Despite being told by friends that this story isn't a great one and despite seeing it poll really low in DWM recently, I actually quite enjoyed this one!
Interesting theme of empirical exploitation throughout, one that has been played on many times before but never fails to catch my attention. It allows for a lot of emotion in a story; fighting for freedom, combating against oppression, etc. I think this story did that well.
The cliffhanger for the first episode was something that stood out. It was really exciting. In fact, the whole last 5 minutes of the first episode were pretty exciting. Something I wasn't expecting.
Although the Doctor and Jo are rarely together in this story, the scenes they do have together are delightful. Their interactions with one another are perfect yet again. The greatest example if probably the ending when they slip away to the TARDIS. Well written and well performed. Stubbs and Cotton were also great additions to the cast. The actor of Cotton didn't do a great job, to be honest, but Stubbs made up for it. He was great. I think that was a Manchester accent? Not everyday you see that in Who. Awesome.
The Marshal was brilliantly done. He was a great villain, succinctly cruel and selfish. Very nicely done. I really liked Jaeger and Saandergard, too. The characterisation in this story, with the exception of Cotton, is done brilliantly and is what makes this story so likeable for me, I think.
The mutants themselves were alright, nothing exciting. They weren't exactly aesthetically pleasing, but they were interesting as a concept, I guess. But I think we were supposed to feel sorry for them, which I did because of Marshall's cruelty towards them, but feeling bad for them on their own is a bit hard when they looked so silly - they were like the Zarbi but without that headache-inducing sound. At least their 'proper mutation' looked better, but even then Ky turning into a magic rainbow fairy was extremely weird... It went from "meh" to "huh?"
All in all, this story flows nicely. The fight for freedom and struggle against the Marshall's corruption and oppression is what I enjoy the most here. The characters and how they interact with each other are excellent, however, there are flaws such as Cotton's poor acting, some really silly scientific fallacies that made me cringe (like them all being exposed to the vacuum of space for minutes and still being able to breathe and not pass out), and also the mutants weren't really effective. But in conclusion, this is certainly a story I'd recommend. Although word on the street has it that this isn't a great one, I actually really liked it.
7/10.
