Episode One opens with the TARDIS about to be engulfed in lava, so the Doctor panics, taking the TARDIS out of time and space, and into a white void where anything can happen - including the destruction of the TARDIS... Derrick Sherwin has pulled off a minor miracle with this imaginative opening episode to The Mind Robber, making good use of the regular cast, the TARDIS sets, the white void set and the robot costumes. Speaking of costumes, the sparkly catsuit that Zoe changes into at the start of the episode suits Wendy Padbury extremely well. This episode also works as Sherwin takes the opportunity to re-establise basic character concepts such as Jamie and Zoe's respective places of origin.

The TARDIS crew have ended up in a world of fantasy as Episode Two begins, resulting in a meeting with Gulliver, various puzzles with one resulting in Jamie gaining a new face, and an encounter with a unicorn... Peter Ling's first episode is a corker, establishing the location of the story quite effectively. Off-camera hassles continue as Frazer Hines has to miss an episode with Hamish Wilson putting in a rather good performance as his temporary replacement. Out of the fantasy characters, Bernard Horsfall is excellent as Gulliver, giving the character not only a polite nature but a a sinister side as he quite cheerfully turns the TARDIS crew over to the Clockwork Soldiers.

Episode Three opens with the TARDIS crew defeating the unicorn by saying it is only fiction, something also used to defeat the Minotuar. Jamie gets restored to normal, and he makes a discovery over what is behind the Land of Fiction, just as the Doctor and Zoe face Medusa... It's good to see Frazer Hines back in action after an enforced one episode break, and is right back into the action for him, scaling a cliff.

In Episode Four Zoe faces one of her fictional favourites, the Master of the Land is revealed and one of the strangest ciffhangers ever takes place as Jamie and Zoe are crushed into fiction... One of the biggest cult classic characters in Doctor Who arrives, as the Karkus makes an appearance, and is straight away humbled as the Doctor rubbishes his weapon and Zoe defends him at unarmed combat. The Master of the Land of Fiction is an interesting character, an magazine writer from early 20th century Earth, whose imagination is exhausted, and he wants the Doctor to take over. It's quite obvious that the computer behind the Land also retains some form of control of the Master, so it's not just the man interested in the Doctor's creative mind.

Episode Five opens with the Doctor writing his way out of trouble without turning himself into fiction, and Jamie and Zoe smash their way back to reality... The last episode resolves The Mind Robber quite effectively, destroying the Land of Fiction in a battle of wits that turns into a wanton destruction when Jamie and Zoe give the Doctor a hand by smashing up the machinery in the control room.

Evan Hercules' sets for The Mind Robber reflect the imaginative nature of the script with an interesting set for the wood and some quite imaginative work for the maze. The episodes are unusually short, meaning the story moves at a brisk pace with out the viewer getting lost, nor bored by obvious padding. As for the end of the story, and the question as to whether it was real or just a dream, I prefer to think of as 'real', as the story being just a dream of the TARDIS crew (a shared dream?) would cheapen the impact for me. An unmissable classic.

9.5/10

Next time: The TARDIS crew are re-UNITed with an old friend and some old enemies...