Kinda

Dear Gary—

“Such stuff as dreams are made of.” No, this isn’t The Tempest, nor is it The Maltese Falcon.

“What’s in the box?” No, neither is this my all time favorite movie Bringing Up Baby.

This is Doctor Who; Kinda to be specific. The box and the dreams, they are interesting enough. But they are not perfection. I agree with the Doctor and Todd and their assessment of paradise, “It was all right at first, but it’s all a bit too green for me.”

I’ll start with the dreams. Tegan’s dream is fantastic. It is a very effective mix of her natural thoughts and the invasive evil of the Mara. Using the recent events in Tegan’s life along with her insecurities, the Mara shapes and creates Tegan’s dream, subtly influencing her until he wears her down and overcomes.  It is eerie, atmospheric, and very real in its execution. More real than the outside world of fake greenery and phony sets that is in jarring contrast to the genuine inner turmoil of her mind.

(Incidentally, if it is indeed forbidden to dream alone in this place as Karuna claims, shouldn't the natives have given Tegan a shake and said, 'Hey lady, it's forbidden to dream alone here' rather than simply place a garland around her neck and prance back off into the woods? Oh, but I forgot--they can't talk.)

Tegan’s dream is Doctor Who at its sophisticated best. Unfortunately it does not marry up to the rest of the production. This would be fine if the dream sequence was the bulk of the story or at least half, but as it is it is only about one fourth, and I am including awake and possessed Tegan sequences in that. Possessed Tegan is almost as impressive as dreaming Tegan; seductress Tegan dropping apples on the unsuspecting Aris is quite striking. But then the Mara/snake transfers itself to Aris and its impact is deflated.

Next we have the dream, or vision, of the Kinda. I’m sorry, Gary, but I just find this irritating. The old woman Panna and her young sidekick Karuna can talk. Why don’t they go to the dome and sit down and have a sensible conversation with the survey expedition? Why don’t they communicate directly with the Doctor and Todd? Why the need for this cryptic mumbo jumbo?

No, instead they shove a box at Sanders knowing it is going to drive him out of his mind and make the Doctor and Todd sit through some meaningless apparition that tells them nothing. “Wheel turns, civilizations arise; wheel turns, civilizations fall.” OK, so what? What has that to do with a circle of natives and their jester milling about with clocks ticking towards 12:00 and the jester falling down in pain? OK, so your civilization has risen, is about to fall, it has happened before and will happen again. So what? Who cares? Life happens.

“Wherever the wheel turns there is suffering, delusion, and death. That much should be clear, even to an idiot.”

OK, any idiot knows there is suffering in this world. What has that to do with what is going on right here and right now? How does that help with the crisis at hand? Is there even a crisis at hand? A couple of madmen are in control of the dome and Aris is leading the natives to attack the dome. Why or how is this relevant to the Doctor? And how does a vision of milling natives and a writhing jester help him to understand or alleviate these problems?

“It is the Mara who now turn the wheel,” Panna tells the Doctor. “It is the Mara who dance to the music of our despair. Our suffering is the Mara’s delight, our madness is the Mara’s meat and drink. And now he has returned.” That’s all the Doctor needs to know. It’s rather obscure, but at least it speaks more to the real danger they are facing.

But no, despite the realization that they are wasting time, Panna insists, “You cannot help without understanding. Don’t you see?”

No, I don’t see. Because I don’t see that her vision helps in any way with the Doctor’s understanding. Now he just needs to get out his copy of Dreams Interpreted: A to Z and look up milling natives and falling jesters and ticking clocks and more time is wasted.

Dreams can be very powerful and insightful, as evidenced by Tegan. But they are an extremely poor means of communication when immediate action is required.

Then we have the box.”No male can open the Box of Jhana without being driven out of his mind.” So what is the purpose of this box? Why give it to man after man who comes out of the dome? Again I say, why don’t Panna and Karuna go to the dome and sit down for some civilized conversation? Supposedly it is a box of healing, except it only works on those minds in need of healing, all others it either harms or simply gives a vision of smiling natives. Its message seems to be don’t worry, be happy (or else).

