The Mutants

'The Mutants' has a bad reputation. It's often considered a turkey, in fact. The truth, in my opinion only of course, is that it doesn't quite deserve being dismissed so out of hand, but it comes perilously close. It is, ultimately, ham-strung by deficiencies in two crucial areas and these deficiencies seriously undermine the stories.

Before I discuss these deficiencies, I'll first explain why I think 'The Mutants' has merit. Firstly, the plot is sound. Both plots in fact. The first plot, one of racism and apartheid, is a sound premise for a Doctor Who story, allowing the series to tackle real-life issues. This plot is simple; the colonial Earth Empire enslaved the Solonians five hundred years earlier, recruiting them into the Empire whether they wanted to be recruited or not, and plundering the resources of Solos. In case any viewer misinterprets the message being conveyed, we have teleportation booths segregated for use by Solonians and "Overlords" (humans). The Solonians are, quite naturally, unhappy about this state of affairs and demand their freedom, which Earth is now prepared to grant them, but interference comes in the corpulent form of the Marshal, a megalomaniac bully who has no intention of being deprived of his powerful position. This is all solid stuff, drawing on many historical scenarios, and is generally well handled. A particularly nice touch is the Administrator's terminally aborted speech in episode one, as he tries to tell Ky and his fellows that Solos is being granted independence. He rather pompously tries to sing the praises of the oppressive Empire by explaining during his speech that Solos has benefited from occupation by gaining technology and education; never having asked for this in the first place, it isn't surprising that the Solonians are unimpressed. 

The second plot contains the life cycle of the Solonians themselves, which is quite interesting, and well presented. Baker and Martin appear to have put some though into this, and the concept of a planet with a two-thousand year orbit, with a transformation of the population every five hundred years in order to cope with this, is rather novel. In addition, the Mutt costumes look rather good, although Ky's eventual transformation into an extra from a nineteen-eighties music video is rather tragic. 

In addition to the plot, 'The Mutants' benefits from excellent direction from Christopher Barry; the cave scenes are particularly impressive, especially the surreal effects used in the cave containing the crystal. The location work meshes nicely with the studio footage, and the model work is rather good too. So given that 'The Mutants' has a good plot and excellent direction, how can it possibly be considered to be a potential turkey? Well there are two reasons really, and they are the acting and the scripting. Which, unfortunately, interact synergistically to have a much more negative impact than either of them alone would. 

There are four guest members of the guest cast of 'The Mutants' who I have seen acting elsewhere, and of those only two put in a half decent performance here. The first is Geoffrey Palmer, playing the ill-fated Administrator, a man seemingly incapable of bad acting but who unfortunately doesn't last beyond episode one. The second is John Hollis, who played the devious Herr Kaufman in A For Andromeda and its sequel The Andromeda Breakthrough. He's a pretty good actor and he struggles bravely here in the role of Sondergaard, who exists purely to help the Doctor explain the plot to the audience. The other two actors that I've seen elsewhere are Paul Whitsun-Jones and George Pravda (Castellan Spandrel in 'The Deadly Assassin'). The former previously played reporter James Fullalove in The Quatermass Experiment, and on the evidence of the surviving two episodes, he can act rather well. Unfortunately, he seems here to have read the cringe-worthy dialogue offered by the script and decided to go as far over the top as is humanly possible without actually reaching the other side. The Marshal is absolutely terrible, spouting ludicrous dialogue such as "I'm surrounded by incompetents!" It doesn't do the story any favours that we have such an unsubtle villain; a colonial type who genuinely believes in the Earth Empire, rather than a ranting xenophobic stereotype that is concerned solely with his own power and sudden desire halfway through the story to become ruler of a terra-formed "New Earth", might better serve the plot. Whitsun-Jones' over-acting grows and grows throughout, presenting us with such unintentionally hilarious moments as when he whips the blast packs behind his back as Stubbs and Cotton approach the cave mouth in episode three, in almost pantomime fashion. 

George Pravda meanwhile, seems thoroughly uninterested in his role as Professor Jaeger, although bearing in mind his dialogue I don't really blame him. His sudden obsession with particle reversal is extremely annoying; he insists that he needs the technique to complete his atmospheric experiments, but prior to the Doctor's arrival he was getting along fine, albeit more slowly; he didn't even believe that particle reversal was possible. More annoying though, is his purpose in the story. Jaeger exists to illustrate the principle often espoused (quite fairly) in Doctor Who that science must be tempered by ethics; Jaeger is the anti-thesis of this principle, not remotely concerned with the consequences of his actions for the natives of Solos. Unfortunately, the script is so unsubtle that he more-or-less states this himself, especially during the "genocide as a side-effect". 

The Solonians don't fair much better. Garrick Hagon isn't bad as Ky, but James Mellor's Varan is another matter entirely. Varan, a man whose appearance is crying out for the addition of an electric guitar, is a character blighted by some truly awful dialogue, most of which involves him talking about himself in the third person. This is presumably to indicate that the Solonians are less advanced than the Overlords. Armed with such unwieldy lines, Mellor hams it up almost as much as Whitsun-Jones. Back with the Overlords we also have Rick James as Cotton. James has occasionally been described as the worst actor ever to appear in Doctor Who, but with lines like "we'll all be done for!", I'd challenge any actor to do better. Even one of the extras is bad enough to be noteworthy; the old man in Varan's village is reminds me of the crone from the Blackadder II episode 'Bells'. 

So if the acting's that bad, presumably we can look to the regulars for solace. Or not. Katy Manning is her usual reliable self, but Jo gets so little to actually do, being forced to tag along with Ky, Stubbs and Cotton, or a combination therefore, that she serves only to explain the obvious to particularly dim viewers. Pertwee on the other hand, actually below par here, seems genuinely bored with the script. He even fluffs a line near the start of episode one, in true Hartnell style. His lack of enthusiasm is most obvious when he's confronting Jaeger or the Marshall; the Third Doctor is particularly good at righteous indignation, but his objections here to the treatment of the Solonians just seem half-arsed.

In summary then, 'The Mutants' has potential, but fails to realize it. After a strong trio of stories, this is particularly disappointing, but not as disappointing as the fact that the season is about to get unbelievably and astonishingly worse…