Monday, November 12, 2012

The Mutants

Dear Gary—

“It’s . . .” The Mutants.
The Mutants is another six episode Doctor Who story; at several points I thought the adventure was winding down only to realize that there were one or two episodes left yet. But The Mutants is such great fun that I didn’t mind.  Any time you have a blustery character shouting, “I’m surrounded by incompetents,” you know you’re in the middle of something good.

“Marshal, you are quite mad,” the Doctor tells the leader of Skybase. “Only if I lose,” he responds. And indeed, over much of our six parts he keeps his madness under wraps, revealing it only in small doses and only when his position is threatened. But the insanity escalates with the action until there is no longer any doubt.
It is unfortunate for the empire dreaming Marshal that he is in charge of a doomed colony on a dying planet with an atmosphere that is toxic to humans and with an indigenous population that is rapidly mutating. But that is the hand he has been dealt and by golly he is going to make it work.

Problem one: assassinate the Administrator come to announce the abandonment of the colony. Problem two: bombard the planet surface with experimental terraforming rockets. Problem three: kill all of the mutants, or mutts as he calls them.
Problems solved. Or so he thinks.

The difficulty with empire building dreams is that they are dependent upon the complete and utter loyalty of everyone else. The Marshal has this to some extent with Professor Jaeger who has been trying to transform the planet’s atmosphere. “Simply obeying orders—that’s a common excuse Professor,” the Doctor admonishes him.
Not all, however, are willing to simply obey orders. The Marshal has his hands full with the discontented inhabitants of the planet Solos, lead by Ky.  He briefly has the cooperation of the warrior faction of Solos, lead by Varan, until the Marshal kills Varan’s son that is. Then the Doctor and Jo show up to start asking questions, and two of his guards, Cotton and Stubbs, start asking questions of their own.

“I’m surrounded by incompetents;” the Marshal and his plans are coming unhinged.
I want to pause a moment, Gary, to put in a word about Cotton and Stubbs. The sight of the rotund Marshal becoming increasingly frustrated and barking irritated orders through his long stick of a transmitter is highly amusing, but it’s not going to carry six episodes in and of itself. Enter Cotton and Stubbs.

When we first meet Cotton and Stubbs leisurely playing cards and ignoring the system warnings of a malfunctioning door I assumed them to be another classic Doctor Who duo of minor comic relief underlings. Not so. Cotton and Stubbs might be bored guards waiting out their time until they can return to Earth, but when faced with increasing evidence against their leader they rise to the occasion. They show a compassion and intelligence and depth of character I had not expected upon first encounter.
“Doctor! Always the Doctor!” Yes, you always have to account for the Doctor in Doctor Who. “You need me to look after you;” and you always have to account for Jo when the third Doctor is around. Curiously, though, I find them of lesser interest than the Marshal, Stubbs, and Cotton show.

The Doctor and Jo arrive on Solos with a mysterious box from the Time Lords intended as it turns out for Ky. But I quickly lose interest in the box, and when the contents are revealed to be some ancient tablets with long-lost writings on them I’m rather disappointed. And the whole mutant angle and the revelation that this is in reality a natural transformative stage in the 2,000 year life cycle of the Solonians is interesting enough I suppose but hardly worthy of six episodes.
The Doctor and Jo serve to carry the action forward, but it is the Marshal, Stubbs, and Cotton that I really look forward to. And to some extent “this is stupid; I take no responsibility” Jaeger.

I am saddened along with Cotton when ‘Stubbsy’ is killed, but I am impressed with Cotton for carrying on in the face of this devastating loss of his best mate.  In my mind Cotton is the true hero of The Mutants. Just an ordinary guy doing his job when thrust into extraordinary circumstances. He sees what is right and what is wrong and acts accordingly, regardless of his own danger or detriment to his career. He has that rarity of bravery combined with presence of mind, acting with no thought of personal gain.
And through it all he is calm and rational, contrasting nicely with the mounting hysteria of the Marshal. Although I have to say that the Marshal’s hysteria remains simmering and subdued. He always retains a hint of optimism regardless of how hopeless things seem. And he does manage to wriggle out of many a hopeless scenario, thus exacerbating his rosy delusions of grandeur. In the end it is rather anti-climatic and “rather too convenient” (to borrow a phrase from Alpha Centaurie from The Curse of Peladon) when Ky is transformed into some godlike creature and simply annihilates the pitiful Marshal.

I am glad to see, though, that Cotton continues a grand tradition of Doctor Who and elects to stay behind on Solos to help in the rebuilding process. He joins such good company as Caldwell from Colony in Space and the first Doctor’s companions Steven and (arguably) Susan.
 It helps that Cotton isn’t giving up too much by not returning to Earth; Doctor Who always seems to have an overly pessimistic view of our future, and in The Mutants we are told of a 30th Century Earth full of “gray cities lined by gray highways across gray deserts.” This is all, we are told, “the fruits of technology.” I have my own gripes against our technology dependent world, but I do think that the trees and the grass and the flowers will persist.

Now I can’t leave, Gary, without at least mentioning one quote from the Doctor: “We’d all become unpeople undoing unthings untogether—fascinating.” The Doctor posits this theory while working on his particle reversal experiment to undo the atmospheric damage wreaked by Jaeger’s terraforming rockets.  This is another plot element that is interesting enough, but doesn’t quite outshine our M-S-C show.
But I guess that is what makes Doctor Who work. We might have some mildly interesting plot elements strung together into an overlong story, but the strong support makes it all gel. Alternatively we might have some typically competent extras along for the ride on a gripping storyline. It is a rare Doctor Who when all the essentials fail us.

The Mutants certainly does not fail us. And so I send this out, Gary, hoping that it catches you somewhere in the Doctor’s time swirl . . .

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