All things considered, I am not a fan of Terrance Dicks. Before the advent of video, when my only knowledge of old Doctor Who stories came from Target novelisations, I always preferred those written by Malcolm Hulke or (especially) Ian Marter, finding Dicks' to be overly simplistic and lacking in depth. His television stories are variable, the better ones being those on which he collaborated with another writer ('The War Games') or was heavily script edited ('The Brain of Morbius'). 'Robot' in some ways demonstrates his shortcomings as a writer, but on the other hand it succeeds rather well in introducing both a new Doctor and a new companion. 

Conceptually, 'Robot' makes a great deal of sense, in that it introduces the new Doctor by surrounding him with the trappings of the old; UNIT plays a significant role in 'Robot' and this highlights the differences between the performances of Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker. There is a tendency amongst Doctor Who fans to favour the Doctor they grew up with, which in my case is Peter Davison, but from the moment I started buying Doctor Who videos Tom Baker became, and remains, my favourite. He makes an immediate impression. Although I dislike things about the Pertwee era, Jon Pertwee's performance isn't one of them; after his dignified, almost establishment figure, Baker needed to establish himself as a distinct character, and he does so magnificently; he's incredibly eccentric from the start, with his brick-chopping, running on the spot, and ludicrous costumes, but he's also commanding and fiercely intelligent. Recovering from his regeneration far more quickly than his predecessor he is able to establish his character by the end of Episode One and the scene in which he examines the pulverized dandelion showcases his intellectual prowess. He deduces far more quickly than anybody else the nature of the threat facing them from only a handful of clues (the Brigadier suspects foreign powers or alien invaders) and is quick to realize Kettlewell's involvement. His clowning, rather like Troughton's, hides a lightening fast mind, but unlike Troughton he is possessed by a manic energy, as demonstrated by his entry into the Scientific Reform Society meeting (he creates the impression that he is a buffoon, only to quickly overcome the off-guard, erm, guard) and his brief clowning on stage during the meeting even wins over members of the audience despite the fact that he threatens their plans. His line "There's no point in being grown-up if you can't be childish sometimes?" perhaps best sums up this new Doctor, and of course his offering of a jelly baby to the distraught Sarah. 

The other new regular is Harry Sullivan, also making an immediate impression. Initially, he demonstrates his usefulness as a comic foil to Baker's Doctor, most notably during the scene in which the Doctor presses Harry's stethoscope to his chest and he hears two heartbeats; the expression on his face speaks volumes. Despite his initial buffoonery however, he also proves to be more than just an imbecile; he quickly accepts that the Doctor's eccentricity is going to leave him baffled, as he wry smile as he later presses the stethoscope to both sides of his own chest indicates. By the end of the story, he gets a great moment as he and the Doctor drive towards the robot in Bessie, and they joke about the fact that their problem seems to have grown. It suggests an easy friendship and establishes Harry and the Doctor almost as a double act. In general, Harry is hugely likeable; he's old fashioned almost to the point of chauvinism, but big-hearted and well meaning with it, and Ian Marter plays the part to perfection. He also gets to play James Bond, which he clearly relishes, even if he does get caught. 

The other regular also gets plenty to do in a story, which exploits her investigative skills very well. She infiltrates Think Tank and quickly deduces the significance of the patch of oil on the floor, and she stands up bravely to the icy Hilda Winters when Winters nastily offers a further demonstration of K1; Sarah is clearly terrified by the idea but accepts the invitation nonetheless. Most significantly of course, Sarah's compassion brings the robot to trust her, which allows her to save the Doctor's life at the start of Episode Three. Sladen quickly establishes a rapport with both Baker and Marter, establishing the dynamic of the new team. 

UNIT, returning for one of its final appearances, also does rather well out of the story. Although not back to the heights he reached during Season Seven, the Brigadier is nevertheless back on form to a degree, regaining some of the authority of his early appearances. As in his later appearances with Pertwee, the script makes him look slightly dim in order to allow the Doctor to explain the plot, but he's impressively commanding when in action in Episodes Three and Four, especially when dealing with Miss Winters; Courtney seems genuinely horrified by the situation in Episode Four as he pulls a gun on Winters whilst the countdown to nuclear war ticks away. And the newly promoted Mr. Benton also gets some great moments, most notably when he gives the Doctor the idea to use Kettlewell's metal virus and thus finally destroy the robot. 

