Kinda

Only kidding. Had you going there...

Somewhere in a garden centre... 

MAW Holmes@MAW_H  Yeah, it is an immediate struggle to write a story set in a jungle and film it indoors...

I think they get away with it by it looking quite stylised.

MAW Holmes@MAW_H  Oh, don't get me wrong... Personally I love the theatricality of it... but it does place a barrier in the way immediately.

I had a weird false memory of this story when younger, of the Doctor & Todd hiding in whicker baskets. Didn't happen.

'im off Dambusters wakes young Jack Meadows from his on-duty slacking. 

Elsewhere the TARDIS has already arrived. Nyssa keeps fainting after last week's exertions with a pencil.  Great setting, even if it is obviously studio. 

The Doctor rigs up a gizmo using the sonic screwdriver to help Nyssa get some shut eye. 

MAW Holmes@MAW_H   "I'll just leave this with you, Nyssa... now don't go getting any ideas..." (see also "The Visitation")

50dw50@50dw50   oh look, Tegan is frowning.  Nyssa is off into the Tardis to read her Big Finish scripts. 

The district nurse says the Kinda are culturally non-hostile. Sanders has taken hostages anyway. 

"There's always something to look at, if you open your eyes." Davison looks quite sunburned there. 

Lovely scene with the windchimes. The soundtrack for this story is smashing. 

Adric acts the goat as usual. 

Sanders has his exercise regime interrupted by Todd's questioning. 

50dw50@50dw50    T

hose press up put me to shame! I

 think Nerys Hughes is terrific in this, the best companion we never had, she has a brilliant relationship with 5

MAW Holmes@MAW_H    Why did nobody ever market "Kinda" windchimes...? 

As usual, Adric is sticking his fingers where they shouldn't be. 

 Tegan's fruit delivery comes while she's asleep. 

Love the Doctor scolding Adric's meddling. 

Davison is not as bored as in season 20, he's very flighty early on. 

Hindle points a speed camera at the Doctor's pockets when he sticks his hands in. 

Sanders grills the Doctor about their missing comrades. 

Don't dream! Whatever you do, don't fall asleep and don't dream! 

50dw50@50dw50    i am amazed she can sleep at all sat in that position 

"The ILF?"
"Intelligent Life Form"
"Oh, I thought you meant something else entirely..." 

The nightmare void and shining white manifestations of the Mara are so eerie & effective. Tegan encounters a dark reflection of her friends; next to an odd black box, two figures play chase, echoing Adric & Nyssa...

Great set for Todd's lab. Cramped and messy, looks like it's been worked in. 

Todd thinks the Kinda are telepathic. 

Cut off from their own people, their own civilisation, the mute male Kinda withdraw into themselves... 

50dw50@50dw50   people always say you can see a number on a tree when its obviously part of the base 

Glowy Adric and Nyssa have matching snake tattoos.  Cute. 

Jeff from the Bill arrives to taunt Tegan. 

Hindle earwigs while the Doctor scoffs an apple. 

"An apple a day keeps the... er... no, never mind." 

Hindle throws a hissy fit and makes a discovery... 

...the Kinda respond to mirrors! 

50dw50@50dw50   Hindle's breakdown is beautifully played, just the right side of OTT. 

Adric thinks the TSS is malfunctioning, Sanders is happy he's thought of something that should've been bleeding obvious. 

The taunter continues to try to blind Tegan with white light then wheels out her double. 2 Tegans? Blimey. 

MAW Holmes@MAW_H     Despite all of their efforts, I found Hindle to be the scariest character that year to be honest...

Adric a close second?

Sanders is off for a long walk, leaving Hindle in charge... is that wise, Mr. Mainwaring? 

Hindle has control over the Kinda, and the power of life and death over Doctor Who! End of part 1! 

Sanders'd be better off walking; that TSS is crap, and slow. Wouldn't keep out a determined ant. 

MAW Holmes@MAW_H    ...or a stubborn mathematical "genius"

An old woman, Panna, tells a younger woman, Karuna, to get her box ready. 

Karuna reads the mind of the mute Aris, who is scared and confused by the girl, and begs for the old woman instead. 

Adric bores the Doctor with a game of guess-which-hand-the-coin-is-in. 

The Doctor plays-along-like-he-gives-a-shit, patronising the irritating twunt. 

50dw50@50dw50    i must be getting old, i feel quite mellow about Adric these days

He's okay, apart from the bits he's in.

Look out, Hindle's got his hat on! 

Karuna shows Sanders her box and he nearly has a heart attack in the orange light it gives off. 

Tegan's got something in her eye. 

Hindle demands some Silence... 

He's broken down into total paranoia, and is worried about the plants now. Better hide that celery, Doctor.  

"Fire and acid, acid and fire!"

"That's your answer to everything."

Adric has one of his trademark change of loyalties and agrees to get in with Hindle, by becoming his barker. 

The 2 Tegan's argue over who remembers what. Soon there are more than 2 of her... 

Soon we're back down to 1 Tegan, in fact less as the taunter turns her invisible. 

Adric snaffles the pass key for the cage and tries to palm it to the Doctor, but Hindle isn't fooled. 

The taunter agrees to let Tegan go, if she'll be him... 

...and get a dodgy snake tattoo.  

