Mindwarp (Trial of a Time Lord, 5-8)

Dear Gary—

Mindwarp (Trial of a Time Lord, Parts 5-8) is where things really start to fall apart in this season long experiment. The show wants us to view this as a single Doctor Who adventure presented within the context of the overarching trial. Problem is, the adventure is a lie, or at least parts of it are and we are never sure what is and is not true. This is where the trial should have successfully exploited the adventure to get at the truth. Instead we have the Doctor interrupting the story to state, ‘This is a lie’ followed by the Valeyard countering, ‘No it’s not’ and the Inquisitor demanding ‘Sit down and shut up;’ resume story. The peanut gallery of Time Lords swivel back to passively watch just like we the audience are expected to do; I can almost imagine that they pass bowls of popcorn amongst themselves.

Mindwarp has potential, but I can’t sit back and take it at face value; the integrity of the tale is compromised. I want to do what the courtroom fails to do; dig into it to uncover the clues that will lead to what is really going on. But there aren’t even any hints thrown our way; only unsubstantiated accusations and denials; and all I can do is sit back and watch this fictitious fiction. Pass the popcorn.

The Doctor and Peri arrive on Thoros Beta and from the start I have my misgivings. Investigating gun running doesn’t seem to be in the Doctor’s line, yet that is his stated purpose for being there. When this clandestine armament angle is quickly dropped my suspicions deepen.

“My dear girl, if I stopped to question the wisdom of my actions, I’d never have left Gallifrey,” the Doctor tells a homesick Peri who is beginning to regret having left her own planet. It’s a shame that the burgeoning companionship that is long overdue between these two is literally cut dead in Mindwarp. But perhaps it is fitting that this relationship that began with the Doctor’s hands on Peri’s throat ends with the Doctor betraying her. In that first serial, The Twin Dilemma, the Doctor’s excuse was that his regeneration left him unstable. In Mindwarp, however, we’re never sure if his mind has been altered by Crozier’s machine, if he is playacting to throw the others off guard and has a plan of rescue in mind, or if it is all made up and never happened. It is a most unsatisfactory ending to this rocky friendship.

That is ironic because the scene of Peri’s demise is the most effective of her tenure, and one of the most dramatic of companion partings. Unfortunately it is tainted by Matrix manipulation.

To get to that point, though, we first have a story unfolding. A story that plays fast and loose with the facts, but it is what we have and what we must deal with.

Fortunately the story has enough good points to keep us entertained. Like Sil. Thoros Beta is Sil’s home world, much to Peri’s horror; she had enough of him back on Varos. It is interesting to see a new side to the slimy Sil. In Vengeance on Varos he was in charge; he was the driving force. In Mindwarp he is a fawning toady to Kiv. Sil is the slavering picture of greed, gobbling marsh minnows and sadistically enjoying human suffering with his creepy laugh. Kiv, on the other hand, is the single-minded economic genius leading the Mentors to capitalistic glory. With the pain of an expanding brain tormenting him, Kiv still conducts business as usual.

Presumably it is the Mentor’s business dealings that provided the advanced weaponry to a more primitive culture and that the Doctor is on Thoros Beta to stop. But that is merely a diversionary tactic. The complex negotiations and intrigues of the Mentors is only a backdrop. The real heart of Mindwarp is the experiments of the mad scientist Crozier. Except the whole plot of Mindwarp has been warped, so who knows if this really is the heart of the matter.

The Time Lords think it is; and this is where the trial becomes bogus. “We had to act,” the Inquisitor states. “With the discovery that Crozier had made, the whole course of natural evolution throughout the universe would be affected.”

Where to start with this? First, the Inquisitor reveals with this statement that she and the rest of the High Council have been monitoring the Doctor’s activities and already know what happened on Thoros Beta, so what was the point of sitting through the Matrix replay of events? Secondly, I seriously doubt that Crozier has his hands on the pulse of God here. He can brain swap and genetically engineer, is this really going to spread through the universe like an evolution endangering plague? Thirdly, even if Crozier is on to something, other races during the Doctor’s travels have mastered genetic mutations and augmentations and all manner of mind bending breakthroughs and the Time Lords never give it a second thought. (OK, there was the whole Genesis of theDaleks attempt at genocide to prevent Davros’ experiments from succeeding, but that was to specifically destroy the Daleks and had nothing to do with Davros’ underlying manipulation of the evolutionary chain.)

Fourthly and most importantly—I’ll let the Doctor say this—“And so they took it upon themselves to act like second-rate gods?” Taking the Doctor out of time, turning Yrcanos into an assassin, murdering Sil, Kiv, Peri, Crozier, and an assortment of guards; bit of overkill if you ask me. Rather than Trial of a Time Lord, this should be Trial of the Time Lords.

During the course of the trial they talk a great deal about the number of deaths that can be laid at the Doctor’s feet, yet the evidence presented before the court gives full and unapologetic blame for mass slaughter to the Time Lords, and they remove the Doctor from time to prevent his interference in this execution.

But wait, is that what really happened? “No,” the Doctor answers. “I was taken out of time for another reason, and I have every intention of finding out what it is.”

I don’t know, Gary. I’m getting fed up with this whole pretense of a trial. Mindwarp is a decent enough adventure. There are some nice moments for Peri with the larger than life King Yrcanos and the dog-man Dorf. It has taken a long time for me to find a story in which I actually like Peri, although I wish that in this her last tale she could have had more one on one Doctor time and with a Doctor who is not behaving erratically. But overall I find I can’t work up an enthusiasm for the story because I just can’t get over the feeling that it is all a sham presented in a fly-by-night courtroom that is rapidly losing all credibility.

The Doctor wants to know what is going on. So do I. I somehow feel that neither of us is going to have much luck. Here’s hoping that somewhere out there, Gary, you are making more sense out of this . . .