Then we have the robot itself. The actual costume is very effective, ingeniously designed so that it manages to avoid looking like a man in a costume. The actual characterisation of the robot also works, largely due to its interaction with Sarah and its tortured persona. Artificial intelligences have become rather clichйd, and in Doctor Who we have already had a least two, in the megalomaniac forms of WOTAN and BOSS, but the emphasis here is rather different. Unfortunately, it is also here that the story starts to fall down; firstly after Kettlewell's death, the robot becomes just another ranting madman, albeit a rather novel one, and the final episode degenerates into a typical runaround after Hilda Winters is arrested by UNIT. Secondly, and most annoyingly, it astonishes that Terrance Dicks, a man who was part of the Doctor Who for the previous several years, would be so stupid as to incorporate into his script the Attack of the Fifty-Foot Robot, an idea that could only realistically be achieved by the dreaded CSO. This immediately results in an effects nightmare, as first parts of the CSO robot vanish as it grows larger, and then we are presented with a rag-doll Sarah. The toy tank at the end of Episode Three is bad enough, but the toy companion is unforgivable. I don't usually judge Doctor Who by its special effects, but the whole concept is unnecessary here, adding little to the plot since the robot is already virtually indestructible. Since Christopher Barry's direction elsewhere in the story is rather good (especially the scene in Episode One as the camera moves through the security system as the Brigadier describes it in voice-over), this hamstringing of the production is especially disappointing. 

The villains are rather mixed. Patricia Maynard's icy Miss Winters is very good, but her assistant Jellicoe is utterly forgettable. Moreover, the motives of the Scientific Reform Society are rather dubious; given that they want to make a better world, their obvious willingness to plunge it into nuclear holocaust beggars belief. In addition, that food store in the bunker must be well stocked; a global nuclear catastrophe would render the planet largely uninhabitable for decades at least. Kettlewell's motivation is even more ill conceived; leaving aside Edward Burnham's performance of a ludicrously stereotypical mad Professor, his attitude to the robot doesn't make much sense. Even when he is alone with the robot, he frets over the treatment inflicted by Winters and seems genuinely horrified by it, despite having provided the necessary technical know-how required to reprogram it and being party to his allies' actions. His eventually revelation as a villain seems to have crow-barred into the story simply to provide a plot twist, and most unbelievably of all, despite his apparently long association with Hilda Winters and his full knowledge of their intentions, he seems not to have considered the potential consequences of helping her to obtain the nuclear launch codes. The plot also falls down in regards to the disintegrator gun; as The Discontinuity Guide points out, the Scientific Reform Society goes to great lengths to obtain the gun, just to use it to open a safe. Whilst the script tries to compensate for this with the unlikely revelation that the safe is otherwise indestructible, the plot would have been better served had they simply had the robot force it open. 

Despite these drawbacks, 'Robot' succeeds as a introduction for Tom Baker and at four action-packed episodes is rather refreshing after Pertwee's last two bloated stories. More to the point, 'Robot' establishes the new TARDIS team and paves the way for arguable Season Twelve's finest story, as Doctor Who's greatest script-writer makes a welcome return…

What should or could have been a promising story was let down by a combination of things. After the okayish Destiny of the Daleks and the brilliant City of Death, I felt let down somewhat by the revelation that the Creature in Of The Pit was actually a good-natured monster - I like monsters to be monsters. And then there was the Nightmare of Eden.

What most let it down was the downright comic way the mandrels were dealt with in part 4, reduced to shaggy dogs following a tin whistle. The humour in the show had by now really reached a ridiculous level, and I felt that sending up the mandrels was really sending up the show itself. The mandrels themselves looked quite cool, I thought. Okay, they had flares but also wonderful green glowing eyes and corrugated shells for mouths, and at least their claws looked quite fierce. The problem was making the audience laugh at what had been up till that point a serious sci-fi show, by demeaning not only the monsters but the Doctor himself. 'My arms my legs, my everything,' indeed! Tom Baker's character had sunk to previously un plummeted depths with the sheer over the topness of his performance in the cet machine and his hamming it up was cringe-inducing. Oh, Doctor! I like a little humour and odd quip, sure, but this pudding was so over -egged it was more egg then pudding. In fact, I once heard that Tom Baker once wanted the cybermen to do Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers type dancing and to use that idea in a show. Is it possible to even imagine anyone taking dr who seriously after that, and I wonder how much of the mandrel's swan song was his idea.

