Directed by Christopher Barry
Main Cast-
The Doctor - Jon Pertwee
Jo - Katy Manning
Main Guest Cast-
The Marshal - Paul Whitsun-Jones
The Administrator - Geoffrey Palmer
Ky - Garrick Hagon
Varan - James Mellor
Cotton - Rick James
Stubbs - Christopher Call
Jaeger - George Pravda
Sondergaard - John Hollis
The Investigator - Peter Howell
Synopsis-
Once again, the Time Lords send The Doctor on a mission. This time, they've sent The Doctor and Jo to the planet Solos with a stone box that contains a message that can only be opened by the intended recipient.
Solos is part of Earth's empire, which is rapidly contracting at this particular time, much like in the latter days of the Roman Empire. The Administrator intends to give the Solonians their independence, but is killed before this can happen.
It turns out that The Administrator was ordered killed by The Marshal. The Marshal is against giving the Solonians their independence, and plans to terraform Solos to make the atmosphere breathable for humans, with the help of the Earth scientist Jaeger. This, of course, would make the planet uninhabitable for the Solonians. The Marshal intends Solos to be a new Earth, with himself as dictator.
Meanwhile, the Solonians are seemingly being ravaged by a disease that turns them from normal humanoids into insect-like creatures that have been dubbed Mutants or "Mutts". The Solonians aren't sure why this is happening to them, but the tablets found in the message box that was delivered to the Solonian Ky eventually reveal their secrets thanks to the help of the Earth scientist Sondergaard, who has been hiding on Solos for many years after turning against the Marshal and his dictatorial ways.
The Doctor and Sondergaard are able to decipher the tablets and it's discovered that the Solonians metamorphosis is something that's intended to happen. The metamorphosis will allow the Solonians to survive their planets summer, which lasts five hundred years due to the planet's rotation around its star. The Mutants are an incomplete stage of this intended evolution. The reason the evolution has not been completed is due to the Marshal and Jaeger's experiments to change Solos' atmosphere.
Ky, a Solonian who has been fighting the Marshal from the beginning is eventually transformed as is intended. Ky, now an ethereal being, metes out justice to the power-mad Marshal. An Earth Investigator, who arrived just prior to this, allows Sondergaard and Cotton, one of the Marshal's men who changed sides, to remain behind and assist the Solonians as they attempt to correct the problems caused by the Marshal's plans.
Review-
Doctor Who steps into "Lost in Space" territory with The Mutants. One would think that the Earth scientists who originally colonized Solos would have realized and plotted what must be the very elliptical orbit of Solos, in order to account for the very long, five hundred year seasons. Given these very long seasons, it's a wonder that any sort of humanoid life-form was able to arise on Solos. After all, wouldn't life burn up during the very hot summers for freeze to death during the extremely long winters? It make absolutely no sense, much like most of the plots of "Lost in Space". At least "Lost in Space" wasn't meant to be taken seriously, and was good for a laugh. Sadly, there are few laughs to be found in The Mutants so the bad science is much more difficult to take.
The plot is so obvious you can see how this story is going to end a mile away. The Doctor will discover that the mutations are intended, and will figure out a way for the Solonians to change as intended. The question is if the Solonians become ethereal beings, why do they first change into insectoid creatures? That's never explained by the story, we just have to accept it on face value.
The other burning question is why do the Time Lords care so much about the Solonians that they are willing to send The Doctor as a messenger boy? After all, don't the Time Lords have a policy of non-interference? This also leads to another question: if The Doctor is supposed to be exiled to Earth, why do the Time Lords keep sending him on missions instead of serving out his exile on Earth?
While I'm willing to suspend my belief somewhat for the sake of a story, The Mutants asks for a great deal of suspension of belief. That's something I just wasn't willing to do, it simply proved too hard to get past the really bad science and utterly obvious plot making it something of a chore to get through. This is one Doctor Who story I won't be revisiting anytime soon.
