The Mutants - Episode 4

Ok so its day 2 of my new positive attitude to ‘The Mutants’. I think that taking a positive attitude is the right way to go when there are stories that I don’t feel so positive about. It seems like such a long time ago since I was in the heavenly glow of Jon Pertwee’s first season and I’m surprised to having to force myself to find positives in a story.

We find out who the mystery figure was in the silver suit that Jo encountered previously and it was good old Professor Sondergaard who looks like Richard O’Brien but is in fact John Hollis. I do like the character of Sondergaard because he comes across as friendly and more importantly interesting which hasn’t been the case really. The Marshall has lost a little bit of the coldness that he had in the previous episode but he’s still a good villain in this story. The solonians aren’t quite as interesting in this episode and Ky is pretty forgettable here which is a shame. Once the tablets are looked at his importance in the story is somewhat lost on me and I don’t really care about him. MUST BE POSITIVE!!!

The story moves on quite a bit and we get some answers about what the tablets meet. We learn that Solos takes 2000 years to orbit its sun with each season lasting 500 years. It’s nice that we finally learn something about this planet and the people. I’m a bit like the Doctor and a bit confused as to why the Timelords wanted the Doctor to take the sphere to Solos.

There is a moment when the Earth Council Investigator appears and people watching in 1972 must have thought that it would be the Master after he had turned up in ‘Colony in Space’ and when he appeared in that it was at the half way mark so it was perfectly plausible for him to just pop up but he didn’t and I’m wishing he did because it would be the perfect way to end the final two episodes.

The scene at the end when Varan is sucked out of Sky Base after the Marshall blasts a hole in it is very well done and I’ve said that in spite of the fact that it’s CSO. It leads to a rather good cliffhanger and it’s the best one that we have had so far.

This is the first time since the story began that I genuinely feel like the story is progressing. I still don’t feel like there its building to anything spectacular but at least the story feels like it moving along and that’s a relief. I was flicking through my rather battered Doctor Who: The TV Companion book and was somewhat down to realise that ‘The Time Monster’ is next up but that’s still a couple of episodes away.