The Mind Robber: Episode 4 

The Doctor, Jamie and Zoe reach the citadel at the centre of the land, where they finally encounter the Master of the Land of Fiction.

Director:

David Maloney

Writer:

Peter Ling (by)

Stars:

Patrick Troughton, Frazer Hines, Wendy Padbury

Cast

Episode complete credited cast:
Patrick Troughton	...	Dr. Who
Frazer Hines	...	Jamie
Wendy Padbury	...	Zoe
Emrys Jones	...	The Master of the Land of Fiction
Bernard Horsfall	...	Gulliver
Christopher Robbie	...	Karkus
Sue Pulford	...	The Medusa
John Atterbury	...	Robot
Ralph Carrigan	...	Robot
Bill Wiesener	...	Robot
Terry Wright	...	Robot

Storyline

The Doctor, Jamie and Zoe reach the citadel at the centre of the land, where they finally encounter the Master of the Land of Fiction.

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Plot Keywords:

robot servant | book | anger | second doctor | test | 

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Genres:

Adventure | Drama | Family | Sci-Fi

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Certificate:

TV-PG

Did You Know?

Trivia

At 13:24 into the episode, the controller says that he wrote for "The Ensign" magazine for the character Captain Jack Harkaway - 5,000 words a week for 25 years. Zoe (who is supposed to be super-smart) says, "That's over half a million words!". Actually, the total comes out to over 6 million words (6,500,000)!

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Connections

Featured in Being a Girl (2013)

User Reviews

Robber of an excellent story. This tails off after a really strong start.

Review of all 5 episodes:

This story is very similar in type to the William Hartnell era story The Celestial Toymaker (although this is quite a lot better). It is, like that story, a whimsical trip into a weird make believe world controlled by a sinister power. This idea was returned to again later in the classic series to some extent with aspects of a couple of stories (e.g. Warrior's Gate) and again in recent Moffatt/Matt Smith era series with Amy's Choice and to some extent The Doctor's Wife being derived from the same template.

The excellent first episode has a surprise element with some dramatic and brilliantly unusual happenings such as an exploding TARDIS and an endless white void. It is very well done and provides an enticing, fascinating start to the story. Then there is a thoroughly enjoyable if not quite as brilliant second episode where ideas such as the land of fiction, characters like Gulliver (speaking only lines he spoke in original text, a great idea very well executed) and a maze-like forest of words provide a good amount of interest. After that there is a still very good third episode then a slightly disappointing and occasionally silly 4th episode and a decent but rather unremarkable and not wholly successful 5th episode.

This has a disappointing lack of development after such a promising start. It must go down as a missed opportunity which would have been better as a 3-parter. Great first episode though.

My Ratings: Episode 1 - 10/10, Episode 2 - 9/10, Episode 3 - 8.5/10, Episode 4 - 6.5/10, Episode 5 - 7.5/10

Details

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Release Date:

5 October 1968 (UK)

Company Credits

Technical Specs

Runtime:

20 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1