Friday, May 13, 2011

[New post] Doctor Who Big Finish- The Mutant Phase (Dalek Empire III)

Doctor Who Big Finish- The Mutant Phase (Dalek Empire III)

dailypop | May 13, 2011 at 8:40 am | Tags: big finish audio adventures, daleks doctor who, peter davison doctor who | Categories: Big Finish, Doctor Who- 5th Doctor | URL: http://wp.me/p4kUt-2pO

The Mutant Phase

"Fate? Never heard of it."
Story 15
Written by Nicholas Briggs
Released December 2000

The second installment of the Dalek Empire 'crossover' is an oddity. It's very well crafted and features some sterling work from Peter Davison and Sharon Sutton. The plot is a run around of the weirdest kind. A science expedition Thal craft is caught in the middle of a galactic disaster as bizarre creatures cause uncanny amounts of damage. The path leads to Skaro. In the time vortex, the TARDIS is caught in a time tunnel leading to the Earth during a Dalek assault during the 22nd Century. Desperate to escape an army of robomen and Daleks along with a vicious strain of deadly wasps, the Doctor manages to dematerialize but due to the time tunnel arrives at another point in the time line, but the same location.

Confronted by a trio of survivors, the Doctor finds that he has jumped past the Dalek Invasion only to find that history has taken a turn for the worse. The planet Earth is nearly completely uninhabited, wiped out by a menace that the Doctor assumes to be the Daleks, if only anyone knew what a Dalek was. Thal scientists eventually catch up with the Doctor and recruit him for an unlikely mission, to save the Daleks from extinction.

The Thal scientists explain that a mutant strain is passing through the Dalek race, causing them to become monstrous creatures resembling massive insects. The mutation must be stopped because the new creatures are unstoppable and pose a threat to all life. Of course the Doctor is difficult to convince that he must save his deadliest foes, but in the end concedes, though his brain is obviously turning over some clever ideas as to how and why he will help.

Amazing fan animation based on The Mutant Phase
watch?v=pTdH6SCfbHU

The narrative structure, like the plot, is a bit of a mess. Parts of the story take place in different time zones and involve situations that are caused by events that occur later in another time zone on Earth of the distant future, or during the Dalek Invasion. It asks a lot of the listener to keep up with all of this and as it is a Dalek audio adventure, much of the experience is full of screeching and explosions, along with the new sound of the roaring bug-like monsters dubbed the Mutant Phase.

Even with these limitations, The Mutant Phase is quite good if only due to Davison's performance. A restrained actor, he humbly tip-toes through many parts of the story only to emerge as a genius at the end when he reveals what he was doing all along. Of course, the resolution is part of the time paradox that caused the Mutant Phase and the alternate time line which is a bit annoying, but Davison's quip at the end makes it rather charming.