Doctor Who Reactions: "The Mutants" (SPOILERS)

[The Baron]

Episode One:

1)Don't the Time Lords have better ways of delivering their messages?

 

2)"The 30th Century Empire..."  The First Great and Bountiful Human Empire?

 

3)"I'm not sure I like being descirbed as a 'malfunction'."

 

4)Hey, it's Geoffrey Palmer!

 

5)Cliffhanger #1: The guards shoot at Jo and Ky!

 

Episode Two:

6)Oh, that Varan! He's unbelievable!

 

7)Genocide is a side effect?"

 

8)Cliffhanger #2: Varan goes to kill the Doctor!

 

9)I thought Jaeger seemed familiar - he's George Pravda, the guy that played Castellan Spandrell in "The Deadly Assassin".

 

Episode Three:

10)"Did I say I was an Earthman?"

 

11)It's the Human Bomb!

 

12)"It's the language of the Old Ones." And the TARDIS doesn't translate it?

 

13)Cliffhanger #3: Gas!

 

Episode Four:

14)It's Mr. Clean!

 

15)"Solos takes 200 years to go around its sun."

 

16)"A life cycle unique in the history of the universe." So they spend spring as humans, then when summer comes they turn into cockroaches and then those guys form the Star Trek where Kirk fought the Gorn?  I wonder what they do for fall and winter?

 

17)Cliffhanger #4: The hull is breached!

 

Episode Five:

18)I'm ready to shoot Ky myself if he doesn't shut up.

 

19)"You will forgive a short postponement, I trust."

 

20)"Marshal, you are quite mad." "Only  if I lose."

 

21)"We'd all become unpeople, undoing unthings untogether."

 

22)Cliffhanger #5: Jo, Cotton and Ky are all in danger of being irradiated!

 

Episode Six:

23)Investigators wear funny hats.

 

24)"You are a doctor, I take it?" "I am, yes." "Qualified in?" "Practically everything."

 

25)Gotta give it to the Marshal - he's a fairly capable villain.

 

26)"Madmen lose." Not always, we don't.

 

27)"Doctor who, did you say?"

 

Not bad. Another 70's Pertwee six-parter, that could've been a tighter four-parter, perhaps, but engaging and watchable. One of the extras on the DVD is a look at the presence ( or rather absence?) of non-white actors in Doctor Who and British TV in general, narrated by Noel Clarke. It's quite interesting.

 

 

 

[Jeff of Earth-J]

We're two episodes in to this one. Episode one begins (for those who haven't seen it or haven't seen it recently), with a bedraggled old man running through the brush toward the camera. Tracy said, "You better not have slipped in a Monty Python disc."

"It's...!"

"Exactly."

I'll buy that the Overlords use "mutts" as a shortened version of "mutants," but some of them say "muttants." Is that another British pronunciation Tracy need to add to her list?

 

[The Baron]

I thought of the "It's" guy but left him out of my notes for some reason.

Dunno. I like "Mutts" better than "Muties", though.

 

[Jeff of Earth-J]

I was frankly surprised when I didn't see that reference in your posted notes.

I like "mutts"; "muttants" not so much.

[The Baron]

A side note: Garrick Hagon, who played annoying rebel Ky in this story, went on to play somewhat-less-annoying rebel Biggs in Star Wars.

[Jeff of Earth-J]

Not bad. Another 70's Pertwee six-parter, that could've been a tighter four-parter, perhaps, but engaging and watchable.

I would tend to agree, but Tracy did not like this one at all. When it was over, she confided she lost interest two episodes in. That got me thinking about how the BBC decides which stories to release in what order. I think we can agree that Doctor Who stories run the gamut from very bad to quite good, but they can’t simply topload their releases with the best or most popular episodes. They have to throw some dogs in there lest people (even fans) quit buying at a certain point.