The two customs men, Fisk and Costa, were made a bit more ludicrous than they should have been. Captain Rigg was excellent throughout but after he was shot down like a dog in part 3, crazed on vraxoin, nobody seemed to care about him afterwards. He was a good man who met a thoroughly undeserved end and all Romana felt was relief once he'd been shot. I dunno. Someone should have cared!

The Doctor's famous contempt scene towards Trist at the end didn't work - okay he was a drug dealer but he thought he was a goody, protecting endangered animals and suchlike, and he didn't even shoot anyone! Well, apart from Stott and can anyone blame him for that? I just felt that other foes that the fourth doctor had dealt with were far more deserving of the rough edge of his tongue, and as for his gall in using such (for the doctor) shocking contempt so soon after his clowning around scene, just beggared belief.These two very different aspects of the doctor should not even have been in the same story, let alone the same episode. I know drugs are evil, man, and the doctor is a role model, but still.

So basically, what started out as a very promising story in my opinion fell a little flat. Take out a little contempt, and a great deal of Michael Barrymore-type showing off from the Doctor and do something else with the mandrels and it would all have been better. But it would not have been the Nightmare of Eden.

The last time I watched 'The Curse of Peladon', I thought that it was incredibly dull. On this occasion therefore I was pleasantly surprised that I enjoyed it as much as I did. Well directed and designed, the story looks great, but its real strength lies in its thoughtfulness.

The basic premise of 'The Curse of Peladon', that of a technologically undeveloped society poised to join the Galactic Federation, a decision that is dividing its citizens, is a strong one, and it is well handled. On the one hand we have King Peladon, the angst ridden young Monarch of Peladon (an almost tortured performance from David Troughton) keen to see his people reap the benefits offered by the Federation, and on the other we have Hepesh, terrified of change and desperate to preserve the traditional beliefs of his people. This provides the basis of the conflict in the story, with Hepesh secretly conspiring against his King, with an alien conspirator thrown into the mix and the Doctor and the other delegates caught up in Hepesh web of intrigue. Part of the reason this works so well is that Hepesh is a well-rounded character. The scene in which he admits to the Doctor in episode three that he is frightened of the consequences of joining the Federation is impressive, because it emphasizes that he is not just another moustache-twirling megalomaniac, but a misguided man who genuinely thinks that he is acting in a good cause, even if that cause makes him so desperate that he will resort to murder. This is also demonstrated by his willingness to let the delegates go home in episode four, since he just wants them to leave his world in peace and not interfere, and is not prepared to risk the consequences of harming them. This then forms the bones of 'The Curse of Peladon'.

Several notable aspects flesh out 'The Curse of Peladon'. The most obvious is the delegates. The return of the Ice Warriors is most welcome, and given an interesting twist by having them prove not to be the villains. This confounds the long-term viewer's expectations, but more interestingly confounds the Doctor's. It is quite understandable that having only met hostile Martians in the past, the Doctor should be wary of them, but it's still rather satisfying to see this most moralistic of Doctors succumb to prejudice. This also provides the story with its big twist, since the Doctor's distrust of the Ice Warriors is conveyed to the viewer; as it transpires, Arcturus is the villain, whilst Izlyr proves to be a staunch ally. Since I personally prefer the Ice Warriors as noble allies, this scores particular points with me. 

The other delegates work quite well. Arcturus is perilously close to looking cheap, but actually manages to look quite revolting as monsters go. Alpha Centauri of course looks like a penis in a cloak, but the twittering, hysterical hexapod is quite endearing and provides a nice contrast to the coldly calculating Arcturus and the unflappable Ice Warriors. The other "monster" on display here is Aggedor, who looks rather good when kept in shadow, which director Lennie Mayne wisely realises. Direction is strong throughout, combining with superb design work and great use of model shots of the Citadel to make 'The Curse of Peladon' very atmospheric. The fight scenes, both the fight between the Doctor and Grun in episode three, and the sword fight in the throne room at the climax, are very well staged and surprisingly convincing. 

The two regulars are both exceptional here. Jon Pertwee puts in one of his most charming and charismatic performances, again in keeping with the Doctor's generally better demeanour whenever he manages to get away from Earth. The Doctor rises to very challenge that he encounters on Peladon, whether that challenge is impersonating the Earth delegate (a role he adopts with relish), fighting Grun in the pit, or hypnotizing Aggedor. This particular Doctor's ease at being accepted by establishment figures stands him in good stead, King Peladon never once doubting that he is a man of rank. Katy Manning puts in one of her finest performances up until this point, especially during her scenes with King Peladon. Jo's emotional pleading with the King to overrule the Doctor's death sentence is of especial note, and is a strong reminder that Katy is a fine actress. She also gets more to do than in previous stories, due to the attraction between her and Peladon. 

