Line #61 Recap/DoctorWhoS23E2Mindwarp


1	[[WMG:[[center:[-''[[Series/DoctorWho Doctor Who]]'' [[Recap/DoctorWho recap index]]\
2	'''Sixth Doctor Era'''\
3	'''Season 23:''' [[Recap/DoctorWhoS23E1TheMysteriousPlanet 1]] \| '''2''' \| [[Recap/DoctorWhoS23E3TerrorOfTheVervoids 3]] \| [[Recap/DoctorWhoS23E4TheUltimateFoe 4]]\
4	'''[[Recap/DoctorWhoS22E1AttackOfTheCybermen <<< Season 22]]''' \| '''[[Recap/DoctorWhoS24E1TimeAndTheRani Season 24 >>>]]''']]-]]]
5	!The Trial of a Time Lord, Part 2: Mindwarp
6	[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/bald_peri_4823.jpg]]
7	[[caption-width-right:300: Looks like Peri's [[Film/StarTrekTheMotionPicture Ilia]] auditions are going well. It's a pity her outfit isn't as colourful as [[RunningGag the Doctor's coat]].]]
8	->Written by Philip Martin\
9	Directed by Ron Jones\
10	'''Production code:''' 7B\
11	'''Air dates:''' 4 - 25 October 1986\
12	'''Number of episodes:''' 4
13
14	->''"Today, prudence shall be our watchword. Tomorrow, '''I SHALL SOAK THE LAND IN BLOOD'''!"''
15	-->-- '''King Yrcarnos''', played by Creator/BrianBlessed [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1k-pvCZ2Kw at his finest.]]
16
17	JustForFun/TheOneWith '''''Creator/BrianBlessed.'''''
18
19	Alternatively, the one where [[TonightSomeoneDies Peri is killed off...]][[note]]except she ends up returning from the dead! And also ''was'' dead. Its...''[[TimeyWimeyBall complicated]]'' to say the least.[[/note]]
20	----
21
22	The trial continues, and the Valeyard decides to bring out another piece of evidence against the Doctor: his antics on the planet of Thoros Beta.
23
24	The footage shown to go along with the trial has the Doctor and Peri landing on the aforementioned Thoros Beta, a planet beach [[SpecialEffectsBeefUp with green sky, blue rocks and a pink ocean]]. They meander around the beach before going into a cave - and are quickly captured by natives of the planet. Among those aliens is [[Recap/DoctorWhoS22E2VengeanceOnVaros Sil]], whom the Doctor suspects is behind the problems of this planet as well. As it turns out, this is Sil's homeworld, the planet of his species: the Mentors. The Doctor and Peri are taken to a Doctor Crozier and his experiments -- one of them being the ever-lovable [[Creator/BrianBlessed BRI... King Yrcanos]], a barbarian warrior king in samurai garb. Before the Doctor can object, a lie detector is slapped on his head and the Mentors begin to probe his mind. Before it can do much, however, Yrcanos blows up the machine, breaking free and taking the Doctor and Peri with him. Yrcanos plans to go steal weaponry and blow up the Mentors, but the Doctor then shouts a warning and betrays Yrcanos and Peri to the Mentors.
25
26	As it turns out, the Mentors are being evolved into higher beings by Doctor Crosier -- and the leader Kiv now needs a new body before his brain essentially explodes. Trying to avoid himself becoming a target of that transplant, the Doctor interrogates Peri and accuses her of being against the Mentors repeatedly. Meanwhile, the Doctor is denying that this happened at all during the trial -- and that he's being manipulated by someone who's messing with the Matrix ([[Film/TheMatrix again, not that one]]). Finally, Yrcanos frees Peri and both join the [[LaResistance resistance]] against the Mentors -- and plan a massive attack against the Mentors as well, but are stunned and captured. Sil and Crozier decide to use Peri as a more suitable body for Kiv's brain, despite the Doctor's objections. As the operation is being prepared, the Doctor sneaks away and frees Yrcanos, urging him on for Peri's safety.
