The Doctor Who Real Time Marathon: The Mutants
The Mutants: Episode One (08/04/12)
IT'S... not as good as the last few stories, despite the Monty Python-esque opening shot of an old, ragged man stumbling through some decimated trees towards the camera.
The Time Lords, it seems, have sent an odd-shaped box to the Doctor for him to deliver to someone - "three-line-whip" style (he has no choice) so off he goes with Jo in the TARDIS to Skybase One orbiting the planet Solos, 3,000 years in the future at the end of Earth's Empire. Earth has been in control of Solos for centuries, apparently. According to native Ky they used to be farmers, but if that's so then the colonists, led by the atmosphere-experimenting Marshall, have made a right fucking mess of it judging by the bleak, desolate landscape from the opening scene, and the view seen by the Doctor and Jo from orbit of a grey, rocky planet shrouded in mist!
However, the Earth Administrator has turned up to give Solos independence (something they surely had before the Earth 'Overlords' arrival back when they were farmers!) and the Marshall isn't too chuffed. Therefore, at the meeting of Solonians and Overlords on Skybase One, he's arranged for one of the Solonians' sons (the leader, Varan) to kill the Administrator. This was done before the Administrator could declare independence, while Ky (something of a gobby, activist type) was causing a stink chanting about wanting independence. One wonders if he'd kept his gob shut that maybe he'd've got what he wanted, Varan's son seemingly not having been given specific instructions as to when to kill the Administrator.
Anyhow, the Doctor and Jo failed to get this box-that-will-only-open-for-who-it's-for to Ky (who it's for) before the assassination and he legged it, chased by Jo into a transporter. Grabbing Jo as a hostage, the transporter was blown up by guards. Oh, and there's some sort of plot about the Marshall's experiments causing the Solonians to mutate and go psycho (a la the old man at the start).
This was written by the same guys who wrote the overly-psychedelic 'The Claws Of Axos' last year which was also a bit naff. Still, I'll give this the benefit of the doubt. As far as setting up an interesting storyline goes, it wasn't really that bad.
The Mutants: Episode Two (15/04/12)
This is turning into a bit of a confusing story, but here goes:
The Marshall had the Administrator killed because he doesn't want to give Solos independence. However, the person he got to kill the Administrator was the son of Varan, the Solonians' leader. So that no-one would find out he was behind it all, the Marshall then killed Varan's son and sent his guards after Varan claiming he was a Mutt. The Mutts are Solonians who are mutating into what seem to be sort of insectoid creatures due to the pollution created by the Humans' mining industry which has decimated Solos. Also, Solos has an atmosphere poisonous to Humans in daylight, but not to the almost-indistinguishable-from-Humans Solonians.
Jo followed Ky, a Solonian political agitator, onto the planet as the box sent by the Time Lords is for him. He helped her by stealing a guards oxygen mask and they've taken refuge in a cave (where the sun doesn't shine, but the Mutts live).
Meanwhile, the Marshall wants to know what's in the box and has forced the Doctor to team up with his own research scientist to find out, first by threatening not to rescue Jo, then by saying she'd been rescued and was recovering in a hospital on the planet and helping his research scientist, Jaeger, find a way to make Solos breathable for Humans will pass the time.
However, two of the Skybase guards, Stubbs and Cotton, seem to be on the Doctor's side and have agreed to help him help Varan escape - Stubbs and the Doctor found Varan hiding in the Herbarium and found he wasn't a Mutt as the Marshall claimed. Cotton told the Doctor that the Marshall was lying about having found Jo, and Stubbs told Varan to go to the transport pods when the power went off. The Doctor overloaded the circuits of the base and headed to the pods, too, to take Ky the box, but was attacked by Varan. Why, after the Doctor had previously helped him, I don't know. It all seems a bit odd and over-complicated. Hopefully it'll start to make sense next week!
The Mutants: Episode Three (22/04/12)
A bit better this week. Varan apparently attacked the Doctor inside the transporter and they beamed down to Solos where the Doctor used his Venusian ooja to overpower Varan and persuade him to take him to Ky. Suspicious of Stubbs and Cotton, the Marshall went down to the caves where his guards had tracked Varan to, to blow the caves up and trap everyone inside with poisonous gas, including Stubbs and Cotton.
Meanwhile, Ky and Jo, who'd been forced further into the caves by the aggressive but quite cute insectoid mutants, tried to fight a group of them off in a central cavern but Jo got separated, entered a psychedelic chamber (all bluescreen, so not as good as the other real cave sequences), passed out, and was rescued by a figure in what might be a radiation suit (and might be some Xenobiologist named Sondergaard who was mentioned briefly by Ky).
