The TARDIS lands on the idyllic jungle world of Deva Loka, where a survey team from Earth is assessing the planet for colonisation. Sanders, the expedition commander, has kidnapped two of the Kinda -- the apparently primitive native people of Deva Loka, who are led by the ancient prophetess Panna. But now the rest of the Kinda have turned against the humans, some of the team has gone missing, and security chief Hindle is descending into madness. To make matters worse, a sleeping Tegan finds herself in a nightmarish void, where her only escape is to become the vessel for an ancient evil which calls itself the Mara...

Early in 1980, Doctor Who script editor Christopher H Bidmead set out to recruit writers who had never before contributed to the programme. Amongst them was Christopher Bailey, who developed a storyline which was strongly influenced by his interest in Buddhism. It was commissioned as “The Kinda” on April 10th. Producer John Nathan-Turner suggested elements which would satirise nineteenth-century British colonialism. Bailey may also have been influenced by Ursula K LeGuin's 1972 novel The Word For World Is Forest -- about a revolution amongst the formerly pacific natives of an alien world against their human slavers -- although Bailey would later profess no memory of having read it.

Full scripts for “The Kinda” were requested on September 25th, by which time it was being planned for inclusion in Season Nineteen. Change was now in the air on Doctor Who: although Bailey had conceived his storyline with Tom Baker's Doctor in mind, it was now known that Baker would be leaving the programme at the end of its eighteenth season. This forced Bailey to reimagine the Doctor's function in “The Kinda”: he had originally envisaged the Doctor filling the role of a “wise sage”, but the younger Doctor anticipated by the production team would no longer suit this portrayal. Furthermore, two new companions were being introduced in the form of Adric and Tegan. Bailey duly accounted for these changes, and began work on his scripts.

Kinda would be adversely impacted if wholesale changes were made to include Nyssa

Later in the autumn, however, it was decided to retain Nyssa as a regular character as well. This presented a greater difficulty for Bailey: his narrative could not accommodate a third companion, and he and Bidmead were concerned that it would be adversely impacted if they made the wholesale changes necessary to include her. Consequently, it was agreed that Nyssa should appear at the start and end of the serial, but would be written out of the main action. This echoed a practice common on Doctor Who throughout the Sixties, when members of the regular cast would be omitted from an episode once or twice per season in order to afford them a week's holiday.

Bailey infused “The Kinda” with various ideas drawn from the teachings of Buddhism. In particular, he named many of the characters after Buddhist terms, including the Mara (“temptation”), Dukkha (“suffering”), Panna (“wisdom”), Karuna (“compassion”), Anicca (“impermanence”) and Anatta (“soullessness”). The Jhana Box (also spelt “Jana Box” in the scripts) alluded to a meditative state of complete immersion, while Deva Loka was named for the heavenly realm of supernatural beings or “devas”. Not all of Bailey's influences were Buddhist: the forest of the Kinda was an allusion to the Garden of Eden, found in the Biblical Book Of Genesis, while Sanders was named for the title character in the 1935 adventure film Sanders Of The River. In mid-June, the serial became known as simply Kinda.

Three script editors worked with Bailey: Bidmead (who left Doctor Who at the end of 1980), his interim replacement Antony Root, and finally Eric Saward. Saward initially received a short-term appointment on Doctor Who, in anticipation of Root's return following his trainee placement on Juliet Bravo. During the summer of 1981, however, Root decided to remain on the police drama, and so Saward's position on Doctor Who was made permanent. Kinda would be the first story into production on which he would receive credit as script editor.

When he began work on Doctor Who, Saward found Bailey's scripts still in need of considerable refinement. The writer's lack of familiarity with the show had resulted in Kinda being generally slow-paced and lacking proper cliffhangers. There was also concern about the Doctor's minimal involvement in the action, as well as the absence of a tangible villain. Unfortunately, Bailey reacted badly to what he felt were the unnecessarily broad rewrites Saward had performed. As a result, in order to achieve a middle ground, Bailey spent forty-eight hours overhauling the scripts ahead of the serial's readthrough.