27
28	Peri is strapped down and gagged as the operation is prepared. As the Doctor and Yrcanos run to go save her, the Time Lords intervene and rip the Doctor out of time... and then purposely delay Yrcanos' strike force from actually freeing Peri until after the experiment is over with, directly playing a role in her death. As you can guess, the Doctor (finally remembering the events of this story, piece by piece) is not pleased with this at all.
29
30	Time slowly resumes its normal course and [[DroppedABridgeOnHim all that's left of Peri is Kiv]]. Yrcanos, having fallen for her over the course of the story, is devastated and blows everything up -- Kiv, Sil, and whatever remained of Peri included. The Doctor, watching this from the courtroom, [[HeroicBSOD is shocked into silence]]. The Inquisitor and the Valeyard tell him that it was necessary to end Peri's life to prevent the disastrous consequences of Crozier's experiment, and the Valeyard further claims that Peri's death is ultimately the Doctor's fault as he abandoned her in the first place (with the Time Lords failing to acknowledge that the only reason the Doctor abandoned her was because ''they'' plucked him out of time and he'd've made it to rescue her if they hadn't!).
31
32	But rather than numbly accept the accusations of the Valeyard, however, the Doctor angrily insists that there is something extremely fishy about this whole trial and that he was removed from time for other, more sinister reasons. He, being (rightly) ''exceptionally displeased at Peri's death,'' [[RageAgainstTheHeavens vows to get to the bottom of all this]], and that he will somehow avenge the loss of Peri.
33
34	As we head towards a massive [[Recap/DoctorWhoS23E3TerrorOfTheVervoids "To Be Continued"]] moment, the camera also heads towards the Doctor's face for yet another close-up shot...
35	----
36	This serial is notable for featuring venerated actor Creator/BrianBlessed in a major role as King Yrcanos. This serial is more notable among the fans, though, for having a companion killed off rather than given a happy ending... at least until Creator/JohnNathanTurner reversed it at the end of the season.[[note]]At least this allows for Peri to return in the Expanded Universe material. [[CosmicPlaything Sadly, she goes through more rough stuff in her life (or more accurately, ''lives'')]] beyond her initial downer ending...[[/note]]
37	----
38	!!Tropes:
39
40	* AlienSea: Thoros Beta has a bright pink ocean.
41	* AlienSky: Thoros Beta has a green sky (with another planet visible, large and close enough to see its rings).
42	* AuthorAppeal: The concept of the Mentors being a heavily-capitalist society, buying up planets and then using them up is a self-admitted example from author Philip Martin. No one really cares, though, because the whole effect of the species is just that cool -- especially for the 1980s.
43	* TheBadGuyWins: Although it gets reversed at the end of the season, Peri's death ends up casting the Doctor in an even worse light than before.
44	* BaldOfEvil: Peri's head is shaved for her possession by the evil Kiv.
45	* BastardUnderstudy: Sil to Kiv, technically... though Kiv seems to have slowly lost it as the story progressed.
46	* BatmanGambit: Frax pulls a villainous one; he knows the resistance aren't really fighters, and are therefore likely to just hide out in the caves for a long time. But he also knows that Yrcanos is suicidally brave and will rally them to attack, so when he escapes all Frax has to do is sit back and be ready for them.
47	* BigBad: Lord Kiv.
48	* BigNo: King Yrcanos (Creator/BrianBlessed!), who else?
49	* BoisterousBruiser: GUESS.
50	* BoundAndGagged: Happens to Peri when Doctor Crozier decides to experiment on her.
51	* CrapsackWorld: Thoros Beta.