"Like my snake tattoo?"
"What happened there then?"
"What goes on on Deva Loka, stays on Deva Loka, alright?" 

Bad news for Hindle; just when he thought he was going to get to wash behind Adric's ears, Sanders returns. 

Hindle's completely gone now, calling for his mummy, like his paranoia has driven him back to a child-like state. 

Sanders tries to get him to look into Panna's box but he says he'll save it for later. 

Boring Aris sits by a tree so Tegan drops apples on his head. 

He doesn't understand clothes and haircuts, he ain't gonna get gravity. 

I think the freakiest part of Janet's Mara get-up is the blood red colouring inside her mouth. 

MAW Holmes@MAW_H    and the kids could get those tablets from the dentist and easily imitate it...

Ours were blue!

Tegan's tatt wriggles on to Aris and soon he has a dodgy villain voice, not a patch on Tegan's. 

Hindle will have them shot unless the Doctor opens Karuna's box... end of part 2!  

It's only a gag jack-in-the-box. 

Or is it? 

The Space Pirate@SpacePirateOz  It's a Zen jack in the box, complete with instant enlightenment :) 

The Doctor and Todd have a shared vision of the Kinda in the jungle.  

Sanders is practically catatonic after a 2nd go. 

The Doctor and Todd are able to escape the open cage but have to jump as the power returns & the door closes. 

Another lovely "er... that way" moment of indecision from Davison, an early trademark in action.

Davison's really hit his stride now, after recording Four to Doomsday & The Visitation before this.  

Sanders is even more child-like than Hindle now, and defers to his junior officer. 

The Doctor & Todd are being followed by the Kinda trickster. 

The Trickster is Lister's Paranoia! 

And Lister's Confidence was played by Craig Ferguson, who used to be in a band with Peter Capaldi! 

Aris takes charge of the Kinda, much to Karuna's distress... 

Hindle plots to make them all safe by blowing the base and everything else to smithereens so nothing can get them.  

"It isn't a game, it's real, with measuring and everything!"

"How many fathers do the Kinda have?"

"7."

"Isn't that rather extravagant?" 

"Are you an idiot?"

"Well, I suppose I must be!"
Great Doctorish response.

Mary Morris is fantastic as Panna, bossing the Doctor. 

"Old woman!" 

"I've got a name, you know!"

Suddenly a wobble from Panna as she realizes Aris is possessed by the Mara, the wheel-turning evil of old... 

"The Mara dance to the music of our despair. Our suffering is the Mara's delight, our madness the Mara's meat and drink." 

The Doctor stares into Panna's vision cave... 

...and he & Todd fade into another shared experience. 

Nice video, shame about the song...  

"It's the end of everything!" Aris laughs at the death of entertainment (the Trickster). Yeah, definitely Cowell, isn't it? 

The vision fades into nothing... but so does Panna! 

But Panna's not dead; her consciousness is now within Karuna! 

 How Watcher-like!  

Narky Aris has no time for the Trickster's puppet-stick. 

Interesting that the Doctor refers to "one of them" re: the Mara.  

Sanders & Hindle are making cardboard figures to go in Tony Hart's Gallery. 

The Doctor finds Tegan sleeping on the job. 

Aris thinks his twiggy clothes-airer is a match for the TSS. Well, maybe. 

"I am Aris!" says the tree-creature. "It's Groot, you tool. You had ONE line..."

Adric gets inside the TSS and cocks it up. 

 Just go and sit in the corner, Adric.

Lol at Hindle jumping out of his box. 

This is Saward's filler scene. All of Saward's filler scenes are people arguing. They're "dramatic", don'tcha know.  

Hindle has his mirror-hypnotised Kinda with a finger on the button, ready to level the base, and the whole jungle with it. 

"You can't mend people!" Wobbler alert. 

50dw50@50dw50 "you cant mend people" it makes my nursing career seem a bit futile then!

When Hindle reaches for the button, the Doctor tries to overpower him... 

...but it takes Todd's nouse to persuade him to look into the box.  

The box is a powerful Kinda healing device. Aris could do with some of that. 

The Doctor thankfully stops Tegan and Adric from whittering on, and defuses the remaining explosives. 

The Doctor plots to trap Aris in a circle of mirrors, where he won't be able to resist admiring his wig. 

The Mara slithers off Aris' arm and starts to grow... 

 Aris is dragged to safety by the other Kinda... 

...but the Mara has physical form now and is on the loose, growing ever bigger. 

Yes, Tegan, that great big snake was coiled around your brain. 

Finally the Mara is overcome. 

The curse of time is lifted from the Kinda... 

A lovely ending for Hindle and Sanders. 

"I never read the manual."
"Thank you, SIR." 

Todd doesn't believe the Doctor travels about in that old blue box. 

She won't be staying on Deva Loka, though; Paradise is too green for her, she says.  

Nyssa pops out of the TARDIS, having hurriedly deleted her internet history. 

"Nyssa, how are you?"
"Back on contract, and into a batch of scripts written with me included!" 

Well, Tegan got possessed by an evil snake spirit, but who cares, right? Where to next? 

50dw50@50dw50 come on 5 dump those three and take Todd! 

TTFN! K.
Coming Soon: Planet of the Spiders