The Mind Robber - Episode 5

The climactic episode, and things certainly heat up! But the first thing I noticed was the audio. It's of a remarkable clarity, possibly the best of the Hartnell or Troughton eras that hasn't been cleaned up by the Restoration Team. Video quality is pretty good, too. I enjoyed the mind duel between the Doctor and the Master, with fictional character fighting against fictional character, with the controllers switching out characters to out-do the other. The Master survives, which is a nice rare touch. The final moments of the episode end with sort of another cliffhanger. The TARDIS is seen to be reformed, but we don't know what has become of the Doctor and company.

I give this story a thumbs-up, definitely. While its individual episodes may have been quite short, that meant that there wasn't as much padding as a regular 5-part story might have had. It had plenty of clever concepts, the writing was good, and the performances of regular and guest cast were both well played. A fun story. Next we have "The Invasion", but we don't quite get the resolution to this story's cliffhanger. Episodes 1 and 4 of "The Invasion" are sadly missing. However, we do have 6 complete episodes of the story, which finally gives us our first encounter (his initial appearance no longer exists in the BBC archives) with a recurring character that will be with the program for quite a while...