Purity Undreamed: The Mindless Ones

"You've been thinking too much."

Writer: Paul Magrs

Format: Audio

Released: August 2022

Series: Sixth Doctor Adventures 2.01

Featuring: Sixth Doctor, Mel, Hebe

Synopsis

The Doctor, Mel and Hebe visit Sheffield at the behest of Hebe's best friend, Elise, but Elise has undergone a disturbing transformation. The mysterious Mindless Facility claims to be able to change you for the better – but who decides what that is?

Joining forces with anthropologist Professor Patricia McBride, can the Doctor and his friends save Britain from an insidious alien threat?

Verdict

The Mindless Ones was an excellent story to kick off the Purity Undreamed second series of Sixth Doctor Adventures! I thought this was a really great opener and followed on nicely where Water Worlds left off with the distress call from Hebe's friend Elise. This friend was not the gothic and downbeat person that Hebe remembered and it soon became clear that there was something strange going on at the universe with the Mindless Facility. I mean, that doesn't exactly sound like anything innocent but it was fun to hear Patricia get to bitch about being a lecturer at a university. She particularly was not fond of the students in first year and having been a student myself for four years at both undergraduate and postgraduate level not that long ago, I can definitely understand her testament and my experience was definitely that more respect was garnered as I went through the years. I liked the trio of the Doctor, Mel and Hebe a lot and them being complimented here by Patricia and Elise provided a nice dynamic with a strong female presence. The Doctor getting to know Mr Betterment was really good and I loved how he commented on how his name almost seemed made up. Of course it was! The Doctor being subjected to the mind control and temporarily becoming one of the Mindless was fun stuff, especially when he later revealed that the conditioning had worn off quite some time ago! He'd been playing Mel along all that time to ensure that the secret didn't get out. Mel's reaction was terrific. I thought she had another solid outing and I loved how her abilities with coding were utilised once again. The audio format is doing brilliant things with her and long may they continue. Hebe and Elise's relationship was interesting to hear and I liked the harking back to their history. The TARDIS was its usual unreliable self in bring the trio a month later than when Elise initially called for her, and Hebe had even missed her old pal's wedding to Ron! He was a decent character that did genuinely seem to be trying to help people, and Hebe's reaction to finding out they were a couple and Elise had ditched the black eye liner before the Mindless Facility was fantastic. Patricia knowing that the Facility was doing something dodgy because of the improvements in some of her less favourite students was amusing, and having her and Hebe venture to the Facility was well done. They were humorously later threatened with legal action which didn't go down too well! The threat of the Home Secretary becoming a part of the Mindless was good and I liked the representation of the political figure in almost being monotonous. The Doctor having sabotaged the control device sparked quite the outburst from Betterment which was fun and ended up being a pretty simple resolution for the story as a whole with the threat of UNIT also on their way to mop everything up. I liked the mystery at the end with Patricia not taking too well to the Doctor's comments about her flaws, and it seems she will be back at some point! I wonder in what regard, but for now this was a really strong start to the series! 

Rating 9/10