The Mutants
Earth's empire is in decline. Unable to sustain a vast empire anymore with her own resources exhausted, Earth is slowly cutting its colonies free. The planet Solos has been in the empire for 500 years and on the eve of its independence, an Earth official is assassinated by the Marshal of the conoly and the blame thrown on the natives. The Marshal has plans to keep Solos as his own world, but first he has to contend with the fact that the astmosphere is poison to humans, the natives hate humans and want them all to leave, and there is a startling amount of mutation in the native population, turning humaniods into insectoid monsters that are hunted and killed as sport. Into this situation come the Doctor and Jo on a mission for the Time Lords to deliver a special package to Ky, a Solonian leader, and they are caught up in the Marshal's insane scheme, their own lives at risk.
As timelines go we have already this season seen Earth as a member of the Galactic Federation, so that would place The Mutants and any of Earth's imperial era stories somewhere before the events on Peladon. Why Earth was wasting time trying to colonize a planet with a poisonous atmosphere, though, is anyone's guess. No wonder the empire never held if this is any indicator of how it was being run. The Marshal is not exactly the kind of man you want running things as governor of your planet either; he's prejudiced and only out to perpetuate his own needs and hold onto whatever power he has. The title charcaters, the mutants themselves, are not pretty and rank as some of the scariest monsters in Doctor Who history, even if they are not as motivated and powerful as Daleks or Cybermen.
The Mutants marks the third time the Time Lords have seen fit to send the Doctor on an errand for them, and this one will have all sorts of repercussions down the road once it is over, which makes one wonder how many other Time Lord agents are out there on missions for them. And how do they equate this sort of thing with a policy of non-interferance - something they themselves put the Doctor on trial for and exiled him to Earth as a result. He doesn't seem to mind though, and Jo doesn't mind charging along with him to the unknown after getting used to her first off-planet experience in Colony in Space.
So we've seen another alient planet, one that looks not like a gravel pit, but the scrubby brush that grows around a gravel pit. Maybe it's progress, but we all know that gravel pits are what made the Doctor Who universe what it is. And corridors. Lots and lots of corridors. And failing corridors, some pretty cool location work in some funky-lit caves.
Ahead, though, is not a gravel pit, but modern Earth. And ancient Atlantis...
NEXT EPISODE : THE TIME MONSTER
As timelines go we have already this season seen Earth as a member of the Galactic Federation, so that would place The Mutants and any of Earth's imperial era stories somewhere before the events on Peladon. Why Earth was wasting time trying to colonize a planet with a poisonous atmosphere, though, is anyone's guess. No wonder the empire never held if this is any indicator of how it was being run. The Marshal is not exactly the kind of man you want running things as governor of your planet either; he's prejudiced and only out to perpetuate his own needs and hold onto whatever power he has. The title charcaters, the mutants themselves, are not pretty and rank as some of the scariest monsters in Doctor Who history, even if they are not as motivated and powerful as Daleks or Cybermen.
The Mutants marks the third time the Time Lords have seen fit to send the Doctor on an errand for them, and this one will have all sorts of repercussions down the road once it is over, which makes one wonder how many other Time Lord agents are out there on missions for them. And how do they equate this sort of thing with a policy of non-interferance - something they themselves put the Doctor on trial for and exiled him to Earth as a result. He doesn't seem to mind though, and Jo doesn't mind charging along with him to the unknown after getting used to her first off-planet experience in Colony in Space.
So we've seen another alient planet, one that looks not like a gravel pit, but the scrubby brush that grows around a gravel pit. Maybe it's progress, but we all know that gravel pits are what made the Doctor Who universe what it is. And corridors. Lots and lots of corridors. And failing corridors, some pretty cool location work in some funky-lit caves.
Ahead, though, is not a gravel pit, but modern Earth. And ancient Atlantis...
NEXT EPISODE : THE TIME MONSTER
Labels: Jo Grant, The 3rd Doctor
posted by Sean Hoover @ 10:01 PM
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