Sound strange? It is. But it's some of the best script-writing "Doctor Who" ever saw, with crisp, memorable lines and a villain whose horror is based not in how it attacks people, but how it takes them over. In truth, the sequel - "Snakedance" - is perhaps easier to watch, but "Kinda" has the real brilliance.
With the companions mostly out of the way (Nyssa almost totally absent, Tegan seeming to be pivotal but later sidelined, and Adric swapping allegiances) the bulk of the heroism is left up to Peter Davison. But that's no problem - Davison delivers his first solid performance as the Doctor, backed by an unusually superb guest cast. Nerys Hughes' Dr. Todd makes a great surrogate companion, while Simon Rouses mentally disturbed Hindle completely steals every scene he's in. With all this greatness, how can the story possibly fail? It doesn't. Excluding a couple of embarrassing moments, most notably the famous 'rubber snake' at the end, "Kinda" is four of the most absorbing "Doctor Who" episodes, and - unlike many others - will leave you thinking after you've finished watching.
Saunders is a typical imperialist type, dismissing the Kinda people as primitives and ignorant savages. He also quite the authoritarian. "Too many opinions! Meet a few difficulties and suddenly, everyone has an opinion. That's how things fall apart!" Todd, though, thinks the Kinda aren't primitive. She thinks they are telepathic. Hindle, though, is on the verge of a nervous breakdown, and as soon as he's left in charge, he snaps, deciding that the trees and vegetation are the enemy and decides to enact the self-destruct sequence to their dome.
But Saunders returns after an encounter with the Kinda by opening the box of jhana, and far from being "the old red-faced one who shouts", is a diffident, nice old man who smiles more and is polite.
In a surreal sequence, Tegan falls asleep under a set of wind chimes, and has a very weird dream. She sees an elderly couple playing chess, the woman telling her "You my dear can't possibly exist." They debate upon whether she exists. "Besides, how do you I know that what you think you see is what [I] think [I] see?" Then, a tall ghoulish skeletal man appears and offers her out of the dream, if she'd loan him her body. She wakes up, and is quite changed in personality. And she boasts a new snake tattoo on her right arm.
The Kinda are a peaceful people, dressed in Pacific Islander type skirts. They are telepathic, but a select few have voice, such as the wise blind old woman Panna, and her disciple, the preteen Karuna. "No predators, no disease, no adverse environmental factors, the climate is constant within a 5 degree range, trees fruit in sequence all year around"...yes, they are the people in their Eden, where there's no sense of a chronological time. But in every Eden, there is a serpent.
The overall idea of the story is how people identify themselves and others by stereotypes and categories, creating the illusion of permanence. But dividing between "among-we" and "not-we" creates a duality (the scene with the two Tegans), which further becomes the source of illusion and suffering.
Tegan's dream experience is full of Buddhist subtexts. The old couple are (billed but not mentioned) as Anicca (the impermanence of things) and Anatta (egolessness), which details the futility of defining one's ego because there is no self, hence the discussion of perception (does Tegan exist?) and ego-identity. And the tall ghoulish man is Dukkha (suffering, insubstantiality).
Karuna's name means "active compassion" in Buddhism, and the Box of Jhana (meditation) is the way the sickness of the world is cured. And the great wheel of time symbolizes the rise and fall of civilizations, "gathering speed through the centuries, crushing everything in its path." And who turns the wheel? The Mara (the lord of death). "He dances to the music of our despair, our suffering is his delight, our madness his meat and drink." The wheel turns because Saunders' expedition wants to colonize Kinda. The timeless circularity of the Kinda lifestyle will end, and the colonialist linear, ordered lifestyle will begin.
The dialogue is top-notch, as is the studio jungle, and the dream sequences involving Tegan. Trivia: Sarah Sutton (Nyssa) only appears in the beginning of Episode 1 and the end of Episode 4 because appearing in all four went beyond the limit of episodes she could appear in per contract. Fortunately, her contract was renewed soonafter.
Nerys Hughes' (Todd) interraction with the Doctor is one of the best things here, but Simon Rouse is a bit OTT as Hindle. Sarah Prince shines out as Karuna, as does Adrian Mills (Aris) whose muted looks of confusion and sadness is well-expressed.
After taking my World Religions class, I finally understood the symbolism in this story. And here, I disagree with the Doctor. For me, paradise can never be too green.
