9x04. The Mutants
Writers: Bob Baker & Dave Martin
Director: Christopher Barry
Script Editor: Terrance Dicks
Producer: Barry Letts
Synopsis: The Time Lords send
the Doctor to deliver a message to an unknown recipient on the planet
Solos in the 30th Century, where a declining Earth empire is preparing
to withdraw its forces over the objections of the ruling Marshal. The
Doctor and Jo find themselves in the midst of a conflict resulting from
the Marshal's tyrannical plans to maintain control of Solos and his
determination to exterminate all "mutants" who are undergoing a strange
evolutionary development.
Review: I seem to be at
cross-purposes with the conventional wisdom of Doctor Who fandom lately: first I
judged "The Sea Devils" to be only average, and now I find myself
having
rather enjoyed "The Mutants." While the script by Bob Baker and Dave
Martin
has its share of problems, it also does some important things right
and earns points for originality.
Concerns about racism and imperialism are hardly new to the Pertwee era
or to Doctor Who in general,
but the two societies in conflict are portrayed with enough variety to
keep the story from becoming a simple black-and-white exercise. On the
human side, the Marshal may be a xenophobic, power-crazed nutcase, but
most of the other humans are not die-hard supporters of the occupation
of Solos. The scientist Sondergaard is the most sympathetic to the
Solosians, having come to the planet to study their civilization and
finding himself an outlaw when he tried to report the Marshal's abuses
to Earth Control. Stubbs and Cotton come to sympathize with
the Solosian rebels, but they've previously participated in the
Marshal's persecution and killing of the "Mutts" (as they call the
mutating Solosians), and they initially seem to support the Doctor and
the Solosians as much for the purpose of ending the occupation, of
which they are both weary, as out of any innate preference for one side
or the other. Jaeger, the Marshal's top scientist, is strangely amoral:
he bears no malice of his own towards the Solosians, but he willingly
carries out the Marshal's orders and causes a great deal of death and
suffering with his experiments. Among the Solosians, Varan takes a
collaborationist approach towards the humans and himself displays
prejudice against the mutants; this changes when the Marshal tries to
have him killed, but then he attempts rebellion by appealing to a
"warrior code" tradition that proves ineffectual. In contrast, Ky is
more defiant, refusing to accept the Administrator's sugar-coated spin
on the planned withdrawal and insisting that the killing of the mutants
stop, and he also shows his humanitarian side by trying to keep Jo safe
even after taking her hostage at the beginning.
The most significant virtue of "The Mutants," however, is that it has a
spirit of imagination and mystery that plays to the Doctor's unique
strengths as a protagonist. While the broad outlines of the plot are
sketched in early on, Baker and Martin keep us guessing for quite a
while about the nature of the mutants and what it has to do with the
Time Lords' message for Ky. The scenes with the strange figure in the
cave (who turns out to be Sondergaard) yield some striking visuals, and
after
Sondergaard's identity is revealed, he and the Doctor have some good
scenes in which they unravel the Solosians' history. The Third Doctor
has usually been at his most expressive when voicing moral outrage at
some form of prejudice or injustice, but Pertwee proves equally skilled
at portraying the character's intellectual energy here, and
his discovery proves to be one of the most creative sci-fi concepts on Doctor Who in quite a while: the
Solosians undergo a radical biological change every 500 years, in synch
with their planet's seasonal cycles, and the "mutants" are simply in a
transitional phase, their final state being the ethereal and powerful
form into which Ky is eventually transformed. This nicely underlines
the point about racism, by showing that those who may seem viscerally
frightening (the "Mutts") or strange and intimidating (Ky,
post-transformation) still deserve to be treated as equals, and it also
portrays science and
the natural universe as a realm of discovery and wonder rather than
just something that madmen or evil geniuses use to wreak havoc.
"The Mutants" is only the third Pertwee adventure to be set in outer
space, but the production team continue to meet the improved standards
set by "Colony in Space" and "The Curse of Peladon," particularly in
the scenes on the surface of Solos. The mist-laden exteriors and the
dark caves provide a convincing post-apocalyptic landscape, and the
eerie music adds to the slightly uneasy feeling of these scenes.
(Unfortunately, the same style of music is often used for the
studio-bound scenes on board Skybase, and in that context it's just
bizarre and grating.) On the other hand, the now-familiar "mission from
the Time Lords" device for getting the Doctor away from Earth and UNIT
is an almost absurdly transparent contrivance. It was fine in "Colony
in Space" when they wanted him to stop the Master from obtaining a
dangerous weapon, and I could reluctantly accept that they had some
interest in the interplanetery peace conference in "The Curse of
Peladon," but unless I missed something, Baker and Martin never even
attempt to explain why thesium radiation (which the Doctor eventually
declares must be the reason for their involvement) is so important.
More to the point, if they can transport a message in a container to
the Doctor on Earth, why couldn't they just send it right to Ky instead
of dispatching the Doctor to do it for them? I've generally been a fan
of the exile arc and the UNIT stories thus far, but since the writers
had evidently given up on following its parameters at this point, I'm
ready for its impending end in "The Three Doctors."
I also can't really quarrel with the assessment that characterization
in "The Mutants" is really nothing to write home about. The characters
work as an ensemble, but the dialogue is frequently pedestrian and
clichéd, and none of them really stand out. Sondergaard and the
Doctor stand opposite Jaeger on the issue of moral responsibility in
scientific research, but I'd be lying if I said Sondergaard and Jaeger
were very distinct as characters -- they're there to provide
exposition, serve as foils for the Doctor, and little else. "The
Mutants" also fails to provide a particularly memorable villain. The
Marshal is adequate as a symbol of reactionary forces hindering the
possibility of understanding between different species, but as a person
he's utterly shallow, displaying no dimensions beyond egomaniacal
bluster and irrational hatred. While I don't doubt that people like the
Marshal have at times risen to power in colonial regimes, he just isn't
that interesting compared to more tragic Pertwee-era villains like
General Carrington or the High Priest Hepesh.
Still, I found myself generally satisfied with "The Mutants." Perhaps
I'm overrating it due to low expectations and my disappointment with
"The Sea Devils," and certainly anyone looking for especially sharp
characterization and dialogue will not find it here. From my
perspective, however, the freshness of the underlying concepts, the
overall portrayal of the two societies, and the stylistic approach to
the scenes on the planet outweigh the serial's flaws.
Rating: *** (out of four)
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