Day 164 — June 13th 2021
The Mutants Episodes Five and Six
The Mutants — Episode Five
I worried that I was being a little unfair to The Mutants yesterday — I spent both entries on the blog complaining about things, largely revolving around some especially poor special effects choices. But that disregards an effect which isn’t awful — and it’s repeated here as it formed the cliffhanger to Episode Four.
It’s fair to say that the sequence of Varan being sucked out of the Skybase and into the void of space isn’t the most accomplished effect in the history of Doctor Who. It’s not a perfect example of CSO. But it’s ten times better than the CSO sequences earlier in the episode, and I think they actually manage to pull it all off quite well. Certainly — and unlike much of Episode Four — I could tell exactly what was happening at any given moment!
They even go the the extent of getting some fans in for the other actor’s hair (although it’s a shame they didn’t turn them on Varan, as it would have sold the effect even more), and it feels like they’ve given it some real thought.
This episode is also home to some rather lovely direction. Of course it’s back on location, and involves Doctor Who being chased across the surface of Solos by a squadron of guards. It feels like a return to the form from the first couple of episodes, but of course that’s a nonsense as the film material was all shot together in a single block at the beginning of production. Perhaps it’s just that the stuff on the planet surface is so much more visually interesting than the material in the caves?
We also get to see plenty of the Mutants themselves in this episode, which is a good thing because they’re another example of some brilliant design in this story. As creatures go, I’d argue that they’re some of the more effective Doctor Who creations. Eaglemoss don’t seem to have created a figurine of the mutant which seems like a shame as there’s so much detail to the design which I don’t think I’ve ever appreciated before. And it’s another one of those occasions where I’m surprised by just how many they’ve built — especially given that they don’t actually appear in this story as much as you’d expect, given the title.
I wonder if one of the reasons they’re so forgettable — and that they’ve not yet arrived in figure form — is that there’s so few photographs of them. By my count there’s only around a dozen, and several of those are either blurry or shot quite close up. Certainly, this is one of the worst represented stories we’e had so far in the Pertwee era when it comes to production photography.
All of this positivity might lead you to suspect that I’ve got some newfound enjoyment in this episode and have woken up in a better mood today… but I’m sorry to disapoint. I just didn’t fancy spending the whole blog moaning again. It’s so much more fun when I get to be positive about Doctor Who and highlight the good stuff.
This episode’s certainly a bit of a bump from the last, but it’s still only a 4/10 for me, I’m afraid.
The Mutants — Episode Six
It’s been a while since a story has gone off the boil as much as The Mutants. I went in not expecting a lot — having a vague sense of not enjoying the tale last time around — but the first couple of episodes surprised me. There was lots to latch on to, and while the allegories to South Africa and India weren’t especially nuanced or subtle, they made for some interesting dynamics on screen.
I suspect that Sydney Newman would be happy to know that I spent most of Friday night reading up about the abolition of apartheid and the Partition of India, simply because I’d found myself realising it’s a period of history that I’d not a huge amount of knowledge on. Doctor Who continuing its educational remit even when it doesn’t intend to.
And yes, I do need to get out more on Friday nights.
But very quickly the story seems to have lost all the interesting political material and has replaced it with… well, a lot of incomprehensible nonsense, really. I said under the last episode that it was surprising that the titular mutants make so few appearances in the story, and I can’t help wondering if it may have been more exciting to see them given a bit more to do. They look great when creeping aboard Skybase here — and the costumes even hold up well under fairly harsh studio lighting, which makes them even more impressive — but they only really show up to wobble around a bit and then get shot at.
Even the central premise of this final episode — that the Earth Investigator has arrived to put the Marshall on trial for his behaviour — feels like it’s brushed over far too quickly. Within moments the Investigator has decided that there’s not enough evidence to convict the man, and only a few minutes later he gives him control of all his troops to help deal with an ‘emergency’! It’s one of those moments that feels so ill-judged that I had to skip back and watch it again to make sure I hadn’t missed something.
I spent a lot of time during Season Eight complaining about having the Master show up in every story, but I’m actually disappointed he’s not arrived here. As a Doctor Who fan who’s watched it all before I know that the Master isn’t in The Mutants. I could rattle off a list of all the Master stories here and now. And yet when news of the ‘Earth Investigator’ came through in Episode Five, I actually found myself wondering if I’d forgotten something. It’s a conceit so close to the reveal from Colony in Space, and having loved the Master in the last story, I’d have happily had him back here.
Heck, I can even imagine a version of this story in which the Marshall is the Master. Can you imagine that? Doctor Who and Jo turn up to discover that the Ambassador has been assassinated on the eve of independence, and that Marshall law has been established… in the hands of the Master! That would have kept things more interesting, and I’d have believed in the Investigator simply giving over power — because he’d have been hypnotised.
Ho hum. We’re stuck with what we’re stuck with, and I’m afraid that’s another 3/10. I’m sad to see this story peter out so poorly, and I suspect I’ll be eating my words about the Master over the next few days because the next story doesn’t exactly have a reputation for being a ‘classic’ either…!
