Episode #63 : The Mutants

"Grey cities linked by grey highways across a grey desert. Slag, ash

and clinker - the fruits of technology."

Episode 63:   The Mutants.
Companions: The 3rd Doctor and Jo Grant.
Air Date:        Six episodes. 8th April to 13th May 1972.

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. They are caught quickly in a power struggle between the cruel Marshal of Solos and the young Solonian Ky over the future of Solos - a future that hinges on the contents of the message.

The Mutants is a tale based upon an issue at the time in South Africa, apartheid. In this tale, the human "Overlords" from Earth have segregated themselves from the local primitive Solonians, and mining their planet for precious minerals needed back on Earth. When the Solonians begin to transform (a natural survival mechanism exacerbated by the mining pollution), the Overlords consider them diseased and shot on sight, or hunted down, uncaring as to why they are mutating.

The story as a whole isn't too bad though the pacing could be better in places. The story works well and the effects are very much the classic style that I grew up with. giving me good memories of my childhood viewing. The look of the mutant costume (above) is rather good especially when you see them in dim light in the caves of Solos. Sometimes I really do miss these old costume designs and special effects.

The villain of the story, the Marshall, is a megalomaniac madman who has worked for years to achieve everything he has on Solos, and cannot grasp of the Earth government giving the planet back to the primitive Solonians. All of which plays in even further to the apartheid overtones of the story.