The Daleks. An ultimate adversary. Except...There is something worse.

When the Doctor and Nyssa arrive on Dalek-occupied 22nd Century Earth, it's not readily apparent. Two thousand years later, however, there is an even more terrifying and apparently unstoppable terror causing destruction throughout the Galaxy. Total annihilation of Life, the Universe and Everything is just a matter of time. Time, ah yes. We'll come back to that later.

The Mutant Phase was the first BF Dalek outing to be both written and directed by Nick Briggs, who also provides some of the inimitable Dalek voices. The twist to this particular scenario, of a menace even they of all creatures genuinely fear, serves up some intruiging conundrums. Indeed, The Mutant Phase is arguably little more than an elaborate, and entertaining, exploration of those Time Paradox things.

Episode One is a lengthy piece of exposition and scene-setting, much of it without the Doctor, Nyssa or the TARDIS. The second part resorts to blatant introductions of personnel purely to impart key information and nothing else, but piles on the action and the increasing, nihilistic threat of impending doom with enjoyable gusto. This pretty much continues in Episode three. Generally, the middle section of the adventure is frenzied stuff; full of explosions, explanations, shooting and shouting.

Somewhere in amongst it all, Peter Davison finds his stride when the emphasis switches from rampant chaos to the rather more subtle and fascinating matter of Time Paradoxes, when his sharpness of thought is brought into play to crucial effect. Likewise the redoutable Nyssa, ever ready to indulge in some serious research and lateral thinking. Despite being hampered yet again by some two-dimensional characterisation, and far too many "Doctor!?"s for comfort, Sarah Sutton is in her element during the closing one-and-a-half episodes, when intellect and scientific knowledge take precedence over running around in the dark and screaming.

Far from perfect, The Mutant Phase is still a reasonably satisfying diversion from typical Dalek fare. Not as epic as its promises to be, but equally not as botched an ultimate concept as it could have easily been. Still confused? I'll explain....later.

SCORE

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