DigificWriter

Double post (sorry).

My reviews of "Trial of a Time Lord, Parts 5 and 6" (AKA "Mindwarp, Parts 1 and 2)".

Trial of a Time Lord, Part 5 (AKA Mindwarp, Part 1)
I found it interesting that Part 5 of the Trial of a Time Lord mega-arc started, as Part 1 did, with an introductory 'framing story' of the Doctor's trial, but I guess it works if you're looking for these episodes to stand on their own as much as they form part of an ongoing meta-narrative arc, although I could've done without the frivolous objection of starting this part of the story with the Doctor and Peri having a conversation about the sea color on Thoros Beta, as it felt unnecessarily fourth-wall-breaking. I also didn't really buy the Inquisitor's sternness towards the Doctor or the Valeyard's contriteness.

Moving beyond the 'framing device' elements of this episode, I found it interesting how similar the shot of the Doctor and Peri walking alone was to their initial 'conversation stroll' in Revelation of the Daleks, and how both ended up with the Doctor and Peri in similar perilous situations. The one issue I did have was how choppy and fake the Roc attacking them looked and how we didn't actually see it show up, as it kind of detracted from what otherwise should've been a pretty grave and perilous situation.

I got a kick out of the Doctor sticking his foot in his mouth by calling Crozier "old" and then having improvise an escape from the people who'd apprehended him and Peri, and it was interesting to see them run into what was essentially a werewolf, especially because there was little context as to where such a creature came from. I did like Peri trying to take pity on it, as it put me in mind of Rose taking pity on and trying to reach out in compassion to the Dalek that she and Nine run into in the episode Dalek.

I wish we'd had more context for what was going on when we're first introduced to Crozier, although I did like the fact that it didn't take too much longer for us to see that he and his assistant were working for Sil and his race, which I appreciated since that's something that I could easily see them having held off as a reveal until later episodes. I also appreciated that Peri got mad at the Doctor for 'forgetting' to mention that Thoros Beta is Sil's home planet, although I also wish she'd reacted more strongly to his flippant comment about birdseed, since there was a missed opportunity there to put additional emphasis on just how much they do care about each other even as they're arguing and bickering with one another, particularly given what I know about how this story ultimately ends as far as Peri is concerned.

The concluding moments of the episode where the Doctor gets strapped to a gurney and subjected to mind torture were a bit overdone and cheesy, which did detract from what would've otherwise been an interesting and intriguing cliffhanger, but I'm not quite sure who to blame for that and so I'm trying to not let it detract from the episode overall.

This first installment of the Mindwarp mini-arc didn't quite get off to as strong a start as The Mysterious Planet mini-arc did, but things like the initial introductory banter between the Doctor and Peri, the compassion she showed to the wolf-man that she and the Doctor stumbled across, and the return of Sil stand out for me and make the lesser/weaker parts less egregious.

Trial of a Time Lord, Part 6 (AKA Mindwarp, Part 2)
I appreciate that we picked up right where the previous episode left off, but going from the rather cheesy sequence of the Doctor being mind tortured to the equally cheesy sequence of the warrior king that Crozier and his assistant were experimenting on waking up and going on a crazed rampage while spouting nonsense didn't really help get this episode off to a very promising start, although I did get a kick out of Peri identifying herself as "Perpegillium of the Browns". Yrcanos trying to hit on Peri is something I could have definitely done without, but knowing how her story ultimately ends beyond what we're led to believe at the conclusion of this particular mini-arc probably helped mitigate the foulness of that ever so slightly.

The framing device sequences in Part 1 pretty clearly established that the Doctor did in fact have some amnesia, so the sequence in the trail where both the Inquisitor and the Valeyard act shocked by this and the Valeyard tries to pass it off as the Doctor lying made very little sense.

The scene where Kiv, Crozier, and Sil were talking about Kiv's objectives and what Crozier was doing reminded me very much of what Dastari wanted to do to the Second Doctor in The Two Doctors, which I appreciated because of my aforementioned love for continuity. I also got a kick out of Kiv yelling at Sil for talking too much, especially since it seemed pretty clear that pretty much everything Sil was saying was a complete falsehood, even if that wasn't expressly communicated by the scene itself.

And while we're on the subject of The Two Doctors, the Sixth Doctor seemingly going totally loopy after being mind-tortured reminded me very much of what happened to the Second Doctor after he was infused with Androgum DNA.

Yrcanos and Peri arguing about Yrcanos wanting to obtain weapons made me smile and him counting her in the plan to do so made me smile, since her snarkiness is one of the things that I love about her character, even if said plan didn't amount to much due to the Doctor's aforementioned supposed loopiness. I also got a kick out of his callous dismissal of both Yrcanos and Peri because it gave Colin a chance to play an even more amped-up version of his very earliest outing as the Sixth Doctor.

I didn't really understand the point of a lot of Peri's scenes after she ran away from Sil, Crozier, and the Doctor, as it seemed unnecessary for Peri to encounter a matron servant and end up disguised as a lesser servant just to get close to the Doctor and have him seemingly betray her yet again.

I probably should've seen through the Doctor's seemingly callous and devious behavior, especially after he himself defended it as being a ploy during one of the trial framing sequences, but pretty much all of his behavior up to the point where he got Peri alone and revealed the truth to her still caught me completely off-guard, which is a testament to Colin's skills as an actor, although the scene could've done with a better transition between him telling her what was really going on and continuing to behave like his post-regeneration self, especially since that particular story thread continued throughout the remainder of the episode.

Returning to the trial framing device, it's kind of hard to buy into all of this "the Matrix cannot lie" stuff when one is watching this particular season with knowledge of how the mega-arc ultimately resolves itself and what the point of the whole trial exercise actually is.

The episode cliffhanger with Yrcanos trying to kill the Doctor wasn't nearly as good as some of the cliffhangers from previous stories, but was at least effective for what it needed to do in the moment.

***

The first two parts of the Mindwarp mini-arc for the Trial season weren't quite as good as the first two parts of The Mysterious Planet portion of the story and it is here that a lot more problems with the overall trial framing device have started to make themselves manifest, but I still enjoyed the two episodes quite a bit, and am looking forward to seeing the resolution of the Mindwarp part of the story and what it apparently shows us of Peri's fate even though I'm anticipating that I'll have some problems with the way said resolution impacts the broader Trial mega-arc based on what I already know.