Written by Christopher Bailey
Broadcast 1st February
1982
“You can't mend
people, can you!? You can't mend people!”
The TARDIS
materializes on the planet Deva Loka where there is a small human expedition
that is based in a dome and investigating if the lush jungle planet is suitable
for colonization. The Doctor sets up a
delta wave augmenter that will help Nyssa recover from a mild mental
disorientation. In the meantime while
Nyssa is recovering The Doctor, Adric and Nyssa begin to explore the area. The travellers come upon a clearing that has
a large group of hanging crystals that look and act just like wind chimes. The
Doctor is amazed at the construction and believes there is intelligent life on
this planet. Tegan finds a spot to relax
and ends up falling asleep.
While Tegan
is sleeping Adric and The Doctor find an empty Total Survival suit that gets
activated and leads them back to the base where they are sort of welcomed by
Saunders and Todd under a lot of suspicion but not by the scientist
Hindle. After much scrutiny The Doctor
gets that suspicious feeling that something is not quite what it seems
especially when Saunders decides to explore more of the jungle and leaves the
very unstable Todd in charge. Todd is
unhinged and on the verge of a breakdown and is extremely paranoid to the
extent of locking Hindle and The Doctor in the cage and proclaiming he has the
power of life and death over him.
But all is
not well with Tegan either. It appears
she is being manipulated by The Mara inside her mind or in a void like
area. The Mara wants to be Tegan who gets
bombarded with mind games and eventually agrees to The Mara’s terms. The Mara is now free to extract its revenge
on Kinda people and once again the universe. So it’s up to The Doctor and
Hindle with the help of the Old Lady and the Kinda people to make sure the Mara
are trapped forever.
“You can't
mend people, can you!? You can't mend people!” was probably one of the best
lines ever in Doctor Who. Just look at
what it says mend people. In fact the whole story deals with mending
people and their mental state. From the dark natures of Tegan’s mind to the
dark nature Aris and of course the fragile state of mind that Hindle was
displaying. Kinda was the type of story that tried different things and worked
really well. In fact it’s the type of
story that showed us what can happen when the show did everything right. That is probably why it was purchased by the
National Film Archive.
Kinda is
one of the best stories during the 5th Doctor’s era and also boasts some fine
performances. Heck even Mathew
Waterhouse wasn’t as annoying and is actually quite good. Peter Davison now
quite at ease in the role as The Doctor gives one of his best performances of
the season and in fact of his tenure.
Simon Rouse as Hindle gives a really good performance and Hindle is one
of the more insanely interesting characters ever.
I would be
remiss if I didn’t mention the main villain of the story and that is the snake
like Mara. In fact they are a giant
snake that takes over your persona by manipulating your brain and allow the
darker side to take over. The Mara I
found to be a creepy villain. Especially
the scenes inside Tegan’s mind which I found to be pretty dark for Doctor. I loved the way Janet Fielding played the
evil Mara possessed Tegan. She was
awesome in Kinda and gave us one of the best performances by a companion during
the Davison era. It just added to the freakiness of the Mara and gave them
human form while using one of The Doctor’s companions against him.
While Kinda
was such a dynamic and strongly written story it did have, well, it has the
dumbest looking snake in sci – fi. Yes I know it was 1982 and thankfully the
DVD has the option to use a CGI snake but it does look funny. It does make for a funny moment but, hey, it
doesn’t really detract from a story that was quite different for Doctor Who at
the time.
Grade A
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