As much as it ends up throwing the entire Trial into question, I like the wrinkle this adds to the larger arc in making the Doctor and the audience question what they're seeing. I mentioned this when writing about The Timeless Children, but I like it when the show plays around with its own status as fiction, and drawing attention to the notion of truth in a story that isn't real scratches a certain cerebral itch for me. Having Sil and the human caps lock himself BRIAN BLESSED! on board helps, as do the visuals, with the surface of Thoros-Beta looking like a proto-vaporwave album cover.

There is a pretty big fault to this one, and that's the treatment of Peri. Beyond the actual torture, which sadly feels like par for the course for how worrisome her and Sixth's pairing is as a whole in the TV stories, her departure here is... not handled well. Strictly on the basis of recognising that, without this, there'd be no Peri And The Piscon Paradox, I'm willing to show some leniency with the latter. But for a companion who arguably got the shortest end of the stick of all the classic era companions, even more so than Sara Kingdom, it still sucks seeing her go out like this. Or, rather, not seeing her go out.

Next is Mindwarp, which most fans consider to be the best episode of the season, it does certainly have some of the best parts of Trial of a Time Lord, but I think calling it the best episode is giving it way too much credit. Another bit of evidence presented by the Valeyard, this adventure occurs just before the Doctor was captured by the Time Lords, the planet Thoros Beta where the Doctor and Peri once again encounter Sil from Vengeance on Varos, this time he’s subservient to his lord Kiv who’s suffering from his skull being too small for his growing brain, and so has employed a scientist named Krozier to find him a suitable body to place his mind inside.

This story does have a lot going in its favour, Sil is the best creation of the Sixth Doctor TV era, brilliantly played by Nabil Shaban and was even meant to be part of the original planned Season 23 so it really speaks volumes that they junked the entire planned Season 23 but still found a way to keep Sil involved with the show. As I talked about with Peri and the Piscon Paradox, the death of Peri is an incredible ending with Colin Baker putting in his finest televised performance as the Doctor, but again it’s made completely redundant by the end of the season with the completely unnecessary retcon. Another positive Mindwarp has is the guest cast, this is honestly one of the most entertaining guest cast I’ve come across in Classic Who, on top of Nabil Shaban being great as Sil, we’ve Christopher Ryan as Lord Kiv who at the time was best known as Mike from The Young Ones, we have Patrick Ryecart hamming it up as the mad scientist Krozier and last but 100% not least, we have the barbarian King Ycarnos played by the one, the only, Brian Blessed! Very rarely does Colin Baker get upstaged in Doctor Who to the degree that Brian Blessed achieves, he is just a joy to watch. So it is understandable why Mindwarp is considered the best of the season as it has some of the best elements, but the story is utterly broken by how it’s presented. At the end of part one the Doctor’s hooked up to one of Krozier’s mind machines which puts him in a very delirious and mentally fragile state. From then on, the Doctor begins helping the villains and turns on Peri, but the Doctor in the trail room can’t figure out what’s going on, was this an after effect of the mind machine, was the evidence being manipulated, or was the Doctor only posing as evil to get closer to the villain’s plans, the answer is I don’t know. Not only is it never made clear onscreen what’s going on, but even behind the scenes Colin Baker asked those exact questions and was met with “I don’t know”. So you have a story where the Doctor turns on Peri and starts helping the villains, and nobody both on and off camera can explain why. On the one hand it serves to put the Doctor in the present in a desperate situation where the Valeyard is winning over the courtroom and he’s forced to watch helplessly as Peri is taken away and seemingly killed. But on the other hand it makes the story unintentionally confusing and we’re never sure what to think of the Doctor and his actions. This normally wouldn’t be a huge negative but it’s the crux of the entire story and it could so easily have been remedied if they’d just picked one of the options. This would’ve been a lot better had it been done in another season, being tied to the trial story just breaks it.

This is part of a series of reviews of Doctor Who in chronological timeline order.

Previous Story: The Mysterious Planet

And after such a great start, we're back to Season 22 quality again. The courtroom framing device is still very effective here, and Michael Jayston only gets better as the Valeyard. This story was especially good as you begin to see how the narrative is being twisted and the Doctor is losing favour in the court. I really enjoy how helpless the Doctor is here, it greatly adds to the tension.

The actual plot here is very weak. This story seems to think that the reason Vengeance on Varos was so well-recieved was Sil. I despise Sil. Brian Blessed's King Yrcanos is the definition of hammy Classic Who acting, but atleast they're self aware about it. While I think he's a fun character, I don't like the romantic narrative being set up with Peri.

The idea of mind transfers was pretty interesting, but no matter how much they say it will affect the fate of the universe, I just can't see why the Time Lords care so much. It's also baffling to me why they make Colin Baker's Doctor evil for half this story, it's genuinely impossible to tell whether he's being influenced or if he's genuinely just had a change of heart, that's how erratic and unstable his Doctor is.