In summary, 'The Curse of Peladon' is a modest but effective story that maintains the high quality set by 'Day of the Daleks', a trend that will continue with the next story.

This was undoubtedly the most portentous DW story I had ever seen (pretentious even? Surely not!), featuring mathematics, physics, entropy and Aldous Huxley - all things I knew nothing about. So much of this story went over my head, but even then I thought it was good. The Doctor had changed from a clown to a sombre, craggy faced figure in a wonderful burgundy costume - was this the same person who had had such dire adventures as the Invasion of Time and Underworld, who had hammed it up shamelessly in stories like the Horns of Nimon. Now he is a dignified time traveller once again, but a little too late....

The background music sets a nice sombre tone, especially when Logopolis starts to fall down around the main cast, and the sets look superb. The real attraction of the story, however, is the Master. I love having old baddies come back on the show and who better, really, to cause the fourth Doctor's downfall - though I did think the Black Guardian might have made an appearance. Actually he does but, well, you know what I mean.

After taking over Tremas in the shock ending to Traken, we don't actually see the Master in the first two episodes here. He kills people, chuckles quite a bit, but is not seen. This is good, brings out the tension. But his eventual appearance in part three - dear oh dear! Okay, he looked the part - beard, gloves, dressed in black, etc, I even liked the penguin suit and his voice was chilling in a toneless sort of way. Not unlike the War Lord's voice, another excellent baddie. But the Master just keeps laughing and chuckling, when the Tardis is shrunk and when he is controlling the CVE - it is way over the top and you just want someone to jab him with a sharp stick. But, that aside, he is a true villain and I loved his TCE gun - he shrunk people, humans and Logopolitans alike, with cheerful indifference although his motives were a tad baffling at first. I didn't know about the Numbers, or suchlike.

So, a wonderful swan song for a Doctor I had grown up with for so long I couldn't remember the last one. And thank heavens the Tardis interiors looked like the console room - no more YMCA type sports centres!

I really can't fault 'The Sea Devils'. Well all right, apart from the incidental music, which is almost supernaturally irritating, I can't fault 'The Sea Devils'. Great monsters, superb characterisation, and perhaps my favourite use of the Doctor's arch-enemy, add up to make something of a classic. 

First off, the Doctor/Master rivalry is marvelous here. I've charted the progress of their relationship over the course of Season Eight in previous reviews, and I've noticed that most of the time the Doctor has very little regard for the Master, whereas the Master seems to respect the Doctor far more and is desperate to impress him. This seemed to change somewhat after the Doctor's refusal of a half-share in the Universe in 'Colony in Space', and this is evident here; the Master is far more ready to actually kill the Doctor here (rather than finding excuses not to do so), first throwing a knife at his back with a genuinely murderous look on his face, and later in episode six urging the Sea Devil leader to kill him. Despite this, his respect for the Doctor's intellect is once again on display, as he forces the Doctor to help him build a device to wake up the Sea Devils. As in 'The Mind of Evil', the Master seems to rather enjoy this brief collaboration. On the other hand, the Doctor's attitude towards the Master seems to have mellowed slightly, since his enemy has been imprisoned by UNIT and possibly because he is thus trapped on Earth just like the Doctor. Although the sunken ships arouse his curiosity, and although he seems to want to get his hands on the Master's TARDIS, he does nevertheless admit to Jo that he feels sorry for the Master, and that they used to be friends, the first time this is actually confirmed. 

The Master is both at his most charismatic and most ruthless here, exhibiting his considerable avuncular charm when in conversation with the Doctor and Jo or even Trenchard, but eager to start a war purely out of malice and a desire to avenge himself on the human race for locking him up. Delgado puts in an especially good performance, effortless switching from charm to fury in an instant; of particular note is the scene in episode six, when the Sea Devils attacking the base are defeated and he is briefly held prisoner in the Naval storeroom whilst the Doctor goes to check on Jo. Earlier, he attacked a petty officer when caught stealing equipment, but whereas there he did so casually and without obvious emotion, here he lashes out in fury, raising his voice as he does so, Delgado giving us a brief glimpse of just how frustrated he really is that his plans have briefly been derailed. The whole story is full of great Master scenes, including his sword-fight with the Doctor, him being saluted by sailors whilst he poses as an officer, and his wave goodbye to the Doctor as he escapes in the hovercraft during the final scene. 