The Doctor and Todd would have us believe that these natives are not primitive, that they are in fact extremely civilized and sophisticated. Their proof of this is the box and the fact that the people wear what could be taken for the symbol of the double helix around their necks. I think I’ll need some more evidence before I fall for it. They also cite the telepathic nature of the populace. However this seems to be more of a liability than an asset. Especially since the power of speech is viewed as a sign of intelligence reserved for females, and apparently only two individuals in the entire tribe have this ability. Doesn’t seem very advanced to me.

Apart from the dreams and the box, the natives, the Mara, and ‘the wheel keeps on turning’ features of our story, we have a separate plot involving the mad Hindle (“Why can’t we all play the game?”) inside the dome. Hindle is a refreshing change from your typical Doctor Who egomaniacal madman with delusions of grandeur, and his reversion to childhood is effectively and believably delivered. When the recently box-crazed Sanders returns it only feeds Hindle’s delusions, and their scenes are amusing, touching, and frightening at the same time; Hindle’s “You can’t mend people” refrain is especially moving. In the end Hindle’s insanity is cured by the Box of Jhana, the one redemption for that overrated prop.

What of our companions and the Doctor during all of this? Nyssa misses out on everything, sidelined in the TARDIS taking a rest cure. I’ve already given my kudos to Tegan. And Adric? Adric yet again tries his hand at play-acting as he pretends to go along with Hindle, and yet again he fails miserably. His ruse only serves to distract, annoy, anger, and generally make things worse, culminating in an uncontrolled rampage inside the TSS (Total Survival Suit). Then he has the nerve to blame everything on Tegan when Tegan and the unleashed Mara had absolutely no bearing on the happenings inside the dome.

The Doctor, meantime, continues in the bland tradition he has established. After channeling his past personas in quick succession upon first regenerating, this fifth Doctor seems to have wiped his mind clean of them all and is going in for a rather vanilla pudding guise. Gone even is any memory of his past brushes with the likes of Maskelyne and Houdini; it is Adric of all people who has to teach the Doctor a simple bit of sleight of hand. He is pleasant enough, when he isn’t scolding, but the action just happens around him.  Peter Davison’s iteration of the Doctor so far is still a tabula rasa; I hope that sooner or later he begins to make an impression of his own.

The Doctor does start Kinda with a familiar sense of curiosity as he leads Tegan and Adric around Deva Loka, the planet on which they have landed. “There’s always something to look at if you open your eyes,” he tells Tegan when they discover the beautiful huge crystal chimes in the middle of the forest. But then he has to go chasing after the wayward Adric and he leaves the most compelling part of our story behind. And when presented with the wooden box the Doctor displays an unnatural fear of the thing and uncharacteristically shuns from any investigation of it. He only opens it when forced at gunpoint; and later when opening the box is the one logical solution to the Hindle threat, it is Todd who realizes this and cleverly uses reverse psychology to get Hindle to open it while the Doctor does what he seems to do best these days—stand by and watch.

The Doctor does finally come through, however. With Hindle’s mind put into balance by the box and Tegan’s mind free of the Mara, the two best elements of Kinda are behind us, but there is still the wild-eyed Aris and his snake friend the Mara to contend with, although the Mara’s idea of a makeshift cage made of twigs and branches as a ‘guardian’ is pathetic, as is his whimpering for help when confronted by Adric in his run-away TSS. His band of followers quickly abandons him and it is doubtful that this Mara will be of any genuine danger to the natives. The only real threat is to Aris it seems, and at least the Doctor does rid him of this malevolent presence.

 “I think paradise is a little too green for me as well,” the Doctor says as he leaves Deva Loka behind. Yes, Gary, Kinda was pleasant while it lasted and made enjoyable in large part thanks to Tegan and Hindle. And Kinda is full of intriguing concepts, some more successfully realized than others. In the end, though, the evil lurking in the dark recesses of the mind is far scarier than a big rubber snake that is afraid of its own reflection. And I would much rather have an intercostal clavicle in the box than a vision of smiling natives.