The Doctor and his companions land on the jungle planet Deva Loka which is being surveyed for colonisation by a team of explorers from another planet. (Presumably Earth, although this is never made explicit; they simply refer to their "home world"). Something is going wrong with the expedition, however. Four members of the survey team have mysteriously disappeared. The team's leader, Sanders, is a strict disciplinarian, but his deputy, Hindle, is close to going mad. The only other remaining member of the team is Todd, the female scientific officer. The planet is inhabited by a humanoid race known as the Kinda. (The word is pronounced to rhyme with "cinder", not with "finder"; it may derive from "Kinder", the German for "children"). Sanders and Hindle believe the Kinda to be primitive savages, but Todd and the Doctor believe that they may be more advanced than they seem.
At this period the Doctor had three companions, but of these one, Nyssa, spends most of the time sleeping in the TARDIS. The reason, apparently, was that the script had been written at a time when he only had two companions, so there was no role for Nyssa to play, although she does made very brief appearances at the very beginning and very end so that Sarah Sutton could appear in the requisite number of episodes stipulated in her contract. Tegan also spends much of the serial asleep, although in her case for valid plot reasons, which means that only Adric gets to play much of a role. Matthew Waterhouse's Adric, a brilliant extra- terrestrial intellectual with the personality of a sulky, brattish teenager, has regularly been voted the least popular companion in the history of the series, and in this serial he gets plenty of opportunity to display that side of his character.
Trying to elucidate the plot of Kinda any further would be difficult, but not because of its complexity, at least not in the literal sense of that word. "Complex", after all, derives from the Latin for "woven together", and the plot of this story is very loosely woven indeed. The scriptwriter Christopher Bailey seemed less interested in writing a science fiction adventure (which I thought was the point of the series) than in indulging his own interests in Buddhist philosophy. Many of the Kinda have names with technical meaning in Buddhist theology, such as "Dukkha" (suffering) or "Karuna" (compassion). The main threat to the colonists comes not from the Kinda, who are an essentially peaceful people, but from the Mara, an evil entity which normally only exists within the minds of its victims, but which can also manifest itself in the physical universe in the form of a huge, and extremely unrealistic, toy snake. (The word "Mara" in Buddhism denotes the personification of evil, equivalent to the Christian Satan).
One of the few plot elements which make any sense is an element of satire on European colonialism; with their khaki uniforms, their solar topees and their patronising attitude to the "natives", Sanders and Hindle are clearly intended as caricatures of British colonial officers. We are clearly intended to approve of the Kinda's own moral and political philosophies, but as these are based around the idea that passivity and a sort of benign apathy are desirable virtues I was less enthusiastic about them than Mr Bailey would have wished. One of the Kinda's tenets is that as civilisations are prone to decline and fall it is better for everyone's wellbeing if they are never allowed to arise in the first place. I was put in mind of Immanuel Kant's dictum that if men were as good-natured as sheep they would still be grazing good-naturedly in the fields.
I liked Peter Davidson's interpretation of the Doctor, but I must admit that he was not always lucky with some of the scripts he had to work with. The other good contribution in this serial comes from the former Liver Bird Nerys Hughes as Todd, who effectively plays the part of a sort of substitute companion to the Doctor while his actual companions are either unconscious or detained elsewhere. (It might have been interesting if Todd had joined the TARDIS as an official companion, but the producers still seemed stuck with the idea that the Doctor's female companions all had to be dolly-birds; the idea of an intelligent older woman in such a role still lay in the future). Some have praised Simon Rouse's interpretation of Hindle, but for me he was just a bit too far over the top.
Someone at the Beeb- unaccountably- must have liked the Mara, because it made a second appearance in another Fifth Doctor adventure, "Snakedance", the following year, looking just as unconvincing as ever. Actually, "Snakedance", although it is not a particularly good serial, is at least better than "Kinda", largely because it has a plot which makes some sort of sense. "Kinda", by contrast, must count as one of the most opaque and incomprehensible serials in the history of "Doctor Who". (The reason for the disappearance of the four missing expedition members, for example, is never clarified). At the time it was first broadcast in February 1982 I was a member of the Cambridge University Doctor Who Appreciation Society, and even we were baffled by it. God knows what the average viewer made of it.
At this period the Doctor had three companions, but of these one, Nyssa, spends most of the time sleeping in the TARDIS. The reason, apparently, was that the script had been written at a time when he only had two companions, so there was no role for Nyssa to play, although she does made very brief appearances at the very beginning and very end so that Sarah Sutton could appear in the requisite number of episodes stipulated in her contract. Tegan also spends much of the serial asleep, although in her case for valid plot reasons, which means that only Adric gets to play much of a role. Matthew Waterhouse's Adric, a brilliant extra- terrestrial intellectual with the personality of a sulky, brattish teenager, has regularly been voted the least popular companion in the history of the series, and in this serial he gets plenty of opportunity to display that side of his character.
Trying to elucidate the plot of Kinda any further would be difficult, but not because of its complexity, at least not in the literal sense of that word. "Complex", after all, derives from the Latin for "woven together", and the plot of this story is very loosely woven indeed. The scriptwriter Christopher Bailey seemed less interested in writing a science fiction adventure (which I thought was the point of the series) than in indulging his own interests in Buddhist philosophy. Many of the Kinda have names with technical meaning in Buddhist theology, such as "Dukkha" (suffering) or "Karuna" (compassion). The main threat to the colonists comes not from the Kinda, who are an essentially peaceful people, but from the Mara, an evil entity which normally only exists within the minds of its victims, but which can also manifest itself in the physical universe in the form of a huge, and extremely unrealistic, toy snake. (The word "Mara" in Buddhism denotes the personification of evil, equivalent to the Christian Satan).
One of the few plot elements which make any sense is an element of satire on European colonialism; with their khaki uniforms, their solar topees and their patronising attitude to the "natives", Sanders and Hindle are clearly intended as caricatures of British colonial officers. We are clearly intended to approve of the Kinda's own moral and political philosophies, but as these are based around the idea that passivity and a sort of benign apathy are desirable virtues I was less enthusiastic about them than Mr Bailey would have wished. One of the Kinda's tenets is that as civilisations are prone to decline and fall it is better for everyone's wellbeing if they are never allowed to arise in the first place. I was put in mind of Immanuel Kant's dictum that if men were as good-natured as sheep they would still be grazing good-naturedly in the fields.
I liked Peter Davidson's interpretation of the Doctor, but I must admit that he was not always lucky with some of the scripts he had to work with. The other good contribution in this serial comes from the former Liver Bird Nerys Hughes as Todd, who effectively plays the part of a sort of substitute companion to the Doctor while his actual companions are either unconscious or detained elsewhere. (It might have been interesting if Todd had joined the TARDIS as an official companion, but the producers still seemed stuck with the idea that the Doctor's female companions all had to be dolly-birds; the idea of an intelligent older woman in such a role still lay in the future). Some have praised Simon Rouse's interpretation of Hindle, but for me he was just a bit too far over the top.
Someone at the Beeb- unaccountably- must have liked the Mara, because it made a second appearance in another Fifth Doctor adventure, "Snakedance", the following year, looking just as unconvincing as ever. Actually, "Snakedance", although it is not a particularly good serial, is at least better than "Kinda", largely because it has a plot which makes some sort of sense. "Kinda", by contrast, must count as one of the most opaque and incomprehensible serials in the history of "Doctor Who". (The reason for the disappearance of the four missing expedition members, for example, is never clarified). At the time it was first broadcast in February 1982 I was a member of the Cambridge University Doctor Who Appreciation Society, and even we were baffled by it. God knows what the average viewer made of it.