Big Finish Productions The Mind's Eye

Written by	Colin Brake
Format	Compact Disc
Released	2007

Starring Peter Davison, Nicola Bryant

Synopsis: This is a warning to all space farers. You must keep away from this planet. It's hostile, repeat, hostile. On a planet with no name, the Doctor finds himself confronted by a faulty memory and some killer plants. In a distant galaxy, Erimem leads a troubled empire. Back on Earth, Peri tells her son about the good old days when she used to travel with a man called the Doctor.

• A Review by Thomas Tiley

A Review by Thomas Tiley 27/9/26

This story, set on an alien world with telepathic flowers that send people into dreams while feeding off them, feels very derivative and stereotypical, as if we've seen this type of story countless times before --- although to be fair if your only exposure to sci-fi is Doctor Who then maybe it is new to you. It feels very much like a Star Trek story --- not that that is a bad thing. Amnesia, dying in your dream/virtual world kills you in real life, seemingly nice scientists turning out to be evil, military experiments, worlds with deadly day/night cycles, all stuff we've seen done a thousand times before. It's very similar to the previous 3-1 episode story Exotron in a way, with the seemingly nice scientist Hayton (Owen Teale) working on an experiment for the military only with telepathic flowers instead of giant robots, also he is much more unpleasant compared to Hector in Exotron. That being said, I can't say that Stephen Maslin's review of this story is wrong.

The main trio get enough to do, but Peri and Erimem spend a lot of time asleep and dreaming, while the fifth Doctor is suffering amnesia but quickly recovers and then has to dive into his companions dreams --- Peri of her life post the Doctor with the drama of raising a teenage stepson (Thomas Sangster) and Erimem ruling over a Space Egyptian planet whose inhabitants want her dead.

It's an all right story, the various supporting actors/actress do a good job and for once the double or tripling up of actors makes sense with the various dream states of the characters you can sort of rationalize them as the dreamer overhearing and incorporating the various voices into the dream state, it's just it's very safe and stale, save one or two bits: I didn't expect who Erimem's assassin was, for example, nor the twist with who was working with Hayton. There is also a nasty twist near the end involving the support staff --- what starts out oddly with the Doctor offering to take them on as a companion very freely becomes odd when details regarding the TARDIS are wrong and then when you realize what has happened to them and they've become the latest victims of the flowers, a surprisingly dark ending. Not that such a thing is unwelcome, but it wasn't what I expected.

Probably the most interesting part of this CD is the interview extras at the end with Sangster talking about Human Nature/Family of Blood, Teale reminiscing about Vengeance on Varos, Davison talking about starting in Spamalot and Nicola Bryant talking about how she developed her accent for Peri.

This CD also has a one episode story, Mission of the Viyrans, which starts out confusing and gets even more as it goes on. Make sure you don't skip the closing theme tune or you'll miss an ending scene that explains it all. I had to listen to it twice to get it. It's an all right story, the start of a strand of virus-related stories that also feature in the previous 3-1 releases and ends up turning into Big Finish's answer to the various New Who story arcs. Much like how the main story feels like a Star Trek story, so does this --- specifically a Next Generation episode called Clues --- the story follows a similar beat of missing memories leading to an investigation that reveals aliens have wiped the memories for a good reason, the solution at the end is even the same --- because of gaps in their memory cause people to question what has happened to them, the only way to stop it is make sure they don't feel the need to dive in and investigate the issue (not that I am saying anything nasty, it's just a similar enough idea that's probably been used in lots of other stories). Bryant is very good here. Its a very good story although maybe not as fantastic as some have claimed --- merely better compared to the main release and the other releases of the time.

Ratings are a 6/10 for The Mind's Eye and for Misson of the Viyrans a 7/10, so overall a just-above-average 6/10