Varan and the Doctor saved Ky from the Mutts and found that the Time Lords' box contains stone tablets covered in ancient Solonian script. Varan and Ky agreed they were no longer enemies but Varan returned to his village (whilst the Doctor and Ky searched for Jo) only to find all but one of his people gone and himself turning into a Mutt!
The Doctor and Ky found Jo, then Stubbs and Cotton found the Doctor, Ky and Jo, sent in by the Marshall, but the Marshall has blown up all the exits, trapping them all with the poison gas.
Pretty good, improving as it went along. It's much better now that they've left the Skybase, and some dialogue about it having been Spring for the last 500 years and now it's becoming Summer makes me think that the mutation the Solonians are experiencing is natural. Hopefully it'll continue to improve now, fingers crossed.
The Mutants: Episode Four (29/04/12)
Okay again, this week. The man in the radiation suit turned up to lead the Doctor et al. to safety and is was Professor Sondergaard. Jo, Ky, Cotton and Stubbs were sent off out the caves by the Doctor (in case the cave system collapsed) while he and Sondergaard tried to decipher the writing on the tablets. They worked out that the tablets gave the information of the life cycle of Solos with 500 year seasons and natural mutation to deal with the seasons for the indigenous life (so I was right). Also, Jaeger's experiments have sped up the mutation, which is helped by Thesium radiation in the caves, explaining why the Mutts congregate there.
Then Sondergaard led the Doctor to the main chamber where it turns out the Doctor can withstand high radiation bombardment. Here he found a heart-shaped stone/crystal held by a cobweb-shrouded skeleton which he took back to Sondergaard's lab only to find it gave off no radiation whatsoever. The only equipment to properly test the crystal is in Jaeger's lab.
Meanwhile, Jo et al. were captured by Varan and his remaining mutating people and used as a shield to take an armed force to storm the Skybase. At the same time, the Marshall was pushing Jaeger to ready his missiles and learnt that Earthforce had sent an investigator, due in about half an hour. He persuaded Jaeger to ready the missiles in time and fire them at the planet so Solos' atmosphere would be converted by the time the investigator arrived.
The missiles fired as Varan's group stormed the Skybase. The Marshall chased them into a room and shot at Varan, blasting a hole in the wall and sucking Varan into space while Jo, Ky, et al. clung on for their lives.
Not hugely convinced by the flimsy nature of Skybase One's outer wall, but on the whole it was okay. Good character development between the Marshall and Jaeger, who clearly can't stand each other, and Sondergaard is a nice addition. Ky's turning into a bit of a twat, but otherwise quite good in this story for characters. We'll see how it develops next week.
The Mutants: Episode Five (06/05/12)
Another less-than-overwhelming episode. It was okay, and held the attention - just - but simply wasn't exciting enough. The conclusion to last week's cliffhanger was very unsatisfactory - after Varan had been blasted into outer space, everyone just got up and staggered unconvincingly to the door. Now, either the Skybase is indeed a skybase and is in the outer atmosphere then fine, I buy it (just), but everything (model shots and dialogue) indicate otherwise.
The Marshall took Jo, Ky, Cotton and Stubbs and prepared to have them executed by firing squad but was interrupted by Jaeger who revealed all the missiles had hit the planet's surface and poisoned it.
The Doctor, meanwhile, made his way up to the Skybase where they'd learnt the Earth Investigator was on is way. The Marshall got the Doctor to help Jaeger decontaminate the planet else Jo et al. would be shot. Jo, etc, managed to get free (using Jo's escapology skills - yay!) but Stubbs was killed and they were recaptured. The Doctor and Jaeger decontaminated Solos as the Investigator's ship arrived but the Marshall threatened the Doctor with Jo's execution unless he continued to make Solos breathable to Humans and backed up the Marshall's story to the Investigator. But Jo, Ky and Cotton have been locked up in a chamber which floods with Thesium radiation when a ship is being refuelled, and guess what's about to happen to the Investigator's ship...
I can't help thinking this story should be better. Two largely sympathetic characters were killed off this week, Varan and Stubbs, but it just seemed to come across as a non-event. I should have felt at least a little sorry for them, but instead I found myself thinking it was a particularly long episode (NB - it wasn't)*. Next week should be the final part of what, really, I feel should have been a four-parter.