When I first became interested in Doctor Who this wasn’t a problem for me because there were so many already available that I could cherry-pick the stories which seemed the most interesting for me. I was right, for the most part, but once I watched all the ones I was most interested in, I hit a dry patch during which I had to trudge my way through some stories I didn’t particularly care for. Eventually I got caught up and began looking forward to new releases regardless of their relative merits.

I’ve come to love all the First and Second Doctor stories (and I know “The Ark” is slated for March release), but there are still a few others I really wish they’d get around to releasing sooner rather than later, namely, “Terror of the Autons” (first Master, first Jo Grant) and “Dragonfire” (last Mel, first Ace) in particular.

[The Baron]

"Terror of the Autons" is scheduled for a May 10th release.

[Jeff of Earth-J]

Oh, cool beans! Thanks for letting me know!

 

Regarding "The First Great and Bountiful Human Empire," did you ever merge your various Doctor future timelines and, if so, is it posted somewhere on this board?

[The Baron]

Here is "My" Doctor Who Timeline . It's only updated through the Tenth Doctor's adventures. When I have a moment, I'll update for the Eleventh Doctor's adventures to date.

[Jeff of Earth-J]

Ah, thanks!

 

I see several upcoming DVD releases have been announced since the last timeI checked. In addition to "Terror of the Autons", I'm also looking forward to "Planet of Spiders" (last Third Docror) and "Time and the Rani" (first Seventh Doctor). I like the "transition episodes" (including when companions are first introduced and/or leave).

[Henry R. Kujawa]

More from the blog.  This isn't even one of my favorites, but I found some things to reply to.

 

 

Philip Sandifer:
"The big visual moments are what provides the logic and justification for the rest of the material, which is just filler to link them up."

For some reason the film "YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE" comes to mind. a film whose last half-hour was SO spectacular, and so well-done, you just dind't care if, thinking about it, the entire film made no logical sense whatsoever.


"the delicious over the top lunacy of Paul Whitsun-Jones's Marshall"

I tend to think of this as his "signature" role. In earlier times, he'd briefly played John Steed's boss on THE AVENGERS (when it was still being done on video), and had a interesting cameo in Roger Corman's "THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH", where he offers his wife to Prince Prospero (Vincent Price) if he'll just spare his life. "I've already had that dubious pleasure..." replies Prospero.


Talestoenrage:
"It's funny that after punishing the Doctor for running off and meddling with time, the Time Lords are sending him on jobs to restore/prop up civilizations. You could argue that's a way to bring him back into the fold (or at least rein in his worst impulses to meddle), but I wouldn't be surprised if there was some pettiness there."

In their history, The Time Lords used to travel a lot, and, one would think, at least occasionally interfere. Until they decided not to. Depending onm how old The Doctor may really be, he may actually remember the old days. Or perhaps he merely knew about them, and developed a love of travel. And sometimes, that wound up involving interference. The Time Lords-- or, as we later learn, at least, the "C.I.A."-- apparently prefer if they're the only ones who are allowed to interfere-- but it's even better if they get The Doctor do do it FOR them.

The question is, how many stories were the result of their manipulations, without The Doctor even being aware of it?


Jesse Smith:
"I really enjoy this story too, and can't exactly understand its dismal reputation. Perhaps it's the difference in watching it an episode a day versus all in one sitting."

I did see this as separate episodes once, but most times, edited together as a movie. It was interesting a couple of times, but this latest time around, I skipped it. Another 6-parter I'd have preferred as a 4.


Philip Sandifer:
"I'm willing to accept the realities of casting in British television in the 1970s, and accept that a white guy made up to clearly be an alien is, within the story, an alien, not a white guy in makeup. Whereas the humans are humans, and I take whatever ethnic traits they are assigned as human ethnic traits. If nothing else, casting the Solonians entirely as Indian or Afro-Carribean actors would have been, I think, even more racially excruciating than the all white cast"

I'm reminded of how in "THE GOLDEN VOYAGE OF SINBAD" (made not long after this), the savage native Lemurians were supposed to be played by black actors, but there was some objection, and so instead, they got all white actors, in green makeup.

Tom Baker was SO good in that!