The Mutants is a story that doesn’t have much of a good reputation. Written by Bob Baker and Dave Martin who did a good job with The Claws of Axos. The story is set in the 30th Century where a group of humans are decolonising Solos. The story has a strong moral message like most stories from the Barry Letts era did. The thing about these moral messages is that they are still relevant today in some form. The story is dull, there’s no way of getting around it. At six episodes it is way too long and the studio sets start to look drab and uninteresting. It was at this point that the series tended to move away from UNIT/Earth based stories. It was when the Timelords would be deciding where the TARDIS would land sort of being driven somewhere by your parents.
The opening shot is compared to a scene from a Monty Python show, unintentional according to director Christopher Barry but to be honest the thing that this story could desperately have done with was some humour. Man alive this story is about as funny as a nuclear bomb going off. There is a point that is raised in the commentary. Why don’t the Timelords put a message on that rock thing as to who it is going to and where they can be found. Had this happened then a lot of the early part of the story could have been taken out. The Doctor and Jo don’t really seem used very well. Jon Pertwee and Katy Manning do their best with the what they are given but don’t really shine in the way they should.
The main problem with this story is their neither side are particularly nice and I just don’t really care about them. The only two characters that were slightly bearable were Jaeger and The Marshal. Paul Whitsun-Jones as the Marshal was almost a pantomime villain but that was enough to make his character the best of the supporting line-up. I also liked George Pravda as Jaeger. His character was sort of hovering between being good and bad. I really like Pravda as an actor and thought that he was superb in The Deadly Assassin and in The Enemy of the World and he continues that good run in this story.
The Mutants is not the best story of the Third Doctor era. I think that ultimatley too long, the characters aren’t interesting and it’s a story that didn’t need to be released on DVD yet when there are even slightly better stories waiting to come out. You know that its not the best story when people involved in making it aren’t entirely satisfied with it. Katy Manning thinks its one of the best stories she was involved in and then there is Christopher Barry who doesn’t think so highly of it. I would tend to side with Barry.
The opening shot is compared to a scene from a Monty Python show, unintentional according to director Christopher Barry but to be honest the thing that this story could desperately have done with was some humour. Man alive this story is about as funny as a nuclear bomb going off. There is a point that is raised in the commentary. Why don’t the Timelords put a message on that rock thing as to who it is going to and where they can be found. Had this happened then a lot of the early part of the story could have been taken out. The Doctor and Jo don’t really seem used very well. Jon Pertwee and Katy Manning do their best with the what they are given but don’t really shine in the way they should.
The main problem with this story is their neither side are particularly nice and I just don’t really care about them. The only two characters that were slightly bearable were Jaeger and The Marshal. Paul Whitsun-Jones as the Marshal was almost a pantomime villain but that was enough to make his character the best of the supporting line-up. I also liked George Pravda as Jaeger. His character was sort of hovering between being good and bad. I really like Pravda as an actor and thought that he was superb in The Deadly Assassin and in The Enemy of the World and he continues that good run in this story.
The Mutants is not the best story of the Third Doctor era. I think that ultimatley too long, the characters aren’t interesting and it’s a story that didn’t need to be released on DVD yet when there are even slightly better stories waiting to come out. You know that its not the best story when people involved in making it aren’t entirely satisfied with it. Katy Manning thinks its one of the best stories she was involved in and then there is Christopher Barry who doesn’t think so highly of it. I would tend to side with Barry.
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