Revisiting Old Doctor Who: The Mutants

[Broomstick]

The Mutants
(Oh, wow, man... trippy colors...)

It's the early 1970's, just 5 years before the release of Star Wars, when this story debuted. It's early enough in the color TV era that color means COLORS!. In particular, the radioactive cave sequences, which prompted the spouse to make some reference to the prevalence of psychoactive substances back then. But lets get real, the Doctor's flamboyant attire during his entire Third regeneration was also pretty damn colorful. It's also an era in which special effects done post-shooting are in their infancy.

There is, however, a possible real-world reason for much of the high-contrast color seen in TV during that era. A LOT of people still had black and white sets through the end of the 70's decade. Thus, there was a definite interest in making sets look good in both color and black and white. High contrast colors did this.

Speaking of color, also unusual for the era was a black man who was a strong and important secondary character rather than just a throw-away (although naming him "Cotton" caused a twinge of cringe in me). He's portrayed as intelligent (chess player), thoughtful, brave, he's not redshirt (the white guy Stubbs is the one who gets killed), and at the end is put into a position of authority, Acting Marshall of Skybase. This was extremely progressive for the era.

This was also a 6 part serial, so it was a bit longer than a lot of other Old Who stories. I thought it dragged a bit and could have been done in 4 parts, but whatever. The slightly longer format wasn't intolerable.

Although we still have people in rubber suits (yay, giant Solonian insects) and latex/makeup, we're starting to see more of what we call special effects done post-shooting. These look very dated and cheesy to my eye for the most part, including what I'd call clumsy levitating in part six with the fully mutated/evolved Ky. The glittering, colorful caves, though - those I liked. Then again, I'm wearing a tie-dye shirt while I'm typing this. Yes, I think that's an apt description - glittering tie-dye rocks.

I'm sort of curious about how UK audiences viewed this one, with it's definite contracting Empire theme. In some respects this Empire struck me as very Roman in some respects. Why specifically I can't put my finger on, exactly. It also occurs to me that the notion of contracting empire and colonies gaining/given independence is a theme that quite likely is viewed differently in the UK than in the US (particularly in the early 1970s')

[mr friendly guy]

I think the extra features commented on the UK contracting empire theme. I couldn't help noticing that in Star Trek (having ended a few years before) the humans didn't conquer, they colonised uninhabited worlds. Their enemies were fascimiles of cold war rivals. While in DW, there was a theme of Empire where we see the Empire expanding eg Frontier in Space, and contracting like in this serial.

I noticed this theme for some time, although as a kid I couldn't put the historical significance of it, and didn't realise that some elements in these sic fi shows were broad allegories to political events occuring in those countries at the time (or a little before). It was certainly broadcast 12 years after Harold Macmillan's "Winds of change" speech.

On another note, I seem to remember Terence Dicks actually saw the Empire as good, while another writer ? Barry Letts did not, and so their scripts would reflect this. The Earth Empire is like an allegory of the British empire from its expansion, to decline.

The treatment the British the humans meted out to the natives Solonians is quite telling, with the Marshall quite happy to commit genocide on them. The Doctor's quip to Jagger about genocide as a side effect in the latter's atmosphere changing experiments is quite damning.

[mr friendly guy]

Here is a nice review with some of the themes of the oppressed being free.

http://www.popmatters.com/pm/review/137 ... he-mutants

[mr friendly guy]

Another Who story with a strong anti colonial theme is the Power of Kroll, from the Key to Time Sextant with Tom Baker.

[NecronLord]

What interested me about this story was how unusually altruistic the Time Lords appear.