Kinda followed a two-month break in production while Peter Davison recorded his sitcom Sink Or Swim

Kinda was the first Doctor Who story to enter production after an almost two-month break while new star Peter Davison was recording the second season of his sitcom Sink Or Swim. Prior to the hiatus, scripting problems had forced Nathan-Turner to bring forward the serials which would air second and fourth in the Season Nineteen transmission order: Four To Doomsday and The Visitation. Fortunately, these issues were now largely resolved. After Kinda, which would air third, the premiere adventure, Castrovalva, would finally go before the cameras, and then the remainder of the season would be recorded in broadcast order.

Directing Kinda was Peter Grimwade, who had last worked on Logopolis, Tom Baker's swansong as the Fourth Doctor. Ironically, he cast Richard Todd in the role of Sanders; Todd had starred in Death Drums Along The River, the 1963 remake of Sanders Of The River. During rehearsals, Nathan-Turner disapproved of Bailey's intended final scene, in which Sanders and Hindle linked arms and walked into the forest, holding a flower. Wary of camp overtones, he ordered that it be excised from the shooting script. For his part, Grimwade was concerned about some of the symbolism which Bailey had incorporated into his depiction of Tegan's dream environment, referred to as “the Wherever” in the scripts. Grimwade thought that some of these elements -- such as the phallic nature of the Mara's serpentine form -- were too adult, and tried to tone them down.

Kinda was made in two three-day studio blocks, both of which took place at BBC Television Centre Studio 8 in White City, London. The initial session, from July 29th to 31st, concentrated on action inside the expedition dome. The first day began with material in the guardroom before Grimwade moved to the set for the central room, where work continued on the second day. This left scenes in Todd's room, as well as the airlock and the adjacent corridor, to the last day of the block, when Grimwade also taped some material in the Wherever. At a late stage, it was decided to substantially shorten the dream sequences, including dropping plans for the appearance of a plant creature. The BBC Visual Effects Department had already started to build the prop, however, meaning that the associated expense would be squandered.

Peter Grimwade was unhappy that the forest set did little to hide its studiobound nature

The second block spanned August 12th to 14th, focussing on scenes in the Deva Lokan forest. In addition, the remaining Wherever sequences were taped on the first day, while recording on the final day included not only the material in Panna's cave, but also her prophetic vision -- referred to in the scripts as being set in “the Beyond”. Unfortunately, tension rose throughout the block, largely due to Grimwade's unhappiness with the forest set, which he felt did little to hide its studiobound nature. Significant time was lost while the studio floor was concealed beneath scattered leaves, resulting in some material being taped without the benefit of camera rehearsals. Grimwade was ultimately forced to abandon some of his planned shots, including a complex effects sequence in which Panna sat atop a crumbling plinth. Visual effects designer Peter Logan was infuriated that so much thought and planning had gone to waste, and he subsequently requested that special effects be given greater consideration by Doctor Who directors in the future.

In editing, it was discovered that Episodes One and Two were significantly overlong -- resulting in a number of minor trims -- while Episode Four was much too short. The normal practice under such circumstances was to move material around between installments to achieve the desired running times, but the structure of Episode Three effectively made this impossible. Consequently, on September 30th, Saward was forced to ask Bailey -- who was already working on a sequel to Kinda, called Snakedance -- to provide four minutes' worth of extra material, featuring only the regular cast. Bailey developed two scenes set in the airlock, one involving Tegan and Adric discussing Hindle's bomb, and another in which the Doctor assured them that Hindle was no longer a threat. These sequences were recorded in TC8 on November 11th during the making of Earthshock, Grimwade's next Doctor Who serial.

• Doctor Who Magazine #226, 7th June 1995, “Archive: Kinda” by Andrew Pixley, Marvel Comics UK Ltd.
• Doctor Who Magazine #327, 5th March 2003, “Moments Of Pleasure” by Benjamin Cook, Panini Publishing Ltd.
• Doctor Who Magazine Special Edition #1, 2001, “Prince Charming” by Andrew Pixley, Panini Publishing Ltd.
• Doctor Who: The Complete History #34, 2016, “Story 118: Kinda”, edited by Mark Wright, Hachette Partworks Ltd.
• Doctor Who: The Eighties by David J Howe, Mark Stammers and Stephen James Walker (1996), Virgin Publishing.
• Doctor Who: The Handbook: The Fifth Doctor by David J Howe and Stephen James Walker (1995), Virgin Publishing.
• In·Vision #57, May 1995, “Production” edited by Anthony Brown, Cybermark Services.