52	* {{Deconstruction}}: While much of it is embellished by ManipulativeEditing, the main plot scathingly takes apart all the most distinctive elements of the previous season. The Doctor and Peri wind up in yet another evil vs. evil situation where the Doctor is forced to help a villain in order to defeat them, but he only ends up alienating not only Peri, who finally gets fed up with his arrogance and moral greyness, but also the people he's actually trying to help, who take him for a traitor. The end result is that nobody wins: the whole situation devolves into chaos and the apparent death of Peri at the hands of the man who loved her. The Valeyard even notes at the end of the story that the Doctor is finally forced to face the consequences of what he had become in his new incarnation, and that even then, this was the ''best'' possible outcome.
53	* DisneyDeath: The Doctor is shown a scene in which Peri, her mind hijacked by Kiv, is apparently killed. However, it is later revealed that the scene in question had been fabricated and Peri is "alive and well and living as a queen".
54	* DistressedDude: Damn, Yrcanos just can't stay free.
55	* EvilIsHammy: King Yrcanos, which is no surprise since he's played by Creator/BrianBlessed! However, he only really has that status at the start of the story -- The evil, that is. Not the hamminess. In fact, the hamminess just keeps increasing as the story progressed.
56	* {{Expy}}: Ycranos is not dissimilar to Creator/BrianBlessed's [[Film/FlashGordon1980 Prince Vultan]].
57	* {{Gaslighting}}: The Valeyard takes advantage of the Doctor's memory wipe to manipulate him into believing that the edited Matrix footage is a true account of what happened on Thoros Beta, and that he is becoming too mentally unreliable to defend himself. The Doctor, however, adamantly resists it, and realizes by the end of the story that his trial is being conducted with sinister intentions.
58	* GrandTheftMe: Peri gets her mind swapped with Kiv's against her will at the end of the story, ultimately leading to her apparent death.
59	* HamToHamCombat:
60	** Creator/BrianBlessed, Creator/ColinBaker, the entire damned cast... BRIAN is the unquestioned winner, though; even the Sixth Doctor is eventually left stunned in the awesome face of King Yrcanos' [[LargeHam loudly delivered calls to battle]]. Let that sink in for a moment.
61	* HeroicBSOD: Played straight with the Doctor at the end of the serial. Subverted with King Yrcanos, as he suffers from one... but that ends with the typical results of a VillainousBreakdown instead.
62	* HotBlooded: Ycranos, of course.
63	* MadDoctor: Crozier.
64	* ManipulativeEditing: It's strongly implied in the serial that someone altered the Matrix footage to depict the Doctor in a negative light, {{foreshadowing}} events that will transpire in the next two stories; however, the full extent of the editing is never given away.
65	* MindRape: Peri is subjected to one by Sil, in a very traumatic and disturbing way with a lot of blatant rape subtext. It includes a TraumaticHaircut and she's considered technically dead after it.
66	* MindScrew: Exactly how "real" the events of this story are is never stated.
67	* MyBrainIsBig: PlayedForDrama. The Mentors are being artificially transformed into more advanced, more intelligent beings by Dr. Crosier, and as a result of this, their leader, Kiv, is on the verge of death thanks to his brain becoming too big for its own skull. The bulk of the plot revolves around Dr. Crosier having to transplant Kiv's brain into another organism with a larger head.
68	* MySkullRunnethOver: Again, what Kiv is trying to avoid.
69	* NoIndoorVoice: In addition to the Sixth Doctor, we have King Yrcanos. It's amazing that anyone's hearing was left intact.
70	* NoodleIncident: The adventure that brought Peri and The Doctor to Thoros Beta in the first place. It involved a Warlord of Thordon gifting a powerful weapon to The Doctor with his dying breath, and the [[DirtyOldMan "dirty old warlord"]] apparently took quite an unsavoury liking to poor Peri.
71	* LaResistance: Yrcanos and his merry men.
72	* PlotHole: The Doctor's behaviour during the flashback footage after Yrcanos frees him from the mind-machine. Supposedly, the Doctor was supposed to be blended with Yrcanos' personality -- but a serious communications problem prevented Creator/ColinBaker from getting this important piece of information. As such, the Doctor comes off as a royal {{jerkass}}. Baker explains the script problem in this [[http://drwhointerviews.wordpress.com/2009/08/25/colin-baker-nicola-bryant-1992/ interview]].
