Doctor Who/Recap/S6/E02 The Mind Robber



"We obey our creator, that is all that can be expected of any character, unless the Master bids us otherwise."

- Lemuel Gulliver

To escape from the lava flow at the end of The Dominators, the Doctor hits the emergency switch, zapping the TARDIS out of space-time and into a featureless white void, where they are attacked by white robots (some "void").

And then things get weird.

They flee back to the TARDIS which promptly explodes, leaving Jamie and Zoe clinging to the control console in space, while the Doctor appears to be dead. Suddenly, they find themselves in what appears to be a fictional landscape, menaced by lifesize clockworks soldiers and meeting characters like Gulliver and Rapunzel.

The Doctor discovers that they are in the Land of Fiction, a realm of a different dimension presided over by The Master of the Land, an English writer from the 1920s who has been yanked out of his own time and is being controlled by the Master Brain computer. The Master wants the Doctor to take his place and the two enter a battle of wills using fictional characters.

Zoe and Jamie arrive and succeed in overloading the Master Brain, which is then destroyed in the confusion by the White Robots, freeing the Master and allowing the Doctor and friends to escape.

Watch it here.

Tropes

 * Artistic License Physics: Parodied; the Doctor manages to disarm the Karkus by pointing out that his weapon of choice, the "Anti-Molecular Ray Disintegrator" would never work or exist in real-life. Unfortunately that doesn't stop the Karkus from trying to beat the crap out of the Doctor and Zoe.
 * Best Known for the Fanservice: Zoe on the revolving TARDIS console. From the DVD, we learn that one attempt to film this sequence was brought to a halt by a Wardrobe Malfunction.
 * Amusingly, Wendy Padbury apparently considered it a good costume - easy to move in, comfortable, etc.
 * Bottle Episode: The first episode, which was added at the last minute after the previous serial was shortened.
 * Male Gaze: See Best Known for the Fanservice.
 * Massive Multiplayer Crossover
 * The Master: Not the Time Lord, but just an ordinary writer from the 1920s.
 * Mind Screw: The first episode. To an extent, the following four as well.
 * My TARDIS Hates Me: The Doctor had to use the emergency unit to escape from the lava flow because the TARDIS's normal engines chose that moment to break down.
 * No Budget: For the first episode, which is why it's a Bottle Episode.
 * The Nth Doctor/Real Life Writes the Plot: Fraser Hines took ill, and Hamish Wilson filled in. Since they don't look alike, Jamie lost his face and the Doctor reconstructed it wrong. It doesn't feel at all out of place in this particular story.
 * Promoted Fanboy: Hamish Wilson was familiar with the show and had watched previous episodes with Jamie, which came in very useful when he was called in to play the part at ridiculously short notice.
 * Space Brasilia: Zoe's vision of her home city.
 * Trapped in Another World
 * Unicorn: Jamie dreams of one, and they later encounter it for real. It's one of the wild and violent sort.
 * Waif Fu: Zoe versus the Karkus.
 * What Happened to the Mouse?: What happened to the Master of the Land?