Production Code: FFF
First Transmitted
1 - 30/01/1971 17:15
2 - 06/02/1971 17:15
3 - 13/02/1971 17:15
4 - 20/02/1971 17:15
5 - 27/02/1971 17:15
6 - 06/03/1971 17:15
Plot
The Doctor and Jo visit Stangmoor Prison for a demonstration of the Keller Machine - a device claimed to be capable of extracting negative emotions from hardened criminals.
The Doctor's scepticism seems valid when a prisoner called Barnham collapses whilst undergoing the treatment.
The Brigadier is meanwhile in charge of security at a World Peace Conference, where documents go missing and the Chinese delegate dies in mysterious circumstances. Captain Yates is away on another mission, transporting a banned Thunderbolt missile across country to be destroyed. The Doctor joins the Brigadier at the conference and they foil an attempt by the Chinese delegate's aide, Captain Chin Lee, to kill the American delegate. Lee is under the hypnotic control of the Master - otherwise known as Professor Emil Keller.
The Master uses the evil impulses stored within the Keller Machine - actually the container for an alien mind parasite - to cause unrest at Stangmoor. He then enlists the convicts' aid to hijack the Thunderbolt missile, planning to use it to blow up the peace conference and start World War Three.
Shielded by Barnham, now immune to the effects of the parasite, the Doctor transports the Keller Machine to a nearby airfield where the missile is being held.
Using the Machine to keep the Master occupied, he reconnects the missile's auto-destruct circuit and gets clear just before the Brigadier triggers it. The parasite is presumed destroyed in the resulting explosion, but the Master escapes in a van, running Barnham down in the process.
Episode Endings
The Doctor is alone in the process chamber at the prison when the Keller Machine activates. He tries in vain to stop it and reacts in terror as he is engulfed in images of a raging inferno.
The American delegate Senator Alcott calls on the Chinese delegate Fu Peng at the latter's apparent request but finds his suite empty. Chin Lee enters the room behind him and instructs him to sit down. He does so, but jumps to his feet again when she turns out the light and a strange pulsing glow illuminates the room. The Senator is horrified as a shimmering image of a dragon appears to menace him.
In the process chamber, the Master has Mailer handcuff the Doctor to a chair beside the Keller Machine and then follows him out. The Machine activates and the Doctor reacts in terror as he hears the voice of a Dalek and sees images of many of his old foes.
The Keller Machine materialises in the process chamber before the Doctor and Jo. Mailer shoots at it ineffectually and then runs out, leaving the Doctor and Jo to its mercy.
UNIT troops are battling the convicts for control of the prison and Mailer releases the Doctor and Jo from the cell in which they have been held, intending to use them as hostages. As they descend a flight of steps, Jo throws herself back against Mailer in order to give the Doctor a chance to escape. This plan backfires, however, and Mailer aims his gun at the Doctor. A shot rings out.
The Doctor complains to Jo that while the Master now has a fully operational TARDIS he himself is still stuck on Earth - with the Brigadier.
Roots
The opening line is 'Looks like Dracula's castle'.
The mental subjugation of convicts as seen in episodes of The Avengers (The Wringer, The Fear Merchants), The Prisoner (A Change of Mind) and Star Trek (Dagger of the Mind)
A Clockwork Orange.
Dialogue Triumphs
Professor Kettering : [Speaking of the Keller Machine] "Science has abolished the hangman's noose and substituted this infallible method."
The Doctor : "People who talk about infallibility are usually on very shaky ground."
The Doctor : "We believe what our minds tell us to, Jo."
The Doctor : [To the Brigadier] "Do you think for once in your life you could manage to arrive before the nick of time!"
Dialogue Disasters
Mike Yates : [Describes Chin Lee as] "Quite a dolly."
Continuity
The Doctor is a personal friend of Mao-Tse Tung [odd that he counts as a friend the man responsible for the Cultural Revolution] and seems to support capital punishment in episode one. As Swiss scientist Emil Keller, the Master has successfully 'treated' 112 prisoners (Barnham is the 113th). [At least a year has passed since Terror of the Autons.] The Keller process supposedly 'extracts negative impulses from the brain'.
