The Mind Robber (Black Archive #7)

‘We obey our creator. That is all that can be expected of any character, unless the Master bids us otherwise.’ Season 6 of Doctor Who was a time of transition and experimentation, with a production team wanting to move from one formula – the base under siege that had defined the previous two seasons – and toward another – the more grounded stories of season 7. No story in the season was more experimental, though, than its second, The Mind Robber. The debut of arguably the series’ most visually inventive director, David Maloney, the story was beset with production problems, including the last-minute addition of an extra episode and the sickness of a principal cast member; yet the creative solutions to these problems lifted the final story from a run- of-the-mill piece of whimsy into one of the series’ finest moments.