Thursday 14 June 2012

569 Kinda Part Two

EPISODE: Kinda Part Two
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 569
STORY NUMBER: 120
TRANSMITTED: Tuesday 02 February 1982
WRITER: Christopher Bailey
DIRECTOR: Peter Grimwade
SCRIPT EDITOR: Eric Saward
PRODUCER: John Nathan-Turner
RATINGS: 9.4 million viewers
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - Mara Tales (Kinda / Snakedance)

Hindle imprisons The Doctor, Todd & Adric. Two Kinda women lie in wait for Sanders, who is in the TSS. They are interrupted by Aris, who communicates with the younger women, Karuna, his worry for his brother held hostage in the dome but is dismissed by the older women, Panna, who insists they continue with their plan. As Sanders approaches he is presented with a wooden box which he opens bathing his face in light.... Tegan is still trapped in the black void where she argues with copies of herself. Dukkha offers her a way out and accepting a snake tattoo moves from his arm to hers. After dressing the two Kinda hostages up in uniform Hindle summons the prisoners to the control room where he announces plans to clear the jungle with fire and acid. Adric feigns co-operation with Hindle to smuggle The Doctor a key to his cell but is caught. Tegan awakes under the wind chimes, possessed by the Mara. She sees Aris and follows him, the snake tattoo & Mara possession transferring to him. Just as Hindle is about to pronounce sentence on Adric, Sanders returns to the dome, a changed man, and presents Hindle with a present, a wooden box which he asks Hindle to open. Hindle sends The Doctor, Sanders & Todd back to the cells and has them open it.

Hindle's just completely barking, how did someone like that ever get on an expedition? Or was it X months of "practical jokes" by Sanders (see the start of Episode 1) that made him like that. So the base element of the plot is understandable. But the other bits.... somehow, while under the influence of the wind chimes, Tegan has made contact with another realm and allowed the Mara to travel over into our world? A bit odd even for Doctor Who.

The man responsible for this tale is Christopher Bailey. He is real. He exists. Doctor Who magazine tracked him down for an interview, he's in the documentaries on the DVD. He is not, as some have claimed in the past, a pseudonym for either singer songwriter Kate Bush or playwright Tom Stoppard. In reality he is a lecturer of English at the University of Brighton who wrote this script heavily influenced by Hindu & Buddhist mythology. Most of the names have meaning somewhere along the line and derive from Buddhism as well. In the black void Dukkha is "suffering", Anatta is "not-self" and Annica means "impermanence" while in the real world the old woman Panna's name means "wisdom" and her guide/pupil Karuna's name means "compassion".

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