Only glimpsed briefly and unnamed in the first episode of The Mind Robber, today's episodes more fully introduced and named the primary antagonist of the story (although we only ever hear his voice and see the back of his head). The baddie is named The Master, but don't get too excited. It's not the first appearance of the Doctor's arch-enemy from Gallifrey -- in fact, to date the Doctor's home world has not even been named. No, it's just the local Big Bad in the Land of Fiction. This is a totally surreal story, very much in the same vein as The Celestial Toymaker, and it is turning out to be much more enjoyable than I had expected.

Let's talk about that.

The Mind Robber - Episodes 2 & 3

(TARDIS Data Core recap)

This story is just too weird to describe in any coherent way. After the TARDIS blew up at the end of the last episode, in today's episodes all three main characters are separated and wandering in a strange wilderness. Other characters randomly show up and then leave, including a group of children, six foot tall wind-up toy soldiers, and an Englishman who turns out to be Lemuel Gulliver (of Gulliver's Travels).

Early on in the second episode Jamie is turned into a flat cardboard cut-out with his face blanked out. The doctor is presented with a bunch of puzzle pieces to reconstruct the face, and picks the wrong ones. Jamie comes back to life, but instead of being played by Frazer Hines he is played by another actor named Hamish Wilson. It is totally a Darren-from-Bewitched kind of thing. There is some business with first the Doctor and then later Zoe not recognizing him, but he claims to be Jamie and has all of his memories. Then, most of the way through the third episode, Darren-Jamie gets flattened again and when the Doctor reconstructs his face he gets it right this time and Frazer Hines returns. It's very weird. I mean, I'm used to the various actors getting a week off now and then, and having their character captured or bonked on the head or whatever, but it seems very strange to give Frazer Hines half of the episode off in two consecutive weeks. As it turns out, the poor guy contracted chicken pox and needed to leave the set. All things considered, it was a pretty inventive way to deal with that little wrinkle in the production schedule. Oddly enough, Frazer Hines' brother Ian is also in this story, but plays one of the clockwork soldiers. I woulda thunk they wold have swapped him in as Jamie, but there you go.

By the end of the third episode Jamie has climbed up Repunzel's hair into a tower that turns out to be some kind of literary control room, while down in a labyrinth the Doctor and Zoe have avoided a Minotaur but are then trapped by Medusa.

Like I said, it's a weird, surreal story. But you know what? I'll take it over The Dominators any day of the week. That one was just poorly written, whereas this one is fantastical without stooping to the cartoonish level of The Celestial Toymaker. I am giving it a solid B, and actually looking forward to tomorrow's resolution.

STATS:

Doctor(s): Second
Companion(s): Jamie McCrimmon, Zoe Heriot
Episode(s): The Mind Robber - Episodes 2 & 3
Steps Walked: 6,924 today, 742,025 total
Distance Walked: 3.66 miles today, 357.52 miles total
Weight: 274.88 lbs (five day moving average), net change -32.42 lbs