November 25th, 2010 31 comments

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Doctor Who – The Mutants DVD

Doctor Who – The Mutants DVD

Released 31st Jan 2011

When the strange message pod turns up at UNIT HQ, the Doctor and his assistant Jo suddenly involved in another dangerous mission for the Time Lords.

The TARDIS takes them to Skybase One above the inhospitable Solos. It is the 30th century and the planet is about to gain independence from Earth’s glorious empire. But someone on Solos has other plans and, alarmingly, the natives are slowly evolving into fierce-looking creatures.

It’s time for the Doctor and Jo to find out why.

Original VHS cover and information

The Mutants
Starring Jon Pertwee

The Time Lords choose the Doctor for a special task – a mission so secret, that neither the Doctor, or his assistant Jo Grant, know the true nature of their assignment…

Far in the future, the planet Solos is claiming independence from Earth’s vast galactic empire.

A huge space station – Skybase – orbits the planet, forming a bridgehead for the empire’s control of Solos, and is commanded by the Marshal, who is determined to retain his power over the planet at any cost.

Solos’s atmosphere is poisonous to humans in the daylight, and the Marshal is behind secret experiments to change the planet’s atmosphere into one more similar to that of Earth. But down on the planet, changes are happening amongst the native population. A disease that causes mutation has appeared and is spreading fast.

The Doctor finds himself in a race against time to save Jo’s life, to find a solution to the mutants, to complete the Time Lord’s mission, and to thwart the Marshal’s plans.

This story was broadcast on BBC1 Between. 8 April -13 May 1972

Writers Bob Baker and Dave Martin decided to submit a second storyline to the Doctor Who production office based on the success of their first story ‘The Claws of Axes’ (1971). Martin was inspired by the workings of apartheid in South Africa, whilst Baker was intrigued by the history and culture of the native American people. Producer Barry Letts added the idea of an alien species that had a life-cycle similar to that of a butterfly, and Baker and Martin incorporated all these ideas into a six-part script titled ‘Independence’.

The story went through more title changes, becoming first ‘the Emergents’ and then ‘The Mutants’. The mutants of the story are referred to in a derogatory way as ‘Mutts’ in dialogue in the story, although in the original script by Baker and Martin, the word ‘Munts’ was first used. This was a South African slang word used by the country’s white community, but script editor Terrance Dicks asked for it to be changed due to these very obvious connections … and also because it sounded a bit rude!

The director of this story was Christopher Barry, who had first worked on Doctor Who in this capacity for the very first Dalek story, ‘The Daleks’ (1963/4). Amongst other stories he has directed are Patrick Troughton’s debut story ‘The Power of the Daleks’ (1966) and Tom Baker’s debut story ‘Robot’ (1974/5).

In the cast as the Administrator is a young Geoffrey Palmer” who would go on to become a well-.knpwn face on TV with his appearances in series such Butterflies, The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin and When Time Goes By.

Six mutant costumes were made in total for this story, designed by James Acheson. Actor John Scott Martin plays the main mutt in this story – his association with the programme goes back to the story The Web Planet’ (1965), although he is best known as a veteran Dalek operator who has appeared opposite all seven Doctors. Although the Doctor has never returned to Solos, a Mutant made cameo appearances in ‘Frontier in Space’ (1973) and ‘The Brian of Morbius’ (1976).

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