The Mootants

Sixty-Fifth Entry in the Charles Daniels Unauthorized Programme Guide O'
Lactose

 Serial NNN - The Mootants -

 The Time Lords decide to set up a transtime postal service and cash
 in on the profitable package delivery service market.  None of the
 uber lazy Time Lords are ready to be letter carriers so they decide
 to use their gimp boy, The Doctor, for the job.
 The Doctor takes Jo to the planet Solos to deliver The Express Overnight
 Delivery Package of Rassilon to an unknown party.  The Doctor is annoyed
 when the locals dont accept the official seal of Gallifrey as postage
 paid.  The Doctor drives his mail lorry around Solos trying to find
 the right person to pay for the Cash on Delivery package.
 In his rage to deliver the package in time, even though it isnt
 insured and he should just dump it off at the local post office,
 the Doctor discovers Solos is about to become independant of Earth.
 He is deeply worried as this means he may not be able to secure the
 proper currency to pay for the timebox.
 The Doctor decides to have a nice chatty dinner with the sadistic
 Marshal who wants to rule Solos with an iron fist.  The Doctor has
 an easy time arranging an invitation to the banquet with his
 Fascist Dictators Members Only card which he keeps in his wallet
 at all times.
 The Marshal invites the Doctor to join in his hobby of hunting Solonian
 mutants.  The Doctor gladly accepts hoping that it will buy him time
 to figure out who he can get to sign for the item he's carrying.
 The Marshal decides, after their successful hunt, to commission a
 Solonian to murder the Earth Administrator and plans to oxygenise
 Solos' atmosphere.  The Doctor overhears the entire plot over a
 great plate of Hot Ribs O' Mutant, and then excuses himself for an
 early night in.
 The Doctor takes Jo with him to bed, to the surprise of no one.
 What does come as a suprise is that the Doctor shows Jo no interest
 once they are alone.  His plan is to escape with Jo to the planet's
 surface.  The Doctor escapes from being tangled in blankets, as
 Jo pulls him out of the room.
 On the surface the Doctor and Jo meet Soundgarden, a band from the
 future stranded on Solos and trying to figure out a cure for their
 own strange mutations since arriving on the planet.
 The Doctor is captured again, somehow, and escapes again conveniently.
 Soundgarden gives Jo some KY Jelly which turns her first into a mutant
 and then into a super-being of bimbo clutziness.
 The KY Jelly - found in a cave indicated in the Time Lord's message
 inside the priority mail -- enables Jo to trip over any physical
 object without spraining her ankle.  With this amazing power, never
 before given to a Doctor Who companion, Jo trips over the Meat Loaf
 look-a-like Marshall killing him instantly with the weight and sharp
 edges of her platform high heels.  Jo presents her case to the newly
 arrived Earth Investigators who are stunned by both her super powers
 and her super bad taste in clothing.
 Jo gives up the last of the amazing KY Jelly to the Solonians so they
 can evolve into giant flying cows capable of jumping over the moon,
 part of a century-long evolutionary process.
 Unfortunately, by the next week everyone had forgotten about Jo being
 a super bimbo and she just reverted back to "normal".

 Book(s)/Other Related - Doctor Who Is Captured & Escapes From Meat Loaf
                         Doctor Mysterio Mutations-A-Moo-Moo
                         The New Jo Grant Adventures - #54 Groovy Trippy
                         Disco Chicks From Mars

 Fluffs - Pertwee seemed like Cliff Clavin for most this story
          Pertwee in episode 1:  "Im not allowed to open it.
          Even if I could open it, I wouldnt want to.  Not that
          I want to.  People have to trust their mail service
          or else the world falls to socialism and chaos.  Why
          the postal carrier has always been the foundation of
          trust which binds society.  So even if I could open it
          I wouldnt because I cant.....damn!  Pass that letter
          opener!  This is driving me crazy!"

 Fashion Victims -
 Jo's ridiculous 21" platform high heels, hip paper mache disposable
 dress, and white satin gloves.

 Goofs -
 The opening of the story is actually stock footage of Michael Palin
 introducting an episode of Monty Python with the patented "Its.."
 Much of the more serious, gritty dialogue is said when the humans
 are wearing special helium masks in the story.  The dramatic lines
 about death and war are somewhat compromised by everyone sounding
 like a fairy princess on speed
 The end of episode of 4 makes no sense - The Marshal shoots Voordgone
 and he smashes the outer hull of the space station, being sucked into
 space harmlessly. Then the Marshall and his dinner guest admire the
 new view of space provided by the great gaping hole...all without
 being sucked into space themselves and imploding.   The only explanation
 ever given - "Being sucked into space and imploding??  Silly!  This
 is a dinner party after all!"