The Mutants: Episode Six (13/05/12)
It's hard to believe that three years ago, this was a black and white adventure series about an alien in a machine that could travel anywhere in time and space. Since Jon Pertwee took over, what I feel to be the two most disappointing stories were the only two not to take place (mostly) on present day Earth! That's not to say they were truly awful; both used colonies of Humans in the future to make a social comment on modern society.
No, wait a minute! I'm forgetting 'The Curse Of Peladon', and that was really good! But that was a four parter. Like 'Colony In Space', this was a six parter and really did seem to drag on too long.
The Investigator arrived, there was a lot of discussion, finger-pointing and running around, then Ky mutated into a psychedelic something from Top Of The Pops (very Glam Rock, basically), killed the Marshall and a couple of guards and thanked the Doctor for his help before buggering off and leaving Sondergaard and Cotton to do all the mopping up.
There was more to it than that, obviously, including an uncertain fate for Jaeger - is he dead or just unconscious? - but it hardly feels worth talking about! This kind of story used to be the norm, running round spaceships and alien planets for six weeks (albeit without the moral message of racial tolerance), but now it just feels weird. Maybe Jon Pertwee's Doctor doesn't work outside UNIT (except he does, as proven by 'The Curse Of Peladon'); I think it's just the length of the stories. And probably the writing. Hopefully we'll be back on Earth in the 20th Century next week!
* writing up my entry here for Episode Five also seemed to take far longer than it should have (or did) leading me to consider editing out the interminably dull middle section (I haven't).
IT'S... not as good as the last few stories, despite the Monty Python-esque opening shot of an old, ragged man stumbling through some decimated trees towards the camera.
The Time Lords, it seems, have sent an odd-shaped box to the Doctor for him to deliver to someone - "three-line-whip" style (he has no choice) so off he goes with Jo in the TARDIS to Skybase One orbiting the planet Solos, 3,000 years in the future at the end of Earth's Empire. Earth has been in control of Solos for centuries, apparently. According to native Ky they used to be farmers, but if that's so then the colonists, led by the atmosphere-experimenting Marshall, have made a right fucking mess of it judging by the bleak, desolate landscape from the opening scene, and the view seen by the Doctor and Jo from orbit of a grey, rocky planet shrouded in mist!
However, the Earth Administrator has turned up to give Solos independence (something they surely had before the Earth 'Overlords' arrival back when they were farmers!) and the Marshall isn't too chuffed. Therefore, at the meeting of Solonians and Overlords on Skybase One, he's arranged for one of the Solonians' sons (the leader, Varan) to kill the Administrator. This was done before the Administrator could declare independence, while Ky (something of a gobby, activist type) was causing a stink chanting about wanting independence. One wonders if he'd kept his gob shut that maybe he'd've got what he wanted, Varan's son seemingly not having been given specific instructions as to when to kill the Administrator.
Anyhow, the Doctor and Jo failed to get this box-that-will-only-open-for-who-it's-for to Ky (who it's for) before the assassination and he legged it, chased by Jo into a transporter. Grabbing Jo as a hostage, the transporter was blown up by guards. Oh, and there's some sort of plot about the Marshall's experiments causing the Solonians to mutate and go psycho (a la the old man at the start).
This was written by the same guys who wrote the overly-psychedelic 'The Claws Of Axos' last year which was also a bit naff. Still, I'll give this the benefit of the doubt. As far as setting up an interesting storyline goes, it wasn't really that bad.
The Mutants: Episode Two (15/04/12)
This is turning into a bit of a confusing story, but here goes:
The Marshall had the Administrator killed because he doesn't want to give Solos independence. However, the person he got to kill the Administrator was the son of Varan, the Solonians' leader. So that no-one would find out he was behind it all, the Marshall then killed Varan's son and sent his guards after Varan claiming he was a Mutt. The Mutts are Solonians who are mutating into what seem to be sort of insectoid creatures due to the pollution created by the Humans' mining industry which has decimated Solos. Also, Solos has an atmosphere poisonous to Humans in daylight, but not to the almost-indistinguishable-from-Humans Solonians.
Jo followed Ky, a Solonian political agitator, onto the planet as the box sent by the Time Lords is for him. He helped her by stealing a guards oxygen mask and they've taken refuge in a cave (where the sun doesn't shine, but the Mutts live).
Meanwhile, the Marshall wants to know what's in the box and has forced the Doctor to team up with his own research scientist to find out, first by threatening not to rescue Jo, then by saying she'd been rescued and was recovering in a hospital on the planet and helping his research scientist, Jaeger, find a way to make Solos breathable for Humans will pass the time.
