Mrs Chuff and I have been watching the story sicne the weekend, and finished last night. Great stuff. Really excellent story. I'm not a real Pertwee fan, but was very taken with this. It looks so good in B&W!

It made me think that my big problem with pertwee is there's a lot of 6 part stories which don't have enough going on in them. Colony in Space. The Mutants. Planet of the Daleks. Monster of Peladon. All of them dreary.

The Mind of Evil manages to have enough action for 6 eps, and does this by trying the trick "really" long stories (7 parters, etc) have: keep introducing new characters and keep changing the location. With hindsight, I am unsure why the Master wanted to take over the peace conference, and why Chin Lee was killing the Chinese and American delegates (could someone enlighten me?) but it does keept he story moving along. A change of location to the prison. Another change to country lanes. Another change to the missile launch site. Excellent stuff.

Invasion of the Dinosaurs also manages this well: keeps the story motoring along by changing places and faces.

Completely agree with your review - I really do think that 'The Mind Of Evil' is rather superb, and, somewhat controversially, I'd say it's the last good Pertwee story until 'Carnival Of Monsters'.

* runs *

A colourised version is supposed to be coming out on DVD soon!

* saves pocket money *

Regards,

Cypher

This is the one Pertwee story I've never seen.

Some others I've only seen parts of and some I've not seen since first broadcast but this is the only one that I've never seen any of.

Looking forward to a DVD release.

This is one of my favs from the Pertwee era too.

I really like the portrayal of The Master in this story. In the first couple of episodes he's a mysterious character - smoking his fat cigar in the back of his limo! I love the music that goes with him too - The Master's Theme - really used to great effect in this story.

The Keller Machine prop is a bit naff but somehow that doesn't matter. Its still quite threatening. As adults I think horror concerning loosing one's mind is one of the most frightening things to comprehend.

Dudley Simpson does a bonkers electronic score that alot of people hate, but I love it!

Same here. That and the mutants. Well I got part way through the mutants and lost heart. But I've only ever heard good things about the Mind of Evil and so I'm very keen to see it, re-coloured or otherwise.

I still find this story somewhat frightening now, even after many many years since I first seen it in the early days of UK Gold.

I completed the DWM "marks out of ten for every story" poll a while back, and I was stunned to find there are some DW stories I have never seen. The Mind of Evil was one of them, so I hi'ed myself off to Ebay sharpish. I also got The Twin Dilemma on VHS, as I'd not seen it since first broadcast (it's very, very bad) and The Krotons as I'd never seen it (it's very, very bad).

Still no idea why the peace conference stuff happens at the beginning of the story, but it's very effective and dramatic. Chin Lee is great.

One week you've got Peter Davison popping his clogs in the brilliant Caves of Androzani and the next week you've got Colin Baker facing a giant slug and two children with the most horrific bowl cut. *Gah*!!! It's just so bad, so so so bad it hurts me just to think about it.

The Mutants is one I have no real memories of, I was watching regularly when it was first broadcast so must have seen at least some of it (and I'm pretty sure I read the Target novelisation too) but I can't really recall any of it.