Doctor Who - Kinda review

Right, so its about high time that I did a brand new post with NEW content, so this is it: and the subject of this post is another Doctor Who story, which is from the Peter Davison era and the story in question is Kinda, which is often acclaimed to be one of his best stories.  But is it????  Well, let's take a closer look and find out....

By the way this won't be my usual detailed review with loads of dialogue quoted, so you can instead expect a shorter post this time round.

And yes, the usual warning is coming up....

PLOT SPOILERS ARE AHEAD!!!

STORY

So, the story begins with the TARDIS already landed on the planet Deva Loka, with the Doctor (Peter Davison) and his companions Tegan (Janet Fielding), Adric (Matthew Waterhouse) and Nyssa (Sarah Sutton) having a look outside.  Nyssa however starts to feel the effects of the planet's atmosphere make her dizzy, so she soon decides to go back to the TARDIS, leaving the others to explore the jungles of the planet.

Meanwhile, a human survey expedition, who is also on the planet, have lost some crew members, who have mysteriously disappeared one by one and the remaining crewmembers are Sanders (Richard Todd) a strict, military figure, Hindle (Simon Rouse) his deputy, who is close to breaking point and a female scientist, Todd (Nervys Hughes) who is the most level headed of the three.  The Doctor and Adric soon come across a Total Survival Suit (TSS) a robotic device, which leads them toward the colony base of the expedition.

At the base, the Doctor and Adric greeted more warmly by Sanders and Todd, however Hindle takes a more hostile approach to them.  Sanders also soon decides to ventre out into the jungle in the TSS leaving Hindle in charge, who quickly places the Doctor and Adric under arrest and imprisons them inside a cage.

In the meantime, Tegan, who is still in the jungle, has come under a trance from wind chimes that are there and she soon starts dreaming where she is approached by malevolant spirits, who are a manifestation of the Mara, which is an evil subconscious being that longs for physical reality.  Tegan is mentally tortured by the spirits and taunted into agreeing to become the Mara, so a tattoo of a snake is soon transformed onto her arm as she tooks on the personality of the Mara.  Tegan soon comes to in the jungle and she meets a member of the Kinda tribe, Aris (Adrian Mills) who is mute but as the Mara infected Tegan transfers its spriti into Aris, he finds the power of speech.

And its from here that the Doctor and Adric must find a way to escape the clutches of the crazed Hindle and find a way to rescue Tegan aswell as find out just what is behind the whole thing....

THOUGHTS

Kinda is often seen as one of the best stories from the Davison era, however I think myself that it is just a bit overrated as its a bit of a slow burner.  Regardless of this though, there is still much to enjoy in the story and it features some engaging characters, particularly the expedition trio of Sanders, Hindle and Todd.  The story also get's better as it goes on but for me I think it takes a bit too much time to actually get going.

PERFORMANCES (Warning: some spoilers might be ahead but no notable scenes this time!)

As for the performances, well they are all mostly very good here with the regulars and the supporting case all in fine form.


And to kick off, Peter Davison is excellent here once again as the 5th Doctor and he was just starting to grow into the character a bit more in this story (I think this was the 3rd story that Davison had recorded in terms of production aswell as broadcast).  Peter also has a chance to be rely more on his wits here alone without Nyssa present as she usually as a companion, would give the Doctor her own intellectual input, which at times made the 5th Doctor look a bit inadequate!  But here, this is a fine story for Peter overall.

Matthew Waterhouse actually does pretty well as the Doctor's companion, Adric and he actually manages not to be too annoying in this story and its almost like they were just starting to get used to writing Adric's character by this stage and iron out most of his flaws (although at this stage he is still not perfect!). Although it has to be said there is one scene where Adric does have a bit of a go at Tegan, which I thought was a bit obnoxious and that's one scene where he definitely deserves a slap!

Janet Fielding up next is great in this story as Tegan and this was one of her best performances in the role as she get's to play an evil version of Tegan, who is affected by the evil spirit of the Mara. And when Tegan makes her transformation and wakes up, she actually manages to look quite sexy as she gives a sly look as she shakes off leaves around her.  And Janet's scenes with the evil Mara spirits are also really as she get's to show off her abilities to play a conflicted character. So, this was definitely one of the highlights of Janet Fielding's time as Tegan.