However, two of the Skybase guards, Stubbs and Cotton, seem to be on the Doctor's side and have agreed to help him help Varan escape - Stubbs and the Doctor found Varan hiding in the Herbarium and found he wasn't a Mutt as the Marshall claimed. Cotton told the Doctor that the Marshall was lying about having found Jo, and Stubbs told Varan to go to the transport pods when the power went off. The Doctor overloaded the circuits of the base and headed to the pods, too, to take Ky the box, but was attacked by Varan. Why, after the Doctor had previously helped him, I don't know. It all seems a bit odd and over-complicated. Hopefully it'll start to make sense next week!
The Mutants: Episode Three (22/04/12)
A bit better this week. Varan apparently attacked the Doctor inside the transporter and they beamed down to Solos where the Doctor used his Venusian ooja to overpower Varan and persuade him to take him to Ky. Suspicious of Stubbs and Cotton, the Marshall went down to the caves where his guards had tracked Varan to, to blow the caves up and trap everyone inside with poisonous gas, including Stubbs and Cotton.
Meanwhile, Ky and Jo, who'd been forced further into the caves by the aggressive but quite cute insectoid mutants, tried to fight a group of them off in a central cavern but Jo got separated, entered a psychedelic chamber (all bluescreen, so not as good as the other real cave sequences), passed out, and was rescued by a figure in what might be a radiation suit (and might be some Xenobiologist named Sondergaard who was mentioned briefly by Ky).
Varan and the Doctor saved Ky from the Mutts and found that the Time Lords' box contains stone tablets covered in ancient Solonian script. Varan and Ky agreed they were no longer enemies but Varan returned to his village (whilst the Doctor and Ky searched for Jo) only to find all but one of his people gone and himself turning into a Mutt!
The Doctor and Ky found Jo, then Stubbs and Cotton found the Doctor, Ky and Jo, sent in by the Marshall, but the Marshall has blown up all the exits, trapping them all with the poison gas.
Pretty good, improving as it went along. It's much better now that they've left the Skybase, and some dialogue about it having been Spring for the last 500 years and now it's becoming Summer makes me think that the mutation the Solonians are experiencing is natural. Hopefully it'll continue to improve now, fingers crossed.
The Mutants: Episode Four (29/04/12)
Okay again, this week. The man in the radiation suit turned up to lead the Doctor et al. to safety and is was Professor Sondergaard. Jo, Ky, Cotton and Stubbs were sent off out the caves by the Doctor (in case the cave system collapsed) while he and Sondergaard tried to decipher the writing on the tablets. They worked out that the tablets gave the information of the life cycle of Solos with 500 year seasons and natural mutation to deal with the seasons for the indigenous life (so I was right). Also, Jaeger's experiments have sped up the mutation, which is helped by Thesium radiation in the caves, explaining why the Mutts congregate there.
Then Sondergaard led the Doctor to the main chamber where it turns out the Doctor can withstand high radiation bombardment. Here he found a heart-shaped stone/crystal held by a cobweb-shrouded skeleton which he took back to Sondergaard's lab only to find it gave off no radiation whatsoever. The only equipment to properly test the crystal is in Jaeger's lab.
Meanwhile, Jo et al. were captured by Varan and his remaining mutating people and used as a shield to take an armed force to storm the Skybase. At the same time, the Marshall was pushing Jaeger to ready his missiles and learnt that Earthforce had sent an investigator, due in about half an hour. He persuaded Jaeger to ready the missiles in time and fire them at the planet so Solos' atmosphere would be converted by the time the investigator arrived.
The missiles fired as Varan's group stormed the Skybase. The Marshall chased them into a room and shot at Varan, blasting a hole in the wall and sucking Varan into space while Jo, Ky, et al. clung on for their lives.
Not hugely convinced by the flimsy nature of Skybase One's outer wall, but on the whole it was okay. Good character development between the Marshall and Jaeger, who clearly can't stand each other, and Sondergaard is a nice addition. Ky's turning into a bit of a twat, but otherwise quite good in this story for characters. We'll see how it develops next week.
The Mutants: Episode Five (06/05/12)
Another less-than-overwhelming episode. It was okay, and held the attention - just - but simply wasn't exciting enough. The conclusion to last week's cliffhanger was very unsatisfactory - after Varan had been blasted into outer space, everyone just got up and staggered unconvincingly to the door. Now, either the Skybase is indeed a skybase and is in the outer atmosphere then fine, I buy it (just), but everything (model shots and dialogue) indicate otherwise.