 Technobabble -
 The Doctor plans to install a mini-compact-nuclear-override-inertia-
 hyperdrive-cappucinno-expresso-machine in Bessie.

 Links & References -
 Jo looks longingly at a picture of The Bastard which has been hand
 signed "Kisses & Cuddles SnookUms".

 Untelevised Misadventures -
 The Doctor once used his Fascist Dictator Members Only Card to
 get Hitler into a wild rave party in San Francisco 2003

 Dialogue Disasters -

 Doctor: If I dont get this package delivered we will be un-people doing
         un-things in un-time in un-space un-derneath an un-midget!

 "DIE OVERLORD!!  DIE!!!"

 Arthur Dent: So this is it, we're all going to die.

 Dialogue Triumphs -

 The classic -
 DOCTOR: Grey cities linked by grey highways across the grey desert.
         Slag, ash and clinker, the fruits of technology.
 JO GRANT: Oh my Doctor, is 30th century earth really like that?
 DOCTOR: What?  I was talking about New York!

 Episode Endings -
 1. The Doctor is about to face trial for impersonating a postal
    worker when he leaps into a transport cubicle, to beam himself
    to Solos, which explodes for no discernible reason
 2. The Doctor and Jo are in trouble for impersonating postal
    workers on Solos so they beam back to Skybase - the transport
    cubicle explodes mid-trip
 3. A randomly exploding transport cubicle sends The Doctor and
    Jo from Skybase to Solos
 4. On trial for his life the Doctor screams in terror as he
    is beamed back to Skybase against his will
 5. Jo and the Doctor leave Skybase to go to Solos to face their
    ultimate destiny
 6. Jo gives her super KY Jelly to the Solonians who turn into
    cows and look at her blankly


 Viewers' Quotes -

 "Okay, let me get this straight.  The Time Lords can send any person
  through time and space and any object they like across the vastness
  of the universe.  Then why couldnt they just make the packages
  appear in front of the people they were sent to??  Why did they
  have to send the Doctor?  I think they were just dicking with him."
   - Father James O'Maley (1973)

 "It is well known that postal technology is the most valued field of
  research within physics."  - Cliff Clavin (1991)

 "My God That's a Tacky Dress!!  I'd never wear clothes like Jo Grant.
  I may be a transvestite, but Im not a WEIRDO Transvestite!"
    - The Eddie Izzard Doctor, The 13 Doctors & Friends (Released 2004)

 "I think the level of appreciation I hold for this particular
  story is well recorded and well known.  Really, please never
  ask me to talk about this again, or I'll kill you."
     - Charles Daniels, Aggressive Interrogation Monthly (Nov. 1999)

 Rumors & Facts -

Christopher Barry was worried that he would get typecast as a Doctor
Who director.  During the shooting of The Mootants, Barry would walk
up to Jon Pertwee and punch him incredibly hard in the stomach before
starting each take.  Barry hoped this aggressive style of directing
would make the BBC weary of casting him as a Doctor Who director ever
again.  As it happens as soon as Jon Pertwee had left the role
Barry was assigned the first story with Tom Baker.  Over the years
Barry would develop techniques to torture the stars of the show but
this ultimately backfired as the BBC executives held the show in
such low esteem that they would often rejoice at the beatings Barry
would deal out to the cast and crew on a constant basis.
The Mootants is a fairly simplistic story line, and indeed episodes
1 through 6 are nearly identical copies of each other with the location
of the story simply being cleverly swapped every episode, the transport
cubicles exploding in some insignificantly different way, and the Doctor
having a slightly different speech about how great and clever he is
every week.
Meat Loaf was an inspired casting decision for the role of The Marshal.
However Meat Loaf was an incredibly popular performer and the Doctor
Who crew had difficulties working with him as after every scene he
shot he left the studio like a bat out of hell, regardless if it needed
refilming or not.
Episode 6 of The Mootants is the first time the credits at the end
of the story were written in English.  In all previous stories the
standard Welsh Language credits style was used.
Author Salman Rushdie refers to the Mootants in his controversial
book The Satanic Versus and implies that the programme's characterisation
of mutations as evil just because they look different from human beings
encourages racist attitudes.  He thereby completely misses the point of
the story, which in fact is about interplanetary package delivery.