Sarah Sutton on the other hand doesn't really feature much here as Nyssa was largely written out of Kinda because the original story was only really written with two companions in mind, so this meant that Nyssa's character had to be largely written out, which is why she only features in two episodes (first and last).  This is a pity because, Sarah Sutton is a good actress and it would have been good if they could have given her more screen time on this one (plus she is pretty cute!).

As for the supporting cast, they are all very good also.

Starting with Richard Todd, who does very well in his role as Sanders, the leader of the human colonial expedition, who is something of a military figure, although he does later become affected by the events of the story.  Todd's disciplinarian and boisterous Sanders is certainly a colourful character and he appears to be having good fun playing the part and he does it very well.

Simon Rouse next up also is pretty good in his role as the highly strung, Hindle, Sanders second in command, who has a nervous breakdown during the story as he becomes badly affected by feelings of megalomania once he takes charge of the colony base.  Its a pretty good performance overall by Rouse and he certainly plays the part well.

Nervys Hughes is also very good in her role as the female colony scientist, Todd, who is the most rational (and sane!) out of the three remaining expedition crew members and she actually manages to have a good rapport with Peter Davison as Todd befriends the Doctor and Adric and helps them try and defeat the Mara.

Adrian Mills does well with his role as Aris, the silent member of the Kinda tribe, who is taken over by the Mara, which gives him the power of speech and he ends up trying to take control of the tribe and destroy the Doctor and the others.

And second last of all is Mary Morris who does well in her role as Panna, an elderly female mystic of the Kinda tribe, who would try and help the Doctor and the others fight off the evil spirit of the Mara.  And last of all is Sarah Prince, who is good as Karuna, Panna's young ward, who also plays her part in the fight against the Mara.

DIRECTOR AND MUSIC

As for the director, Peter Grimwade, who directed some of Peter Davison's most notable stories (especially Earthshock) does a reasonably good job here.  Although I have to say I found the pacing of the story was a bit off and slow at times and that's something that Grimwade should have fixed here and it does hold the story back somewhat.  Regardless of this though, Grimwade still does what he can here.

And lastly the electronic music score by Peter Howell is very good and it features some pretty atmospheric tracks and some dramatic ones also that suit the tone of the story pretty well.  Howell generally did produce some of the stronger music scores for the show in its early 80's period, so this is certainly a solid effort.

FLAWS

As for flaws...yep, Kinda is not perfect and has some.

For starters, I really think this story is a just a bit too slow paced and sluggish for my liking and I didn't feel like it started going places until about half-way through it.  The absence of Nyssa was also a disappointment here, as the dynamic of the trio of companions could have made this alot better than it was.  But here I think the story has reduced the companions to mere spectators at times with even Tegan being sidelined after the Mara's evil spirit is transformed into Aris.

I also felt that the plot of the story is a bit convoluted at times and it tries to be a bit too clever and it suffers from having colourful characters but not the best of scripts to back them up and I found myself scratching my head as it went on.  At times, the writers of Doctor Who just like to confound their audiences and its something that former series producer, Steven Moffatt just loved doing later on in the new series!

I also think they didn't make enough use of the evil Tegan, who was possessed by the Mara as she is taken over (and we see a snake slither onto her arm and fade into her skin like a tattoo) but she rather quickly finds Aris in the jungle and the Mara transfers itself into him instead!  It was a pretty shortlived metamorphosis into evil and it would have been probably a but more fun to have seen more of the bad Tegan just for a change up.

Anyway that's it for the flaws.

SUM UP

So, to stum up, Kinda is a bit of a curate's egg, it features the regular cast in good form, particularly Peter Davison and Janet Fielding and it has some good engaging supporting characters. However the story also let's itself down with inconsistent pacing and a confusing script that at times left me scratching my head (or was it just me??).  So is it a classic???  Well for me, no its not.  However it is still quite an enjoyable story that picks up the pacing in its second half even if it isn't totally satisfying as a whole.

Right, that's it for now and I will be back again with another post sometime soon

Till the next one, its bye for now! (Wow!  That was quick!).