The Marshall took Jo, Ky, Cotton and Stubbs and prepared to have them executed by firing squad but was interrupted by Jaeger who revealed all the missiles had hit the planet's surface and poisoned it.
The Doctor, meanwhile, made his way up to the Skybase where they'd learnt the Earth Investigator was on is way. The Marshall got the Doctor to help Jaeger decontaminate the planet else Jo et al. would be shot. Jo, etc, managed to get free (using Jo's escapology skills - yay!) but Stubbs was killed and they were recaptured. The Doctor and Jaeger decontaminated Solos as the Investigator's ship arrived but the Marshall threatened the Doctor with Jo's execution unless he continued to make Solos breathable to Humans and backed up the Marshall's story to the Investigator. But Jo, Ky and Cotton have been locked up in a chamber which floods with Thesium radiation when a ship is being refuelled, and guess what's about to happen to the Investigator's ship...
I can't help thinking this story should be better. Two largely sympathetic characters were killed off this week, Varan and Stubbs, but it just seemed to come across as a non-event. I should have felt at least a little sorry for them, but instead I found myself thinking it was a particularly long episode (NB - it wasn't)*. Next week should be the final part of what, really, I feel should have been a four-parter.
The Mutants: Episode Six (13/05/12)
It's hard to believe that three years ago, this was a black and white adventure series about an alien in a machine that could travel anywhere in time and space. Since Jon Pertwee took over, what I feel to be the two most disappointing stories were the only two not to take place (mostly) on present day Earth! That's not to say they were truly awful; both used colonies of Humans in the future to make a social comment on modern society.
No, wait a minute! I'm forgetting 'The Curse Of Peladon', and that was really good! But that was a four parter. Like 'Colony In Space', this was a six parter and really did seem to drag on too long.
The Investigator arrived, there was a lot of discussion, finger-pointing and running around, then Ky mutated into a psychedelic something from Top Of The Pops (very Glam Rock, basically), killed the Marshall and a couple of guards and thanked the Doctor for his help before buggering off and leaving Sondergaard and Cotton to do all the mopping up.
There was more to it than that, obviously, including an uncertain fate for Jaeger - is he dead or just unconscious? - but it hardly feels worth talking about! This kind of story used to be the norm, running round spaceships and alien planets for six weeks (albeit without the moral message of racial tolerance), but now it just feels weird. Maybe Jon Pertwee's Doctor doesn't work outside UNIT (except he does, as proven by 'The Curse Of Peladon'); I think it's just the length of the stories. And probably the writing. Hopefully we'll be back on Earth in the 20th Century next week!
* writing up my entry here for Episode Five also seemed to take far longer than it should have (or did) leading me to consider editing out the interminably dull middle section (I haven't).
Coincidentally, I watched this whole story without a break yesterday - or rather had it on in the background while I did other things - and sorry to say it just confirmed my prejudices against it. As a story it's laudable in its principles and has some interesting ideas, but the execution is just so poor, with some truly terrible effects (the CSO in the series has never looked so uniformly bad), bland and at times poor direction (just about every cliffhanger is a non-event) and indeed some bland and at times poor performances. It's definitely too long at six episodes - given this and The Time Monster were granted the extended length, I really wish we'd got six episodes of Day of the Daleks and The Curse of Peladon instead - but I'm not sure it would have been all that much improved by being shorter. At least it would be over sooner though.
ReplyDeleteI've said since I concluded my viewing of the Pertwee era in order that I'd happily rewatch any story and I'd enjoy it, so reading back my journal entries for this serial was a surprise. I don't even bother with what happens in Episode Six and even writing up my entry for the fifth was a chore! That said, it has some very good ideas at its heart and Jon and Katy are a joy to watch, as usual. I guess they justified it being six episodes long because it was taking place on an alien planet and 'Peladon' had only been a four parter. I think you're right that it should have been shorter but still may not have been improved by this. That said, I really don't think 'Peladon' should have had an extra two episodes (regardless of what I may have thought at the time) as it fits perfectly into four parts and an extra two may just have resulted in us having a dull plodder like its sequel!
DeleteThey could perhaps have gained more mileage from it by doing what they did in the sequel - keeping the Ice Warriors on the periphery to start with and then playing with the "are they baddies or goodies?" a while longer. But yeah, I agree that it's a great four-parter. (As is Day of the Daleks - I just think that both it and Curse of Peladon would be more enjoyable six-parters, even if not as good as they are as four-parters, than either The Mutants or The Time Monster!)
Delete