320 The Mutants Episode Three

EPISODE: The Mutants: Episode Three
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 320
STORY NUMBER: 063
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 22 April 1972
WRITER: Bob Baker & Dave Martin
DIRECTOR: Christopher Barry
SCRIPT EDITOR: Terrance Dicks
PRODUCER: Barry Letts
RATINGS: 7.9 million viewers
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - The Mutants
EPISODE FORMAT: 625 video

"Go, Varan. Go to the place of sleeping. The place of darkness and light. Go, Varan, go!"

The Doctor & Varan struggle but resolve their differences as a firestorm starts. Ky blames the fire-storms on the Marshall's atmospheric experiments. He & Jo encounter Mutants in the caves. The Marshall insists Jaeger continues with his rocket preparation then gives Stubbs & Cotton a dressing down sending them to Solos to hunt for Varan & the Doctor. Varan & the Doctor rescue Ky but Jo has become separated from them wandering into a cave glowing with energy where she collapses and is found by a silver space-suited figure. The Doctor gives Ky the container which opens for him revealing some ancient tablets with drawings on them. Ky recognises the symbols but cannot read it. Varan leaves to raise his people to fight the Overlords. Ky tells the Doctor that the scientist Sondergaard could read the language but he "disappeared" on the Marshall's orders. Jaeger observes temperature increases and an increase in the mutation rate on Solos as the planet moves into it's summer. The Marshall sends Stubbs & Cotton into the tunnels to search the caves. Varan finds his village empty apart from one mutating old man who he has summon his warriors. The Doctor finds Jo lying in a tunnel, and they bare in turn found by Stubbs & Cotton. The Marshall has the gas grenades fired and the explosives detonated sealing everyone within. Varan starts to show signs of mutation, and hears voices telling him to go to the caves but resists wanting to fight. Jo tells the Doctor what she has seen, recalling the figure that rescued her. Gas starts to reach the Doctor and his party who realise they are trapped!

Having briefly passed by each other in episode one, The Doctor finally finds Ky, who his box from the Time Lords is intended for:

DOCTOR: So, you must be Ky. How do you do? I'm the Doctor. That's the idea. Now then, where's Miss Grant?
KY: Why are you here, Varan? Did your Overlord masters send you to hunt me?
DOCTOR: Steady, old chap. He did help to save your life, you know.
VARAN: The Marshal has betrayed me. The Overlords are my enemies too now, Ky.
KY: At last, Varan, you see the truth. Now we can work together.
VARAN: I need no help from you, Ky. Now I shall return to my people, and lead them in battle against the Overlords.
KY: So, you are the Doctor, the friend of Miss Grant?
DOCTOR: That's right. Now, where is she?
KY: I took her to a place of safety when we were attacked.
DOCTOR: Good.
KY: Why did you come here?
DOCTOR: To find her. And to give you this.

VARAN: Tablets! Sketchings! These are not weapons.
KY: Varan is right. How can these help us in our struggle? Weapons are what we need.
DOCTOR: Perhaps these tablets are worth more to you than any weapons.
KY: I have seen such signs.
DOCTOR: Well, read it, man. Well, what does it say? Read it!
KY: Why, I cannot. It is the language of the old ones. No one remembers. All our culture has been destroyed by the Overlords.
DOCTOR: But you've seen this kind of writing before?
KY: Signs like these are carved in rocks all over Solos. But no one knows, no one remembers. As far as we are concerned, Doctor, they are meaningless squiggles.
DOCTOR: Yes, but they must mean something, otherwise why would I have been sent here?

Fortunately however....

DOCTOR: There must be somebody on Solos who understands the old language.
KY: There was a man called, er, Sondergaard. A man of learning from Earth. He came to study our culture.
DOCTOR: And?
KY: After a while he disappeared. Oh, it was all arranged by the Overlords.
DOCTOR: Our friend the Marshal, again?

So having successfully given the box to Ky the next major goal is to try to find Sondergaard to have the tablets translated. But before they do that they need to find the missing Jo:

KY: No?
DOCTOR: No.
KY: But she must be here!
DOCTOR: Well, we'll just have to search them all over again, won't we?
KY: If the torches last, and they don't attack.
DOCTOR: What, you heard them?
KY: They're watching us all the time.
DOCTOR: Yes. They don't attack us in the tunnels. Only in here. This chamber must be important to them.
KY: I feel it myself.
DOCTOR: Feel what?
KY: A sensation. An awareness of being drawn here. This is a warm, safe place. A centre. A sort of instinct.
DOCTOR: Yes. Yes, it's strange. Let's keep searching. Come on.

