I mustn’t write about the Mutants, I couldn’t even if I wanted to

No – I’m not meant to write about the Mutants, I couldn’t even if I wanted to. I’ve been on another bad story bender of late and Bobndave’s apartheid allegory has been my trash de jour. So let’s take a meander along Mutant Road and see what delights we can find for your greedy eyes.

1. Well obviously we must start with that consummate professional Jon Pertwee saying the same line twice and no one thinking about saying "shall we go again, loves?" This wasn’t the 1960s where editing was crude and the methods needed to get a second take were even cruder. This was the 1970s where a perfectionist like Peewee could say his lines precisely and safely in the knowledge that nothing could slip through the editing net.

2. Salman Rushdie – the popular hiding enthusiast – singled this story out for criticism apparently. Unlike Kenneth Williams’ mentioning the Android Invasion in his diaries I haven’t personally checked out the Rushdie claim. He alleges that it enforces the idea that ugly equals evil when it is quite obvious that he’s talking through his pants. I’m sure there are lots of women who found Paul Witsun Jones rather cuddly.

3. I think the Time Lords must also double up as the Royal Mail since their idea of getting a box to Ky on Solos is to send it to the Doctor on Earth and not tell him where to take it.

4. The themes of racial segregation are never more obvious than in the presence of separate transmat booths for Solonians and Overlords. That they are exactly the same rather renders the distinction meaningless. It would’ve been funnier (and more politically cutting, obviously) if they’d made the Solonians use the stairs.

5. I can’t put it off any longer. Rick James. I don’t know what process they used to cast him but it should be shot. I’m sure he’s a nice man and gives lots of his spare time to charity but he cannot act. His performance ranges from wooden to even more wooden. Every word is spoken carefully as if it were a spoonful of cocaine being carried across an uneven floor. I’m sure they thought they were being clever by using a black actor in a story which addressed racial issues but having such a bad one (and having him call Jo "Miss" in a very subservient way) rendered the gesture useless.

6. The idea of an entire race which needs one crystal to evolve is too silly even for Doctor Who. I can accept the radioactive caves as a part of the process but one crystal is too much. In more sophisticated times they could’ve added a few lines which explained that the caves and/or the crystal were part of the planet’s religion and that they make their pilgrimage without knowing the real evolutionary reason why.

7. "Genocide as a side effect!" sees Pertwee at his magnificent best.

8. I’m back on the sexual symbolism here – Skybase has a somewhat phallic appearance. Ok so it’s a cock with only one (swollen) ball but it’s still phallic for the purposes of this point. To bring human life to Solos, Skybase must fire it’s semen missiles at the egg-like planet. And I should get out more.

9. Nothing says the 1970s like the faux-computer font that is all over Skybase. You can barely read anything in that queer fat-thin font that they imagined would be on every computer screen in the world once the problems of how to build computers had been solved.

10. Particle reversal. Oh my hat. A technique that would show the contents of a box by putting everything on the inside on the outside and everything on the outside would be inside. Hmm. This method – technobabble aimed at the under-5s – would then be applied to the atmosphere of Solos. So that should mean that the atmosphere would be on the outside while the airless void of space would be on the inside. So the air would be gone and Solos would be dead. Only that doesn’t happen. It just seems to reverse the particles back into the state they were before Skybase fired its missiles. Bah! Where’s Christopher Bidmead when you need him?

11. I don’t know if Geoffrey Palmer was an especially expensive actor but to hire him for only one episode does seem rather pointless. Why oh why couldn’t he have played Cotton? Have Rick James as the man in charge (which would be a better use of the black-actor-in-colonial-satire premise) who gets mercifully shot within ten minutes and spare us the agony of his drawn out performance.

12. In the scenes set in Sondergaard’s lab, you know when there is going to be an explosion because they bizarrely switch to what looks like a cheap camera which is set at a crude angle and makes everyone look tall and thin.

13. The refuelling of the Investigator’s ship is pretty sexual too – the long shot of the refuelling probe slipping into Skybase… I really should get out more. Or at all.

14. As if one of him wasn’t enough, the computer base appears to be voiced by Rick James. I can’t find anyone credited as the voice of Skybase so it’s either James doing double duty (and thereby doubling the credits on his CV) or someone else decided to take him as their role model. It says something about his talents when you realise he makes a much better computer than he does a person.

15. Why is Sondergaard dressed as a hippy? Do scientists wear beads in the 30^th century? If so why isn’t Jaeger wearing them?

16. And how comes Sondergaard has such a good tan when he spends all his time underground?

17. There might be another early Pertwee fluff when he tells Jo the mission would certainly be dangerous and might also be difficult. An easy but perilous mission would be much better suited to a girlie.

18. What would a planet of super beings like Ky be like? And wouldn’t they be more powerful than the Time Lords? If so why would the Gallifreyans want the Solonians to evolve?

19. Less grown up readers may like to take a moment to chuckle at Pertwee saying they’d come in through the tradesman’s entrance.

20. Chuckle.

21. Maybe it’s just me but Garrick Hagon (Ky) seems to look like a dozen or more other actors of the age. Everyone from Mike Holloway to Barry Evans.

22. I wonder how many of the viewers at the time were expecting the Master to turn up as the Investigator?

23. The furious Jaeger bursts in to the Marshall’s office with news. The Marshall dismisses his guards as he didn’t want his subordinates to know what they were discussing but he was quite happy for his enemies (Jo, Ky, Stubbs and Cotton) to know what had gone wrong.

24. Normally I write these things myself but I have to include this one from Cornell, Topping and Day’s Discontinuity Guide as it is soooo right. The opening, with a hermit like figure shambling towards the camera is screaming out for an 'It's...'