MR 015: The Mutant Phase

😴 😴 🛌 💤

Wha... what was that? Oh there was an audio here? Oh right. Uh... Daleks have a mutation that makes them into scary flying killers. More than they already are anyway. The Daleks and Thals are working together to try to stop the mutation at its source which turns out to be a wasp stinging a badly damaged Dalek during the Dalek Invasion of Earth.

It's wild to me, though, that this audio is the follow up to Holy Terror, the BEST audio so far, an absolute masterpiece. And then this one comes along and is dull as hell. The Fifth Doctor and Nyssa continue to be pretty boring here. Nyssa retains some of her combative personality with the Doctor from her previous audios, which is nice, but it's all so bland and formulaic.

The mutant phase itself is an interesting concept, but it quickly gets subverted in favor of a "changing time bad" story which then changes into a "paradox" story. The Doctor says "fate, never heard of it," which is a cool line... except for the fact that he constantly argues in favor of maintaining history as he remembers it in history books. So he absolutely does believe in fate.

The paradox is just as uninteresting as the rest of the plot around it. The Dalek Emperor went back in time with them to stop the mutant phase, but his using the pesticide to kill the wasp is what triggers the mutation. Because the Daleks had already identified it and were going to get rid of it themselves. Or something. Honestly, I checked out a long time ago.

I think, at this point, BF is kind of floundering with both the Fifth Doctor and the Daleks. The Fifth Doctor himself is hard to make interesting, clearly. They had an interesting story in Winter for the Adept, but not becasue of the Doctor or Nyssa. And their Dalek stories thus far have been pretty dull and formulaic. They don't really know yet what to do with them, I think. They don't have the Time War to play with either. We'll see if that trend continues.