Varan feels himself being drawn to the caves as his mutation begins:

VARAN: Why does no one come? Where are my warriors?
OLD MAN: Your warriors have fled, Varan.
VARAN: Am I left with nothing but mutants?
OLD MAN: They too. It is the way with us all, old and young, those who can walk have gone to the mines, Varan, to the mines.
VARAN: Why? Why has this curse come upon us? Urgh! No! No, no, no, no!

VOICE IN VARAN'S MIND: Go, Varan. Go to the place of sleeping. The place of darkness and light. Go, Varan, go. Go. Go. Go.
VARAN: No. No, I was born to fight. Varan will not die sleeping!

And when they find Jo, she's seen something most unusual:

JO: A passageway, full of light. Even the rocks were glowing. I remember walking towards the light.
DOCTOR: Yes?
JO: And then there was this noise in my head. I couldn't hear, I couldn't see properly. It was then I started to get dizzy.
DOCTOR: Mmm hmm.

JO: There was a figure, a silvery figure.
DOCTOR: A mutant?
JO: I don't know.
DOCTOR: Well, and then what?
JO: I'm sorry, Doctor. I fainted.

Compared to the previous episode this one rolled along at a cracking rate with. It's helped by some decent location work in Chislehurst Caves.

Indeed the marks the production team drew on the walls of Chislehurst caves can still be seen to this day.

Other locations used include Stone House Farm, which provides the cave mouth.

Other surface location work was filmed at Western Quarry in Northfleet Kent which is now under the Bluewater shopping centre!

Some of the location shots of the Overlord guards pursuing their quarry make them look a lot like the Federation Guards from Blake's 7, only that the Federation Guards have much better head gear!

Some of the acting in this episode does leave a little to be desired though: Paul Whitsun-Jones' bluster throughout and hiding the explosives behind his back while talking to Stubbs & Cotton are straight out of a seventies sitcom handbook and it's no surprise to find several comedies on his CV.

Garrick Hagon's accent can, at best, be described as "variable" and he keeps lapsing into something closer to his native Canadian tone which he'll later employ as the voice of Star Fleet's Captain Carter.

Much comment has been made about Rick James' performance over the years: I find he comes over rather monotone and emotionless.

We get another old mutating Solonian in this episode, played by Sidney Johnson looking so much like out It's Man from episode 1 that the last time I saw this I was tempted to say it was the same actor wearing the same costume, especially as nobody is credited for the role for the first episode! It's not: David J. Grahame was the Old Man there.

We get our first proper sight of the Mutant costumes here, with the chief Mutant played by John Scott Martin, long time Dalek operator. The Mutant costumes are superb work, essentially a humanoid insect and not dissimilar to the aliens in Star Fleet. One of the Mutants costumes will later be recycled in the opening episode of Brain of Morbius.

In amongst the Mutants is a future Dalek Operator: Mike Mungarvan is making his Doctor Who debut here. He returns as a Guard in The Face of Evil, an Outcast Time Lord in The Invasion of Time, a Druid in The Stones of Blood,a Gracht Guard in The Androids of Tara, a Dalek Operator in Destiny of the Daleks, a Plain Clothes Detective/Tourist in Louvre in City of Death, a Pangol Image in The Leisure Hive, a Citizen in Full Circle, Kilroy in Warriors' Gate, a Kinda Hostage in Kinda, one of Ranulf's Knights in The King's Demons, a Soldier in Resurrection of the Daleks, a Jacondan Guard in The Twin Dilemma, a Resistance Fighter in The Trial of a Time Lord: Mindwarp, the Duty Officer in The Trial of a Time Lord: Terror of the Vervoids, a Lakertyan in Time and the Rani, and a comet site PC in Silver Nemesis. He was in Blake's 7 as a Prisoner in The Way Back & Space Fall, an Alta Guard in Redemption, a Customer / Gambler in Gambit, a Helot in Traitor, and a Rebel Technician / Federation Trooper in Blake. In Fawlty Towers he was a Hospital Orderly in The Germans, a constable in The Sweeney: Victims and Will in The Professionals: Black Out.