73	-->'''Creator/ColinBaker:''' He said "I don't know, you'd better ask Philip Martin", so I got in touch and gave him those three alternatives, he said "I don't know, Eric wrote the trial stuff, all the Matrix stuff was added after, by Eric, you'd better ask him." So I went to Creator/JohnNathanTurner, he said "Oh, [[ShrugOfGod whichever you like.]][[invoked]]"
74	** The production subtitles on the DVD release include a quote from Nathan-Turner, where he claimed he believed the Doctor being out of character was the result of the Valeyard tampering with the evidence.
75	* PrefersRawMeat: Sil's favourite snack is marsh minnows: a kind of newt mostly eaten alive.
76	* ProudWarriorRaceGuy: King Yrcanos is slightly ludicrous in his constant blustering but mostly on the side of right. But that's only because the story has a major case of CrapsackWorld and EvilVersusEvil: in many more optimistic ''Doctor Who'' stories, Yrcanos would have been a bloodthirsty villain by comparison to nicer characters.
77	* RoyalsWhoActuallyDoSomething: Kin Yrcanos is a classic Warrior King.
78	* ScreamingWarrior: Yrcanos continues to shout and scream even when not actually fighting.
79	* SequelEpisode: Sil's return makes this a sequel to "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS22E2VengeanceOnVaros Vengeance on Varos]]". There were plans to bring him back anyway in the original Season 23 for "[[Recap/BigFinishDoctorWhoTLSS1E2MissionToMagnus Mission to Magnus]]", where he would have partnered with the Ice Warriors.
80	* ShoutOut: When first in Crozier's lab, the Doctor examines a [[Franchise/{{Alien}} chestburster]] in a glass tube.
81	* SpecialEffectsBeefUp: The scenery shots feature some of the most elaborate CGI the show had ever seen up to this point, with green skies, pink oceans, and a lavender tint in the air, courtesy of the Quantel Paintbox. The BBC was a big fan on the device, and the production team had been using it as a special effects tool since the start of Creator/JohnNathanTurner's tenure as producer (before it was even commercially available), but never before was it used for something on this level.
82	* TakeThat: Peri tells Ycranos about Earth:
83	-->Oh, you'd like it there. Lots of madmen playing at warriors and actors playing over the top in politics.
84	* UnreliableNarrator: The Matrix itself, here, although to exactly what degree the events have been falsified is never made clear. "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS23E4TheUltimateFoe The Ultimate Foe]]" makes it clear that, at the very least, Peri's "death", shown in this story, did not really happen, and she in fact married Yrcanos.
85	* VisibleBoomMic: After the Raak has finished attacking the Doctor and Peri and dies, a boom shadow can be seen across Creator/ColinBaker's head.
86	* WarriorHeaven: King Yrcanos describes one of these. Peri does no seem impressed.
87	* WasOnceAMan: The Lukoser. Now he's a sort of [[TragicMonster horrifying mutant]] [[OurWerewolvesAreDifferent man-wolf hybrid]], though his mind is still clear enough to fight for Yrcanos.
88	* WeirdWorldWeirdFood: The Doctor visits Thoros-Beta, a colourful rocky planet where most people live in caves. Sil, a native, is repeatedly shown snacking on marsh minnows, a neon-green, newtlike creature that he typically consumes live. In the serial's novelization, the Doctor compares the taste of them to [[ItTastesLikeFeet an internal combustion engine]].
89	* WhatTheHellHero:
90	** The Doctor is called on his behaviour by Peri, who is just as confused as the audience as to what the hell is going on.
91	** The Doctor also calls out the Time Lords on their intervention in Peri's rescue.
92	* WorldOfHam: Up there with "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS16E2ThePiratePlanet The Pirate Planet]]" for one of the most ham-tacular productions that ''Doctor Who'' has ever done.

Context Recap / DoctorWhoS23E2Mindwarp