The Mutants (TV story)

Synopsis
The Time Lords send the Doctor and Jo on a mission to deliver a sealed message pod to an unknown party aboard a Skybase orbiting the planet Solos in the 30th Century. Solos is due to gain independence from Earth's empire, but its Marshal is determined to prevent this. He arranges the murder of the Earth Administrator and, with his chief scientist Jaeger, plans to transform Solos's atmosphere into one more suited to humans.

Ky, a young Solonian leader, is falsely accused of the murder, and flees to the planet, taking Jo with him. The Doctor follows and joins them in an old thaesium mine. Ky turns out to be the intended recipient of the message pod, which opens automatically for him. Inside are stone tablets carved with ancient inscriptions.

The Doctor's party then meet Sondergaard, a human scientist leading a hermit-like existence in the mine while searching for a cure for the mutating disease that afflicts the Solonians. The Doctor and Sondergaard decipher the inscriptions, deducing that the mutations are part of a natural life-cycle in which the thaesium radiation plays a vital role.

The Doctor retrieves a crystal from a cave where the radiation is concentrated and returns to the Skybase to analyze it. He is recaptured by the Marshal and, with his friends held hostage, is forced to perfect the machine with which Jaeger plans to transform Solos. Sondergaard meanwhile gives Ky the crystal, which turns him first into a mutant, and then into an ethereal super-being - the ultimate stage of the Solonians' life-cycle. Jaeger is killed when the Doctor sabotages his machine, and the Marshal is vaporised by Ky.

Plot
to be added

Cast

 * The Doctor - Jon Pertwee
 * Jo Grant - Katy Manning
 * The Marshall - Paul Whitsun-Jones
 * Varan - James Mellor
 * Ky - Garrick Hagon
 * Administrator - Geoffrey Palmer
 * Jaeger - George Pravda
 * Sondergaard - John Hollis
 * Stubbs - Christopher Coll
 * Cotton - Rick James
 * Varan's Son - Jonathan Sherwood
 * Old Man - Sidney Johnson
 * Warrior Guard - David Arlen
 * Solos Guards - Roy Pearce, Damon Sanders
 * Skybase Guard - Martin Taylor
 * Investigator - Peter Howell
 * Mutt - John Scott Martin

Crew

 * Assistant Floor Manager - Sue Hedden
 * Costumes - James Acheson
 * Designer - Jeremy Bear
 * Fight Arranger - Terry Walsh
 * Film Cameraman - Fred Hamilton
 * Film Editor - Dave King
 * Incidental Music - Tristram Cary
 * Make-Up - Joan Barrett
 * Producer - Barry Letts
 * Production Assistant - Fiona Cumming
 * Production Assistant - Chris D'Oyly-John
 * Script Editor - Terrance Dicks
 * Special Sounds - Dick Mills
 * Studio Lighting - Frank Cresswell
 * Studio Sound - Tony Millier
 * Theme Arrangement - Delia Derbyshire
 * Title Music - Ron Grainer
 * Visual Effects - John Horton

Story Notes

 * This story had working titles of; Independence and The Emergents.
 * Author Salman Rushdie refers to The Mutants in his controversial book "The Satanic Verses" and implies that the programme's characterisation of mutations as evil just because they look different from human beings encourages racist attitudes. He thereby completely misses the point of the story, which in fact has an anti-racist message.
 * This is not the only Doctor Who story with the title The Mutants the first Dalek story The Daleks first episode is also entitled The Mutants and was known as such for some time until this story.

Ratings

 * Episode 1 - 9.1 million viewers
 * Episode 2 - 7.8 million viewers
 * Episode 3 - 7.9 million viewers
 * Episode 4 - 7.5 million viewers
 * Episode 5 - 7.9 million viewers
 * Episode 6 - 6.5 million viewers

Myths
to be added

Location Filming
to be added

Discontinuity, Plot Holes, Errors
to be added

Continuity

 * A mutt briefly appears in one of Jo's flashbacks in Frontier in Space.
 * A mutt also appears amongst the space wreckage on Karn in The Brain of Morbius.

DVD, Video and Other Releases
to be added

Target Novelisations

 * Novelised in 1986 as Doctor Who and the Mutants by Terrance Dicks.