Having experienced this stellar story, we find ourselves lost for words.
 
And not because we’re hooked up to a machine that milks our creative juices (which’ll soon be bottled and for sale on our website BTW).
 
Our white blank page is brought about by the realisation that Doctor Who showrunners wouldn’t have the nerve to make The Mind Robber these days.
 
Sure, they’d dip into the Land of Fiction to give us a taste. But then they’d move on, impatiently concluding the premise couldn’t sustain an entire story.
 
And their decision-making would be as far off the mark as the Doctor's attempt at piecing together Jamie’s cardboard face.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On paper, The Mind Robber shouldn't work.
 
It’s a pile-up of styles that sounds ridiculous: splicing together superheroes, fairy tale characters, robots, puzzles, mythical creatures and a gang of precocious kids bullying us into solving riddles.
 
Oh, and the small matter of the TARDIS exploding, plunging our heroes into deep space.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
We’ve waxed lyrical in previous reviews about the audacious risk-taking on display during the black and white years. When such gambles come off, they do so handsomely.
 
But The Mind Robber isn’t just handsome. It’s blessed with substance too, not to mention a beguiling swagger. We’re in Brad Pitt levels of swooning here.
 
This masterpiece boasts such a non-stop smorgasbord of fun throughout, it’s easy to forget it dives immediately into the action, with the TARDIS being consumed by marauding lava – courtesy of the correctly curtailed Dominators.

 

The Doctor hits Ctrl-Alt-Delete to bundle the team out of hook. And what then unfolds across the opening episode is an utter masterstroke of minimalist storytelling, which tops even the claustrophobic achievements of The Edge of Destruction.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
As the TARDIS languishes in literally nowhere (a welcome relief after The Dominators quarry), an unseen Big Bad tries to lure Jamie and Zoe into a disused studio with those bawdy 1970s postcards of their hometowns. A highland coo drinking Irn-Bru may as well be dangled at Jamie, so easily is he tempted (notably, at one point he asks, “What’s the good of thinking?”).
 
Naturally, the first thing any self-respecting young woman does in such a moment of peril is change outfit – and Zoe duly obliges by slipping into her exceptionally practical Catwoman number.
 
We hope this creative decision isn't based purely on giving 1960s boys their equivalent of the Basic Instinct pause-button moment when Zoe’s atop the console. Pity the 1980s for thinking they had exclusivity over the sexualisation of female companions, eh?
 
Honestly, words fail us.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Anyway, sequined backside aside, the sight of the TARDIS exploding, while Troughton sits on his chair mentally wrestling with the unseen puppet-master, is the best cliffhanger in all of Classic Who. Full stop.
 
It’s a bona fide heart-in-the-mouth moment that’s strengthened by the lack of an obvious cheat way out. No end of handy Tibetan language books or sudden doppelganger reveals (or polystyrene memorial stone switcheroos for that matter) are getting them out of this one.
 
This haunting ending rounds off a nigh-on perfect episode of Doctor Who.

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Now, when we set out on the ludicrous commitment of time that became the Sophisticated Idiots revolution, our charter pledged that we'd avoid getting bogged down in off-camera production dramas.

 

Fairly or not, we’re only judging Doctor Who by what we see on the screen.
 
Sometimes this counts against a troubled production (mentioning no names, Warriors of the Deep); on other occasions, the crew pull out all the stops in times of trouble with such aplomb it makes the teams behind those failures look even worse.
 
The Mind Robber epitomises the latter. When an opening episode is as glorious as this one, we don’t give two hoots about the machinations behind the scenes that spawned it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Of course, plenty of other Who stories have strong openers. The real trick is to sustain the momentum, which is where The Mind Robber comes into its own.
 
As soon as the TARDIS is destroyed, we’re thrown into a non-stop cavalcade of confusion and mystery that lasts four glorious chapters.
 
The joy of there being So. Ruddy. Many ideas is that if there’s one that doesn’t take your fancy, it’ll be rushed off screen in a minute to be replaced by something equally imaginative.

 

This isn't just a great watch – it's a full-on immersive experience.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
The bonkers ideas come machine-gunning at us like quips in the Naked Gun films. A few honourable mentions:
 
A typographer’s wet dream is realised when we’re shown we’re in a forest comprising letters. It’s a wonderful notion, though we accept this is an example where the black and white approach masks some iffy model work.
 
Bernard Horsfall’s Gulliver, purely speaking Swift's dialogue, is, of course, a standout, but we cherish the surly vibes of the fed-up Rapunzel just as much.
 
We’re also bowled over by the sheer genius of replacing Fraser Hines with a cutout – and then a genuine Scotsman – while he rests up in his plague bed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Okay, the superhero is the weak link, and him being beaten up by Kung-Fu Zoe (channelling 60s Batman again) is too stoopid for words. But it’s so terrible it has us chuckling almost as heartily as Rapunzel snubbing Jamie when she clocks he’s not royalty.
 
Obviously, the final few pages of this story descend into chaos. But we love the image of Zoe and Jamie being crushed by the giant book (sledgehammer-subtle symbolism, guys) and we’re gift-wrapped the classic Troughton quote about not being able to control his mind.
 
There’s also something enjoyably juvenile about the Doctor and the Master (why the heck did the blithering fools re-use a character’s name for Delgado three years later?) lobbing literary lines at each other to change the story in real-time.

 

Making it up on the spot, like kids in the playground. Or directors in the Colin Baker years.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Mind Robber is a stunning piece of television. Precisely because it had the nerve to stick to its guns so wholeheartedly and wring its writers for every last drop of creativity from the setting.
 
We can all agree it’s a travesty of humanity that such all-in brouhaha has become a thing of the past.
 
Consider, please, how much better the Ncuti festive flop Joy to the World would’ve been if it had stuck with the Doctor trapped in the Time Hotel, hopping from one period to another.
 
Or in Trial, if more than a paltry 15 minutes were devoted to the season highpoint of Colin in the madcap Matrix, rather than three hours of courtroom one-upmanship.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hands up, we're biased.

 

Some people adore the historicals. Others the futuristic spaceship adventures. We go weak at the knees for a Who story which takes the mind-bending, reality-questioning route – especially when it nails its colours to the mast as boldly as it does here.
 
So, when the sub-genre produces quality as spine-tinglingly high as The Mind Robber manages, we're well and truly lost for words.

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​Other stories referenced here which we've reviewed:​

• The Dominators

• The Creature from the Pit

• The Ultimate Foe

• Revelation of the Daleks

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• More reviews