Getting rid of Peri like that was ridiculous and the only reason I tolerate it is because of Colin Baker's performance when the Doctor finds out. I'll give it the benefit of the doubt for now though as I haven't watched the rest of the season. Overall, a big step down though not particularly awful mostly thanks to the courtroom scenes.

Next Story: Terror of the Vervoids

Mindwarp had the potential to be so much better were it not for the whole. Well. Everything about the production of s23

The Doctor not knowing if the Matrix had been edited or if he simply forgot his cruelty was a good idea! Peri's death was a good idea! The Doctor having to face consequences of his actions was a good idea!

Ah well. At least Brian Blessed seemed to be having fun

After the BBC's initial axing of Doctor Who was reversed into merely an extended break, the production team found themselves having to hastily rework their planned serials for the show's twenty third season. Very few of the story ideas survived this hasty reshuffle, causing an entirely different season to emerge. However there are tiny remnants of one such concept for the original season that did make the transition. I'm speaking, of course, about Mission To Magnus, the planned return of Sil (Nabil Shaban).

This story was reworked from the ground up, for what became 'Mindwarp', the second serial to make up the Trial Of A Time Lord arc. It's great to see Sil here, and Nabil Shaban is on fine form; you can tell he is relishing returning to the role. It's also really fun that the story takes place on his home planet of Thoros-Beta. It adds an extra layer to the world building of the series, as we finally get to see the planet that was teased in his debut adventure Vengeance On Varos.

Strangely, however, he takes more of a back seat here to a new member of the Mentor race, Lord Kiv (Christopher Ryan), a Mentor who is slowly dying and wishes to transplant his mind into another body in order to prolong his life. Sil is made more of a comedic presence, which is a somewhat bizarre creative decision given that he is known to offer a more threatening presence. I do in general really like the narrative on display here however; I think the idea of an extra-terrestrial being attempting mind transference into another body is a really strong one for a Doctor Who episode, and it's executed very well here. Especially as we get to see the results of the mind transference twice, and the outcome as Kiv's mind essentially finds itself in two different bodies at different points of the narrative.

This serial is known in particular for starring Brian Blessed as King Yrcanos, and he's every bit as you would expect. He delightfully hams it up, bringing this enormous sense of fun to proceedings. There's never a dull moment with somebody of Brian Blessed's screen presence around, and he's pretty much perfect casting as Yrcanos here. He has the booming voice of a King, somebody who you could easily imagine ordering servants around and watching over an interstellar kingdom.

Yrcanos's equerry Dorf (Thomas Branch) is something of a tragic figure. A result of the Mentors' experiments, he's become this wolfman who is clearly not very happy about his predicament, and I really found myself feeling for this character. It feels so needlessly cruel the way he was transported into this mutated body, which really establishes the nature of the threat they are up against. Only a cruel and heartless mind could do this to the poor man; these are clearly people who need to be stopped.

 
What I didn't quite buy was the Doctor's sudden betrayal and teaming up with the serial's antagonists. This didn't make much sense for me, for very much the same reasons as Colin Baker himself has stated. The story is very vague on whether the Doctor is simply stringing Sil and Kiv along, or if the Valeyard (Michael Jayston) has been tampering with the matrix in order to portray the Doctor as the bad guy and it doesn't feel purposefully vague either. It's like they didn't realise in the production of the serial how unclear it was, and it has the affect of making the Doctor seem too unlikeable when he tortures Peri for information, or alerts the guards to her presence when she appears as a servant to the Mentors. Hell, at one point I was wondering if the mind experiments attempted on the Doctor earlier in the serial had done something to his brain in order to affect his behaviour, but this isn't clarified either.

The ending, on the other hand, is sublime, as Peri's mind inside her body is replaced with that of Kiv's. It's a brutal and tragic way for a companion to go, Peri ultimately becoming nothing but a vessel for the primary antagonist of the serial. The performances of both Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant both really sell it too, as the Doctor is moved to tears in the courtroom whilst Peri on the screen intonates the precise speaking tones of Kiv. It's a shame that this ending is later reversed, as if it had stuck it would have easily been one of the greatest companion exits of all time.

Overall, whilst Mindwarp has its problems, it's still an extremely entertaining serial which provides an enjoyable hour and a half of television. Peri's initial exit in particular is very strong stuff, and Brian Blessed is every bit as larger than life as you would hope. Unfortunately there are some very bizarre creative production choices on display here, such as the Doctor betraying his companion and their new allies for no good reason, and Sil becoming more of a comedic secondary antagonist to the main villain. With more substantial rewrites this could have been one of the best Doctor Who stories out there, but as it is it's still a great adventure for Colin Baker's Sixth Doctor.