captain Rigg in the Nightmare of Eden. Dentist Mr. Banyard is played by Eric Dodson who is The Headman in The Visitation. John Dair played Heavy Crusher in Porridge and an American in Time Flight. Doctor Who Supporting Artist Eric Kent is frequently seen as a Prisoner in Porridge.

Onto the staff: Fulton McKay, playing Mr Mackay, we saw recently as Dr Quinn in early episode of The Silurians while the Governor of Slade prison is played by Michael Barrington who is Sir Colin Thackaray Seeds of Doom. Slade has more than one Doctor seen on screen: one is Graham Crowden, Soldeed in Horns of the Nimon, while another is John Bennett, who plays General Finch in Invasion of the Dinosaurs and Li H'sen Chang in The Talons of Weng-Chiang. Visiting prison officer Mr Wainwright if played by Peter Jeffrey, the Pilot in The Macra Terror & Count Grendel in The Androids of Tara. Finally the Christmas Special The Desperate Hours is one of the best places to spot Pat Gorman outside Doctor Who as he plays the Prison Officer who wanders into the gents where Fletcher has stashed his illicit booze!

Two day after this episode was broadcast The Inquest, the 11th episode of Doomwatch Season Two, was shown on BBC1.