322 The Mutants Episode Five

EPISODE: The Mutants: Episode Five
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 322
STORY NUMBER: 063
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 06 May 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

"The slightest accident in this stage of the proceedings and we'd all reverse instantly into antimatter. Blasted out to the other side of the universe, as a flash of electromagnetic radiation. We'll all become unpeople, undoing unthings untogether. Fascinating!"

Reaching the surface the Doctor & Sondergaard are subjected to the rocket bombardment while making their way to the Skybase transfer station. Cotton, Stubbs, Jo & Ky escape from the depressurised section but are immediately recaptured. The Marshall puts them in front of a firing squad but it's interrupted by Jaeger protesting that the Marshall's actions have wrecked his experiments on Solos contaminating the surface. The ailing Sondergaard returns to the caves while the Marshall & his guards hunt for the Doctor who escapes to Skybase but is captured trying to free the prisoners. He is pressed into service helping Jaeger. Jo organises an escape. Cotton attempts to contact the Investigator's ship while Stubbs defends them from attacking guards. They get though but Stubbs is killed as they escape. They are recaptured and taken to Skybase's refuelling chamber. Sondergaard is found by an Overlord guards but saved by Mutants who recognise him. They believe they are sick but Sondergaard explains the mutation process to them and they agree to help him. The Doctor & Jaeger manage to eliminate the contamination using jury rigged equipment. The Marshall threatens Jo in an attempt to force the Doctor's cooperation. As the Hyperion docks it starts to refuel exposing the captives to deadly Thesium radiation.

A bit of escaping, running around and getting recaptured this episode. The chase with the Solos guards does rather expose that the teleport machine is the same in both locations but with the sign changed!

Essentially the episode treads water with the just the Doctor's capture and Stubb's death advancing the plot. Rick James' (Cotton's) acting is at it's most animated when Stubbs dies but even then it's not good.

Visible among the Skybase Guards fr the first time is out old friend Dave Carter making his first appearance this season. He was a Male Rebel in The Power of the Daleks, an IE guard in The Invasion, the Old Silurian and an Ambulance Man in Doctor Who and the Silurians, a Primord in Inferno, the Museum Attendant in Terror of the Autons and a Prison Officer in The Mind of Evil, He returns as a Roundhead Officer in The Time Monster, Sergeant Duffy in Invasion of the Dinosaurs and Grierson in The Android Invasion.

Martin Taylor, another of the Skybase Guards in this episode, is later seen as Corporal Norton in Invasion of the Dinosaurs.

A Solos guard Damon Sanders later works with Jon Pertwee again on Worzel Gummidge where he plays Mr. Mooney in A Fair Old Pullover. Shortly after the time of broadcast he was due to appear in Doomwatch as Robbie in Hair Trigger.

The Mutants features the début of something that we'll see time and time again in Doctor Who: the wall panels here with their tessellating triangular design. Designer Jeremy Bear is responsible for their initial appearance here but they, or new segments made from the same moulds, will be back in many other Doctor Who stories.

The Mutt Mad documentary, concerning the production of this story, on The Mutants DVD shows them in Horns of the Nimon, Meglos, where someone has put lights in the corner intersections and Terminus/

They've been in many other Doctor Who stories: the room in Terminus belongs to Adric and that's also seen in Earthshock and they stick in my mind for being in the cells in Stones of Blood.

As well as appearing in Doctor Who they can be found in Blake's 7: Servalan's office in Seek, Locate, Destroy and on the planet Kezam in City At The Edge Of World are two examples.

They're also used in The Adventure Game and I was surprised to spot them in a repeat of The Crystal Maze!

We'll be looking out for these panels again in future episodes.

Also visible on Skybase are a number of panels of squares, here used in the lighting panels. We'll be seeing them, or something very similar, regularly in the early years of the Fourth Doctor Tom Baker.

If that wasn't enough, then parts from the spaceship walls from the Ambassadors of Death make an appearance round the ceiling of Jaeger's lab!

Then there's two things that look like they're from somewhere else: the square panel of LEDs on the Skybase transporter:

Finally there's a device on the airlock door on Solos which also looks suspiciously like it was taken sourced from elsewhere!