15. The Mutant Phase.

4 episodes. Approx. 120 minutes. Written by: Nicholas Briggs. Directed by: Nicholas Briggs. Produced by: Jason Haigh-Ellery, Gary Russell. 


THE PLOT

When the TARDIS is drawn into a time corridor, the Doctor improvises to escape - leading the timeship to materialize in a field on Earth, circa 2157 AD: During the Dalek invasion of Earth!

The Doctor and Nyssa quickly escape, but not before stirring up a swarm of angry wasps, one of whom stings Nyssa. Her pain is only the start of their trouble, however. Once they dematerialize, they are back in the time corridor, drawn to what the Doctor is now certain will be a rendezvous with his oldest enemies.

The Daleks have not captured him to exterminate him, however. Instead, they are seeking his help. A genetic mutation is spreading throughout the Dalek race, transforming them into giant insects. Deadly to the touch and able to survive the vacuum of space, the creatures are swarming from one planet to the next, leaving behind a level of devastation that makes the destruction of the Daleks look minor by comparison. The Dalek city on Skaro is under siege, and the Daleks and the universe alike have only one hope of survival: For the Doctor to go back in time and stop the Mutant Phase from ever existing!


CHARACTERS

The Doctor: He doesn't go into as much detail as Nyssa might like when explaining why he agrees to change history for the Daleks when he refused to do so to save Adric, but it's clear that he feels a strong sense of responsibility in his relationship with Time. It's also made clear very early on that he can sense that something isn't quite right about this timeline, which is what prompts him to agree to the Daleks' demands at all.

Nyssa: As if to make up for her mis-characterization in Winter for the Adept, writer/director Nicholas Briggs makes sure to give her a very strong story here. Nyssa's intelligence is on full display, as she comes up with a way to temporarily evade the Daleks' trap by moving the TARDIS in space. She also is the one who is most effective in analyzing the data about the mutant creatures, finding several key pieces of the overall puzzle. Finally, we see her taking care of the Doctor as a good friend should, stopping him from pushing too hard in studying the mutant data and all but forcing him to take a break and get some much-needed rest.

Daleks: This story shows something unusual from the Daleks: Desperation. The Daleks are facing their worst nightmare - not merely dying, but being transformed into something "not a Dalek." This is most effectively shown in the Episode One cliffhanger, as one Daleks begins mutating to some truly agonizing sound effects while the others shrilly cry for its extermination (but do nothing - leaving me picturing them moving backward in terror). 

Lest their fear and willingness to work with Thal scientist Ptolem (Christopher Blake) neuter them, the midpoint of the serial sees the Daleks slaughter a group of likable guest characters because they are "surplus to requirements," bringing back home just how evil and deadly they really are... None of which makes the fall of the Dalek city any less vivid, with even the Doctor acknowledging to the Dalek Emperor: "I never thought I'd feel sorry for the Daleks as they faced destruction... but I do." 


THOUGHTS

After reaching terms with Terry Nation's estate for the use of the Daleks, Big Finish proceeded to release three audios under the banner title, Dalek Empire: The Genocide Machine for the 7th Doctor, The Apocalypse Element for the 6th, and The Mutant Phase for the 5th. The stories were not linked, but they did combine to show Big Finish's take on the Daleks: ruthless, genuinely powerful, and formidably clever.

The Mutant Phase was the last of these initial three, and was probably the most ambitious. Its narrative spans three different time periods and a wide variety of settings: Earth, in the days of the Dalek occupation; Earth, in a distant future in which humanity is all but extinct; and Skaro, with the Dalek Empire facing its end of days. Despite this, and a plot involving temporal paradoxes and jumps within time tracks, the story never feels jumbled or overloaded. Writer/director Nicholas Briggs has constructed his script with care, and all the disparate pieces retain a unified feel.

The music and sound design has a lot to do with that. Credit for that also goes to Briggs, who wrote the score. It's a perfect Dalek score, mechanical and forbidding, and it is used to punctuate the story's more ominous notes. The music often blends right into the soundscape, making transitions from one strand to the next as effortless as possible.

The Mutant Phase moves at a rapid pace. The opening scene introduces Ptolem and his friend and commander, Ganatus (Jared Morgan), as their craft discovers formerly busy trade routes left devastated and lifeless. We get barely a minute to absorb this information before their ship is attacked by a swarm of what we later realize were mutant creatures. They weather that only to find themselves on Skaro... and it is on that note that we cut to the Doctor and Nyssa.

The first two episodes largely present the situation as a mystery, allowing each piece of information to build the atmosphere. The Doctor knows there must be some connection between the mutants and the Daleks. We have already seen what that connection is, with the Dalek turning into a mutant at the end of Part One. We also know there will a connection with Nyssa's wasp sting. These pieces start coming together in Episode Three, in which everything is apparently explained - only for that to be subverted by an additional surprise in Episode Four. It's a good structure, with each episode building the story elements and atmosphere.

What keeps this admittedly good audio adventure from being great is the ending. Time paradox stories are tricky, and balancing incident with explanation is difficult enough even when you aren't denied the visual element. But the ending here just doesn't work for me. When the key moment resolving the paradox comes, we get a lot of noise and people shouting, followed by a distorted sound effect, followed by a tag in which the Doctor explains to Nyssa (and us) what happened. It's not enough.

The mistake here is that the pace is kept breakneck and everybody is shouting at each other. Instead, this point needs to slow down, even stop for a moment. Stop shouting, calm the sound effects, and give us a little time to truly absorb the two key events: one thing that happens to a Dalek undergoing a diagnostic, and another thing involving the Dalek Emperor making a choice. Everything else needs to go away for that moment while the Dalek Emperor makes that choice and we get a moment to absorb it.  Then, when the Doctor goes into more detail in the tag, it won't feel like his explanation is acting as a substitute for a proper climax.

It is still a good story, with a nonstop pace and a wonderfully oppressive atmosphere. If the ending worked for me, this would easily be an "8" and might even scrape a "9." As it stands, the story remains comfortably above average, and its solid score reflects that. 


Overall Rating: 7/10.

Previous Story: Winter for the Adept
Next Story: Primeval


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