Pertwee, for his part, puts in a very good performance as the Doctor. He is just as good as Delgado in his scenes with the Master, and helps to make their sword-fight a highlight of the story. The Doctor is generally at his eccentric, egocentric best here, gallantly diving onto barbed wire so that Jo can cross it without injury, guilelessly stealing her sandwiches later on, assuring an attacking and obviously hostile Sea Devil that he won't harm him in episode two, handling Walker in episode five, and briefly convincing the Sea Devil leader to consider peace despite the interference of the Master. In addition, the Doctor gets to pilot a speedboat and a ski-jet, and take a trip in a diving bell (rather smugly responding to Hart's question as to whether he's an experienced diver or not with the answer "Naturally!"). He also turns a transistor radio into a transmitter (in the process demonstrating that he isn't infallible, since it first doesn't work and then explodes after he's used it, in a nice moment of comic relief) and even gets to reverse the polarity of the neutron flow. In short, he's at his most capable, heroic best. That said, points are deducted for him falling for the Master's fake collapse routine in the hovercraft, although being taken in by such an obvious ruse would explain why he looks so frustrated in the very last scene (incidentally, when did the Master get the chance to obtain that mask? Surely he didn't have it in prison…). Jo also does well here, rescuing the Doctor in episode three and again in episode six (well, almost - he rescues himself, but at least she makes the effort), and standing up to Walker.

The Sea Devils themselves look rather good, despite their static eyes. I rather like them actually; although only one of them speaks (their leader), he comes across as a rather noble sort, certainly more prepared to listen to reason than Walker when it comes to discussing peace. It makes me wonder what the Doctor might have achieved had the Master not got involved. In addition, despite having less to say than their cousins in 'Doctor Who and the Silurians', the actors playing them manage to convey subtle characterisation, especially the Sea Devil guard in the submarine, who watches the captive sailors with curiosity as they play cards. As in 'Doctor Who and the Silurians', the tragedy of the situation is that both reptiles and humans have a right to the planet, but both make a peaceful solution difficult at best, the former sinking ships and killing their crews, the latter retaliating automatically and foiling the Doctor's hopes of a peaceful solution. The actions of both sides are understandable, which only adds to the tragedy.

The characterisation is generally superb, a trademark of Malcolm Hulke's scripts. Captain Hart is a stand-in for the Brigadier, displaying none of the unfortunate buffoonery inflicted on Lethbridge-Stewart by the production team of this era. His exasperation at the Doctor and later growing respect for him are very familiar and work very well, thanks to Edwin Richfield's acting. The pompous and boring but ultimately well-intentioned Colonel Trenchard is played to perfection by Clive Morton. His naivetй and indeed stupidity in dealing with the Master make raise the question of whether he was told anything about his prisoner but at least his heart is in the right place, even if his brain isn't. The scene in which he believes that the Master thinks the Clangers are extra-terrestrials rather than puppets, to the Master's obvious exasperation, nicely highlights Trenchard's lack of imagination and gullibility. And his death has a certain stout nobility to it, as he determinedly guards his prisoner to the last. The other supporting character of note is Martin Boddey's Parliamentary Private Secretary Walker, one of the most genuinely loathsome characters ever to appear in the series. Stupid, arrogant, patronizing, self-opinionated, and willing to exercise the powers unwisely granted to him with any regard whatsoever for the consequences (he seriously considers nuclear strikes off the English shoreline), he is thoroughly dislikable, and this makes the Doctor's verbal dressing down of the man and his later exposure as an abject coward all the more gratifying. 

The direction is excellent. There are some marvellous set pieces, especially on board the sea fort, which boasts some highly suspenseful scenes. Sets and model work throughout look highly effective, but most notable is the extensive filmed location work, plus footage of the navy, which integrates very well and makes the entire story seem impressively lavish. The use of the navy is part of the reason that I like 'The Sea Devils' so much I think; they serve the same purpose as UNIT, but lack the twee coziness that genuinely grates on my nerves by this point in the series and aren't blighted by Mike Yates. Overall, 'The Sea Devils' maintains the high quality of the season thus far, a quality that sadly starts to decline with the next story.

'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…