It’s hard to know where to start with Kinda. There’s so much going on in it, all of it interesting. But so much has already been written about it in attempts to solve its mysteries, track down its allusions and just generally work out what’s it all about?  I could have another go, but I’ll only repeat what others have said, or get it all wrong or both. So instead, I’m going to talk about a character in Kinda who is often overlooked: the Doctor.

The Doctor, as played by Peter Davison, holds Season 19 together. Behind the scenes, three script editors worked on this set of 7 stories, plus a one off special about the tin dog. It’s no wonder that this season produced such an eclectic clutch of stories: from the lyrical brain teaser of Castrovalva,  to straightforward monster mash The Visitation, to cozy murder Black Orchid to whatever Time-Flight is via the return of the Cybermen and the death of a companion. And Kinda, this esoteric parable, sits in the middle. Not since season 3 has the show veered so wildly from one thing to another.

In any other prime time, family show, this might be a problem, alienating viewers from one week to another. But this show has Peter Davison as its lead, and at that time, he was as big a star as you would have found on British TV. Producer John Nathan-Turner used to say that when he was recasting the towering Tom Baker in the role of Doctor Who that he wanted someone younger and with straight hair. What he didn’t say, for whatever reason, was that he was also looking for a star; someone with a following they could bring to the show.

Davison’s profile in the early 80s is something which might be lost on newer fans who weren’t around to experience it, but it pushed the show into mainstream popularity. For want of a better analogy, it would be like Kris Marshall becoming the Doctor (what a crazy idea!). He was a familiar face and he was well known for taking on charming, young larrikins. He had a presence about him which was informed by his other TV roles and that was part of his appeal.

He’s the sort of Doctor who allows you to take risks, such as telling a story like Kinda, because his presence kinda forces it into the shape of a standard Doctor Who story. Kinda is a strange, mystical story, but Davison is a solid, dependable presence in it. He’s your boy-next-door hero, who your Mum remembers from All Creatures Great and Small and he plays it dead straight while all sorts of weird shit goes on around him. It’s hard for Kinda to be completely mystifying with the fifth Doctor around; he’s intrinsically a patient explainer of things. (Compare it to that similar head scratcher Warriors’ Gate, in which the aloof fourth Doctor sheds no light on proceedings.)

Why is this important? Because as well as being a stabilising factor in an unusual story, it gives Davison licence to play the Doctor in a radically different way to Tom Baker.

Some have argued that the Doctor is a peripheral presence in Kinda, but that’s not how I see it at all. He’s actually a catalytic presence in the story; his arrival on Deva Loka brings Tegan to the planet which allows the Mara to emerge. And it’s he who bridges the gap between the colonially minded dome dwellers and the Kinda themselves. Finally, it’s he who devises the plan to deal with the Mara itself.

Thing is, I think that from the outside it can look like he’s being more passive. Partly that’s because he expresses himself in far more passive way than Tom Baker – sometimes verging on meekness. Like this exchange, when the bellicose dome commander Sanders (Richard Todd) promotes his febrile 2IC Hindle (Simon Rouse).

SANDERS: Oh yes, incidentally, while I’m away, Mister Hindle will be in charge.
DOCTOR: I don’t think that’s…
SANDERS: Yes? What?
DOCTOR: (backing down) Nothing. 

It’s the sort of tentative approach the show hasn’t seen since Troughton left (was Tom Baker ever tentative?). Later, when Hindle flips his lid and starts raving about the menace presented by the trees, the Doctor doesn’t seek to shut him down; instead he perseveres with his gentle approach in an attempt to understand the man’s psychosis.

HINDLE: Seeds, spores and things. Everywhere. Getting hold, rooting, thrusting, branching, blocking out the light.
DOCTOR: Yes, but I…
HINDLE: Don’t you see?!
DOCTOR: Nearly, nearly, nearly!

That “nearly, nearly, nearly” is the plea of someone trying to understand, trying to help. It’s the tiniest moment, but it’s distinctly fifth Doctor-ish. Can you imagine Tom or Pertwee taking this cautious tack with a madman? Early on in his tenure, Davison is pitching empathy as one of his Doctor’s defining traits.

Eventually, the Doctor and his newfound friend Todd (Nerys Hughes) escape from the dome and encounter the wise woman Panna (Mary Morris). She’s instantly insulting towards the Doctor. When she brands him an idiot, he takes it with bemused good humour. And when he can’t work out Adric’s (Matthew Waterhouse) coin trick, he’s intrigued, not indignant. When his joke about an apple a day keeping the Doctor away backfires, he retreats sheepishly. In all these ways and more, he’s marking himself out as different from Baker’s stridently prominent persona.

There’s another crucial moment for him at the story’s end. When he took over the role, Davison confided in Nathan-Turner that he didn’t know if he could summon the heroic strength to stand up to the show’s various villains. Nathan-Turner assured him that the character of the Doctor would naturally bestow that strength on the actor. As if to prove his point, Kinda features just such a moment, when the Doctor stares down the Mara, glaring at him through the eyes of Aris (Adrian Mills).

DOCTOR: I’m called the Doctor.
ARIS: Why do you involve yourself?
DOCTOR: Because I share the Kinda’s aim where you’re concerned.
ARIS: I now control the Kinda.
DOCTOR: Well, you did for a while, but no longer.

Davison’s Doctor is an active, heroic presence in Kinda, but his modus operandi is different to other, more boldly interventionist Doctors. He spends nearly all the story collecting information, working things out. It’s only in the fourth episode that he takes action, having gathered the data he needs.

This quiet, deliberate approach is important because one of Kinda’s themes is men trying – and failing – to assert their authority. Sanders shouts. Hindle shouts. The Mara roars. But the Doctor takes the subtler route: he listens, he empathises, he demurs, but he stands up to the bad guy when he has to. It’s a beguiling combination. It makes Kinda an important story in the development of Davison’s Doctor, among the many, many other things it is.

Walk softly and carry a big stick of celery. He’s the Doctor who turned young Spandrell into a fan. And when he’s part of a story as smart, scary and sexy as this, I don’t think he can be beaten.

LINK TO The Eaters of Light: Demons crossing over from other worlds.

NEXT TIME… By the left frontal lobe of the sky demon, it’s The Pirate Planet.