The Doctor describes UNIT as having been set up to 'deal with new and unusual menaces to mankind'. It is providing security for the First World Peace Conference. Despite the attacks on the Chinese and American delegates, it retains the job for the second conference in Day of the Daleks. The Brigadier can (and does) put a D-notice on the press.
He is a superb marksman, managing to shoot Mailer in episode six even though he's using Jo as a shield. The Brigadier and Yates use call signs 'Jupiter' and 'Venus'. The Brigadier's helicopter has the call sign 'Windmill 347'. Two new members of UNIT appear: Corporal Bell, the Brigadier's female adjutant (who is also in The Claws of Axos), and the [rather annoying] Major Cosworth.
The Keller machine picks up on the Master's inferiority complex about the Doctor [explaining many of the Master's subsequent actions]. The Mind Parasite feeds on 'the evil in the mind'. As a telephone engineer, the Master wears a black (or dark blue) and white football scarf [he's a fan of Fulham, Newcastle United, Notts County or possibly Tottenham Hotspur].
When Jo beats the Doctor at draughts, he says that the game is 'too simple'. He prefers three dimensional chess.
QV
Location
Stangmoor Prison.
The first world peace conference.
The London Chinese Embassy.
An aircraft hanger.
All in Autumn 1970.
Links
The first time the Doctor is mentally attacked, the machine focuses on his pyrophobia [he tells Jo about the destruction of the alternate Earth in Inferno]. On the next two occasions, the machine selects a checklist of his foes, including a Dalek, a Cyberman, an Ice Warrior, a 'Silurian', a War machine, a Zarbi and, strangely, Koquilion.
Untelevised
The Doctor says he once shared a cell in the tower of London with Sir Walter Raleigh ('a very strange chap... Kept going on about this new vegetable he'd discovered').
Trivia
The Master smokes a fat cigar.
There is an excellent performance as Captain Chin Lee by Pik Sen-Lim, who was the wife of writer Don Houghton.
This story contains the first use of on-screen subtitles in Doctor Who (not counting the silent film style caption cards displayed in The Daleks' Master Plan: The Feast of Steven) as the Doctor converses with the Chinese delegate Fu Peng in Hokkien.
The dragon that attacks Senator Alcott was referred to as 'Puff the Magic Dragon' by the production crew during the making of the story.
BBC publicity photographs were used to represent the Doctor's mental images of past 'adversaries' in the cliffhanger to Episode Three. These depicted, respectively, a Dalek, a Cyberman, a Sensorite, Koquillion, a War Machine, a Zarbi, Slaar and a Silurian.
Short-lived UNIT regular Corporal Bell was named Corporal Bates in early drafts of the scripts of this story.
William Marlowe, who played Mailer in this story, was at the time married to Fernanda Marlowe, who played Corporal Bell. He later married, as his second wife, Roger Delgado's widow Kismet.
Myth
The Doctor makes a comment in episode one that suggests he supports capital punishment. (His comment is ironic and suggests precisely the opposite.)
Goofs
How does the water get into the drowned man's lungs if he's only killed by his fear of drowning?
During a fight sequence in which water is spilled, the Master twice slips in the puddle.
In the office scene in episode four a female sneeze from the studio is heard.
Cast & Crew
Cast
The Doctor - Jon Pertwee
Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart - Nicholas Courtney
Captain Mike Yates - Richard Franklin
Jo Grant - Katy Manning
Sergeant Benton - John Levene
Barnham - Neil McCarthy
Captain Chin Lee - Pik-Sen Lim
Charlie - David Calderisi
Chief Prison Officer Powers - Roy Purcell
Corporal Bell - Fernanda Marlowe
Dr. Summers - Michael Sheard
Fuller - Johnny Barrs
Fu Peng - Kristopher Kum
Linwood - Clive Scott
Mailer - William Marlowe
Main Gate Guard - Matthew Walters
Major Cosworth - Patrick Godfrey
Prison Governor - Raymond Westwell
Prison Officer - Bill Matthews
Prison Officer - Barry Wade
Prison Officer - Dave Carter
Prison Officer - Martin Gordon
Professor Kettering - Simon Lack
Senator Alcott - Tommy Duggan
Senior Prison Officer Green - Eric Mason
The Master - Roger Delgado
Vosper - Haydn Jones
Crew
Director - Timothy Combe
The Mind of Evil