Also on debut as a mutant is Laurie Goode who returns as a Guard in the Time Monster, a Time Lord in The Invasion of Time, a Bandit in The Creature from the Pit, a Tigellan in Meglos, a Peasant in State of Decay, a Tharil in Warriors' Gate, a Sailor on the Shadow in Enlightenment, a Colonist in Frontios, a worker in Trial of a Timelord: Mysterious Planet and a British Unit Trooper in Battlefield. He's in Blake's 7 as a Hi-tech Patient in Powerplay, Survivors as a Looter in The Chosen and Star Cops as a Dealer in Little Green Men and Other Martians. He was also the Jogger in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a Pirate Rat in the The Box of Delights episode In Darkest Cellars Underneath and appears twice in The Sweeney as Laurie in Queen's Pawn and the Supermarket Manager in Trojan Bus.

A fourth mutant Eddie Sommer will be back twice as a servant at the ball in Masque of Mandragora and one of Lexa’s Deons in Meglos. He was in Blake's 7 as a Helot in Traitor and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy as a Magrathean.

There's plenty more guards on Solos and Skybase: Roy Pearce is one of them and, assuming Pierce and Pearce are interchangeable in the DWAS production file which IMDB thinks so, he was a Guard in The Massacre, a Soldier in Snow Camouflage / Engineer in The Tenth Planet episode, a Chameleon & Airport Policeman in The Faceless Ones, a Technician/Guard in Fury from the Deep, a UNIT Soldier in The Invasion, the Cyberman in The War Games episode ten, a Passenger/Plague Victims/Passersby/Ambulance Men/Policemen in Doctor Who and the Silurians, a Villager in The Dæmons, and a Submarine Rating/Naval Base sailor in The Sea Devils. He returns as an Army Soldier in Invasion of the Dinosaurs, an Exxilon in Death to the Daleks, a Guard in Planet of Spiders, an Android in The Android Invasion, a Pikeman/Brother in The Masque of Mandragora and a Security Guard in Image of the Fendahl. In Blake's 7 he was an Armed Crewman in Space Fall, a Federation Trooper in Time Squad and a Scientist in Project Avalon while in Doomwatch he was a man in Invasion & Flood.

Ronald Gough was an Atlantean Guard in Underwater Menace, a Technician in Doctor Who and the Silurians, a Technician in Inferno, a Spiridon in Planet of the Daleks, an Army Soldier in Invasion of the Dinosaurs, a Zygon in Terror of the Zygons and a Marine & The Krynoid in Seeds of Doom.

Geoff Witherick was a Cricketer / Reveller in Dalek Masterplan 8: Volcano, a Guard in Bell of Doom, a Worker in The War Machines, a Villager & Coven Member in The Dæmons and a Sea Devil in the Sea Devils. He's back as a Guard in Frontier in Space, a Spiridon in Planet of the Daleks, a UNIT Soldier in Invasion of th Dinosaurs, a Guard in Planet of the spiders, a SRS member in Robot, a Time Lord in Deadly Assassin and a Security guard in Image of the Fendahl. He's also in Doomwatch as a Man in the missing Burial at Sea.

Dennis Plenty was a Tavern Customer & Guard in The Massacre, a Worker / Soldier in The War Machines, an English soldier in The Highlanders and a Submarine Rating/Naval Base sailor in The Sea Devils. He returns as a Guard in Frontier in Space, a Guard in The Green Death, a UNIT Soldier in Invasion of the Dinosaurs, an Exxilon in Death to the Daleks, a guard in Planet of the Spiders and a Soldier/Brethren/Entertainer/Guest in The Masque of Mandragora. He was a man in the Doomwatch episode Flood, a Technician in the Moonbase 3 episodes Achilles Heel, Castor and Pollux & View of a Dead Planet, appeared twice in UFO as Lt. David Worth in Identified & SHADO Mobile 1 Personnel in Computer Affair and was PC in the Fawlty Towers episode A Touch of Class

Brian Nolan had already been an IE Guard in The Invasion, a Resistance Man in The War Games, a UNIT Soldier in Spearhead from Space & the Silurians and a Sea Devil in The Sea Devils. He later plays an Earth Guard in Frontier in Space, a UNIT Soldier in Invasion of the Dinosaurs, a Guard in The Seeds of Doom and the TV Cameraman in The Deadly Assassin. He was also in Doomwatch as a Man in Flood.

The first 2 episodes of this story are Reverse Standards Conversions from 525 line NTSC Tapes. But from this episode onwards this story survives on it's original 625 line transmission master tapes. Oddly this episode looks rougher on it's video sections - there's lots of location filming here - than the previous two do!