Doctor Who “The Mind Of Evil Part 1”

Well, this one looks like it’s going to be a bit all over the place in terms of plot.

See, UNIT is doing, like, three things at once.  True, it’s a theoretically big organization that can do multiple things at once, but it’s still three things.

First, Captain Yates has to escort a missile somewhere safer.  So, that seems fairly straightforward.

Second, UNIT is providing security for a World Peace Conference.  Isn’t UNIT an investigative organization?  I mean, it’s a military sort of group, but security seems like a weird thing for it to be doing.  Well, the Brigadier does seem to be on top of that, even if a member of the Chinese delegation seems to be dead, and a woman in that group, Captain Chin Lee (an actual Asian actress…considering something I know is coming down the road, I’m a bit impressed), seems to be doing stuff to maybe cause trouble.

And third, the Doctor and Jo are going to a demonstration at one Stangmoor Prison of the Keller Machine, a device that drains evil from people.

Seriously.

They better get it done soon.  Looks like the prison is on the constant verge of a riot.

So, the demonstration, which the Doctor talks over and scoffs at for the entire duration, has a prisoner hooked up to an electric chair-lookin’ thing and…he screams once and passes out.  That didn’t seem to be part of the plan.

Then a technician working on it alone dies of what looks like being chewed by nonexistent rats.

And then one Professor Kettering dies of what looks like drowning in a dry room.  Again, he was alone.  He had some visions as did the other guy.  And I gotta say, Kettering is usually the type of guy in these serials who doesn’t like the Doctor (and he doesn’t), isn’t as smart as he thinks he is (he isn’t), and whose machine is more dangerous than he claims it is (it certainly is).  These guys usually hang around until at least the penultimate episode, but here he dies in the first one.  So, that’s something.

And then the episode ends with the Doctor, alone with the machine, imagining himself on fire, and that apparently terrifies him.