Analyas VII offers a world of contentment – an escape from the galaxy’s hurly-burly… Or is it the breeding ground for a hideous nightmare instigated by the implacable Daleks in their struggle against the dreaded Mutant Phase?
Analyas VII offers a world of contentment – an escape from the galaxy’s hurly-burly… Or is it the breeding ground for a hideous nightmare instigated by the implacable Daleks in their struggle against the dreaded Mutant Phase?
In this installment, I make a valiant stab and end up getting very bored with THE MUTANT PHASE.
“Due to problems with cast availability, in The Mutant Phase, Greg is played by Gary Russell. And Ria by Liz Knight. Casting arrangements will be back to normal in the next audio adventure, The Destructor Contract!”
Blurb Analyas VII offers a world of contentment – an escape from the galaxy’s hurly burly… Or is it the breeding ground for a hideous nightmare instigated by the implacable Daleks in their struggle against the dreaded Mutant Phase?
PART 1
From there we go to the crew of a space ship, who, judging by their accents, come from the mythical land of Americania, located somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. The crewmen are alarmed that the planet they are supposed to be landing on isn’t registering, then it appears, and they’re happy. Yeah, I didn’t follow it either.
Meanwhile, back in the Tardis, the Doctor is telling jokes to Ria. Greg is moping. Kids. Ria is fascinated with the Tardis console. Greg tells the Doctor that he feels left out, like he should be doing something that he can’t remember. The Doctor lets Greg choose random coordinates for their next destination to help cheer him up. After landing, they go wandering, and Greg ends up being picked up by a stranger (no, not like that!). All the while he is being observed by the Daleks. Greg is taken to a new home (he goes along with it very willingly). The Doctor and Ria are found, and taken prisoner by… I don’t know, human aliens. The same ones who found Greg. Is this making sense? It’s hard to summarize these sometimes! The Doctor is thrown into a cell. The Daleks roll in and exterminate him.
CUE MUSIC
PART 2
The Daleks exterminate the Doctor, but then get a scolding from a human. He has just returned from Skaro with orders from the Emperor Dalek not to exterminate the Doctor. Having disobeyed its order, the Dalek ends up being destroyed.
Apparently hypnotized, Greg is being given an intelligence test, thinking that he is starting a new job. Meanwhile, Ria is being held hostage. Kids. Ria’s cell mate tells her that one day she just felt compelled to come to the planet, feeling like she’d been missing out on something just like Greg.
Greg is taken to professor Ptolem. Ptolem tells Greg that his body contains a unique genetic property that can help the universe (that old line). Actually, Greg’s body holds the key to stopping a galactic disease. Ptolem takes Greg through time wih him to the Daleks’ home planet of Skaro. They are attacked by giant parasitic worms. Ptolem tells Greg that the worms are a symptom of the disease that they are trying to cure. In the process, Greg learns that the Doctor has been killed. But then the Doctor walks in and explains that he woke up in a cryogenic chamber, and tells Greg that Ptolem is a Thal.
The Daleks are panicking as the worms move in on them. They insist that the Emperor must be protected at all costs. Just then, one of the Daleks malfunctions, infected by the Mutant Phase.
CUE MUSIC
“In tape two of The Mutant Phase, a race against time. The deadly mutation reaches a critical phase, and the Doctor confronts the Emperor of the Daleks.”
PART 3
Reports are coming in to the Daleks that Ria is causing trouble in the prison camp she’s been sent to. The Daleks begin malfunctioning as the parasites begin infecting them. Ptolem tells the Doctor that the Daleks are susceptible to genetic mutations, and they are quickly turning into huge indestructible insects. Although they are destroying the Daleks, the insects will destroy the galaxy if they aren’t stopped.
The next few minutes are mainly a lot of running around, talking to each other, and making concerted efforts not to advance the plot in any way. There are clones, Dalek agents, loyalties questioned, and Daleks chatting with each other about where to go and whom to exterminate. There is an unpleasant noise as the plot spins its wheels.
Ptolem begins experimenting on a willing Greg. The Daleks feel that he has betrayed them to the Doctor, and take him to the Emperor for a scolding that only an Emperor Dalek can properly give a man.
CUE MUSIC
PART 4
The scolding of Ptolem continues. He is told that if he wishes to live, he will bring the Doctor to the Emperor. Ptolem finds the Doctor, but ends up confessing to him that he’s set him up. The Doctor is curious, and decides to visit the Emperor anyway. They hear Greg’s voice. Greg is “sitting at a vanishing point of a different perspective.” This makes Greg the second companion after Adric to have disappeared into the ether – and the first to have done so willingly. He’s now just a disembodied voice. Oh Greg, we hardly knew ye.
Ptolem and the Doctor are taken to the Emperor, who tells him that he will be part of a new race of supreme Daleks. The Mutant Phase begins taking effect, and all of the Daleks start to die. Greg the disembodied entity of niftiness ends up destroying the mutants to give the Doctor time to escape. Lots of yelling Daleks, explosions, etc.
The Doctor and Ria return to the Tardis. They talk, almost bored about their friend Greg becoming an immortal thing-a-ma-jig, and don’t give much thought to his sudden departure. So it goes.
CUE MUSIC
Evaluation
It’s a great idea. The Daleks are themselves in peril, and are actually terrified. It’s always fun to see the Daleks scared of something. But where does it all go? It’s a 4 parter, and clocks in at a little under 2 hours long. You expect there to be some padding, but this is 2 parts too long. Part 3 needn’t have even taken place. And then there’s Greg. Good old Greg goes from being a teenage boy to being a disembodied demigod after a series of injections. If I had to guess, I’d say that the AV people wanted Greg gone, even if they had to write him out like this. The Doctor and Ria don’t seem to care in the least that he’s gone either. It’s just… weird. It doesn’t feel right. You feel a little cheated after investing in the character. Apologies if this review isn’t as jokey as my others. I just got really bored!
Overall 5 out of 10
The premise was strong and promised a lot. It just didn’t deliver on the setup.
Dialogue Triumphs
“Still you is it? Hasn’t there been an election yet?”
The Doctor to the Emperor Dalek
Big Finish adapted The Mutant Phase years later, with Peter Davison and Sarah Sutton as the Doctor and Nyssa – but you know that already, don’t you? I won’t go into tremendous detail about this adaptation, since you really should hear it for yourself. Suffice it to say that the basic plot of the Daleks being mutated into giant nasty space insects remains. Only this time they flesh the story out into something more worthy of its imaginative concept.
NEXT TIME
The Doctor and Ria continue to not cope with the loss of Greg in THE DESTRUCTOR CONTRACT.