The Mutants

The Mutants has always been one of my favourite Target novelisations. That is a statement that can lead to disappointment, and by Kroll, it did this time.

I had a genuine struggle to get to the end of episode six. Performance-wise it's dreadful - some of the worst acting I've seen in DW so far from Cotton, a barely convincing display from Stubbs. They were such a cool, laconic duo in the novel.

And you wouldn't believe how much more impressive it all looked in my imagination. The Marshal was fat and compact, menacing like Mussolini instead of wobbly like Russell Grant. Skybase had wide silver metallic corridors, the Marshall's office was much bigger with a huge mural, Jaeger's lab was untidy and packed with equipment. Solos had hot steamy jungles, not cold misty forests. Even the Target cover picture looks better than the original story.

Giving the production its due: the Marshall is quite believable, even in his mad scenes. Jaeger is obviously played primarily as the cold, heartless experimenting SS doctor German scientist stereotype, whereas in the novel the untidy, bumbling Heinz Wolff German stereotype is to the fore. Given the impact of his actions on the Solonians, perhaps the former portrayal does in fact work better.

Over on the Good Scientist side, Sondergaard is watchable, although there is a dreadful bit in his cave. It's shot across a table on which are various objects that he picks up and uses to illustrate his explanation to Jo and the Doctor. It's like a schools science programme.

A couple of aspects of the story are present in novel and video, but only stand out as awkward in the latter. The amount of Doctor/Jo separation (and consequent lack of fun interaction) in the story is very noticeable. And it's somehow much less plausible that Jaeger would fall for the 'Stand here and watch this circuit till it explodes' trick twice, when you actually see him doing it while the noise the circuit makes rises to an obviously dangerous pitch.

Crumbs of comfort: my imaginary Investigator was actually quite like Peter Howell, and the radiation cave wasn't too dissimilar to the original, except it didn't look so much like a vaulted brick cellar, and there were no CSO lines.

Suspension of disbelief rating: HIGH. Acting, Varan's wig, the lot. (Some of the location scenes are OK)

Overall rating: 2/5. I can't even mark this up for having an interesting central trope, because even that is explained so much better in the novel.