3.13: The Mutants
In which we learn that imperialism is still bad. With angels! And insect things!
Broadcast: April-May 1972
Watched: March-April 2020
Please note that, a few days after the UK began its first lockdown and we entered a new, more terrifying reality, the Doctor Who story fate had allotted to me to watch was this one. Oh well.
The Mutants, Episode One
The opening is just like the Michael Palin “It’s…” sequences from Monty Python. Not a coincidence, surely?
Ah, bad hair and info dumps about how the people are in thrall to the overlords... this is still a relative rarity (Krotons; arguably Savages) but I am conscious of how much more of this nonsense I have to come.
Actually, I enjoyed far more than I thought I would. I’m a sucker for stuff that’s obviously about the British Empire, and having been to Jamestown last season this time we’re off to Space India. Interesting that, only a year after discovering the Earth had an empire, we see its decline. Also that we clearly have a sense that 500 years is about the right lifespan for an empire, which looks Eurocentric to me (e.g. roughly as long as the western Roman Empire or modern European empires last).
Not sure how I feel about the multicultural human imperialists, one of whom has an accent from a city built on the slave trade, another from a country that only exists because Europeans sent slaves there.
Does Pertwee muff up and repeat some dialogue in his first scene?
Geoffrey Palmer! Always plays the same bloody part in Who doesn’t he? Oh he’s dead, maybe that’s why I didn’t remember he was in it.
Just realised I’m more than halfway through Pertwee. :(
The Mutants, Episode Two
“Now you say he’s mutating?”
Just realised that I remember literally nothing about this story. I’ve definitely seen it, within the last 10 years; I know it’s poorly regarded and have a vague sense that it bores me. But I don’t remember a thing, beyond some vague sense that the twist is that the natives are turning into insects. Weird how stuff can just slip from the memory.
Kai mumbles a lot, which is annoying. But I kind of like how rubbish he is at taking a hostage, and how he instantly just starts trying to save Jo’s life.
Oh! Cotton! Casting a West Indian to a role with that name is deliberate isn’t it? Stubbs is a lovely character, but he believes the Doctor’s story that the Marshall’s a dodgy f**ker a bit quick.
“This planet is no longer of any use,” is a horrible line. The Doctor blowing something up and then stepping over Jaeger’s prone body is cold as f**k.
The cliffhanger, of Varan attacking the Doctor, is a bit false jeopardy, since the Doctor was literally just helping Varan, but what the hell.
I’m not sure I’d go as far as saying this is good – not vast amounts of forward momentum, so I keep getting distracted by the internet. But the story’s actually quite thoughtful, in exactly the way a lot of Troughton era stuff isn’t.
Is there a name for the “futuristic” font they always use in tosh like this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J23hgmCb_lw&ab_channel=ClassicDW
A clip from episode one.
The Mutants, Episode Three
I think I’ve identified the problem with this one – there’s just nothing really dragging you forward. It’s got themes and ideas and watchable characters... but it’s just dawned on me that I’m only halfway through and I have no idea what’s left to happen. There’s not really a mystery to solve or a villain crying out to be defeated or anything, it’s just a bunch of people running around. It’s hard to work out why the Doctor shouldn’t just go now, rather than in three more episodes. I think this is one of those stories that could do with a bit of Robert McKee or some such.
Anyway. Interesting choice to hold our first proper view of monsters back for episode three. Some nice model work with the skybase chucking sparks all over the place, though it does look a bit like everything’s gonna blow up.
Also, I quite like the way Kai wants to help the mutants, Varan wants to kill them, and the former immediately wants to team up while the latter wants to maintain a grudge. Also, I quite like the way that, for all its establishment trappings, the Pertwee era’s sympathies are always with the extremists and terrorists over the centrist brigade.
Oooh Jo’s in a screensaver, I didn’t think that happened until The Time Monster.
The weird old man from the beginning is turning into a stegosaurus, that is sad. And now Varan is hearing voices. Oh well, only three more episodes.
The Mutants, Episode Four
Disproportionately annoyed by the Doctor refusing to leave an exploding mountain so he can decode some tablets.
“There was someone there! There WAS!” “He’s not there now, miss.” This is proper hackwork dialogue isn’t it? There’s no reason whatsoever to disbelieve Jo, it’s an entirely false conflict.
The radioactive cave sequence is mental in the same sort of psychedelic-but-boring “And you want to show this on BBC One, do you?” way that The Web Planet was mental. Oh, a passing angel has given Pertwee a ball, that’s nice.
The idea of the 500 year seasons and the mutations as adaptation deserve to be a lot more interesting than they actually are. So does the cliffhanger where the Marshall accidentally blows a hole in the side of the skybase.
Which makes me think – Doctor Who’s reach and its grasp are out of alignment. That happened a bit in the very early episodes, but generally speaking by season 2 they’ve got a sense of what they can and can’t do. Then [producer] Innes Lloyd changes how they make the show, and the Troughton era mostly for all its problems looks pretty good. Then colour arrives and season 7 looks *great*... but then the next year they totally muff up Axos, and when they go back into space, more often than not, they just can’t achieve what the script demands.
The Mutants, Episode Five
“You are quite mad.” “Only if I lose.”
F**k me, Jaeger’s interruption of the firing squad is convenient.
“Doctor, always Doctor!” Guest characters who know the Doctor is the lead character of the series are also annoying.
Also, an unusually high proportion of the dialogue in this one isn’t very clear, to the extent I’ve got the transcript up while I watch it. As well as all the stuff I said about it not being excitingly plotted, it’s just not very well made.
Jo is pretty awesome when she does the old “Oooh I’ve been taken ill” routine, and then communicates with the investigator. The Doctor’s anti-matter speech (”un people doing un things”) is cute but the science is so silly it annoyed me.
This one’s annoying more than entertaining me, you can probably tell. Also, awkwardly, given it’s one of the better roles a black actor has had in Who to this point, Cotton is a bloody dreadful actor.
The Mutants, Episode Six
Huh, it almost turns into a courtroom drama, did not expect that. The investigator’s gold tinfoil headgear is amazing.
Just realised that the Marshall and Jaeger are effectively on trial for genocide, and the gap between that subject matter and the sequences of of giant insects toddling through corridors made me dizzy. Also weird how close the Doctor comes to committing genocide to save Jo’s life.
“A new empire...” That this is explicitly a story about a villain who wants to resurrect a dead empire ties it quite closely to a few of the UNIT stories. Nice that Cotton gets left in charge at the end. Actually, there are a lot of BME extras in this one – they were clearly deliberately pushing for a more international-looking cast.
The idea that evolution would produce a mutation that turns humanoids into insects into technicolour angels, complete with clothes, is a very odd one.
The scene in which the Doctor tells Jo she doesn’t look well so they can leave is actually funny. They don’t interact enough in this story. That’s a strike against it, too. Weird that we never find out why the Time Lords give enough of a shit about Solon to send the Doctor there in the first place.