Mutant X
Created | Updated Sep 3, 2003
There are few things in this world as terrifying as realising you are powerless. No one likes to think that they are not in charge of the decisions that shape the course of their life, especially when they are small ones. OK, so the chances are good that you can't affect major economic and social trends, but what kind of weaselly soul must a person have if they can't even control their TV viewing?
Well, I can't answer that, but if you could take a look at my soul, you'd have a perfect example of anima ferretious. I know that Mutant X is garbage, I can deconstruct the exact points about it that make it garbage, I spend 95% of any given episode laughing or shouting at it AND YET I CANNOT STOP WATCHING!!!! I make plans to do other things, and yet always end up tuning in to Mutant X. I buy the DVD boxsets, for pity's sake! And why? I could not tell you.
What is the strange power Mutant X has over me? Partly it is true that the show is very easy to watch. Pretty young things with super powers saving the world, or at least the parts of it around Toronto, from any and everything that threatens it. Money has been thrown at this series, that's obvious by the huge split level sets, and the high quality of the rubberware the female characters are talcumed into. Chuck in a few decent character actors to paper over the fact that the younger cast members aren't always that convincing, throw a fortune at the special effects and a pittance at the writers, and you should have the perfect beer and pizza tv series. And yet. It irritates to the point where I find myself siding automatically with the villains of the piece.
A Potted Intro to Mutant X: All round clever scientific boffin Adam goes to work for Big, Bad Evil Corporation and spends a few years innocently cooking up all sorts of genetic mutations in DNA before thinking to ask why he's doing this. He is then horrified to discover that BBEC is actually a cover for the government, and they have been using his genetic experiments on PREGNANT LADIES and so their babies will be mutants!!!! Horrified by this, he wipes all the data from BBEC's databanks and goes on the run, with only his razor sharp brain and enormous trust fund to keep him safe. Spin on about 20 years, and all the New Mutants are discovering their powers, and horrifically the government tells BBEC to round them all up and...what? Lock them up because they're inherently dangerous? Use them and their powers for covert ops? Who knows? Anyway, the innocents are to be locked away by the new head of BBEC, who Adam is horrified to discover is his old nemesis Mason Eckhart, who once accidentally got in the way of one of Adams experiments and so forever more is cursed to look like Andy Warhol. No, really. White bobbed hair, shark eyed stare, pale skin, the lot. And strangely attractive with it. Who can save these innocents? Why, only Adam and his team of trained New Mutants. This lot are a mixed bunch, but thankfully the mutations that Adam gave them means that they have the skills to take on BBEC, and their powers make them a nice cross section of stereotypes. So, Shalimar has cat like powers, and so is playful, aggressive and flirtatious without meaning anything. Jesse can control his mass, becoming gaseous or very solid, so he is very reliable and dependable. Emma can read minds, which means she is thoughtful and less prone to impulse then the others, and Brennan shoots electricity and so is sparky but a little dangerous. Do I need to tell you they're all quite fit? Must I point out that they choose to battle evil in tiny little outfits and big heels, even the girls? Is it necessary to say they all hug a little too long and throw "meaningful glances" at each other all the time? Even Adam, which is a bit icky as he also has a habit of referring to the New Mutants as his children. Every week they take on a bad guy, every week they win. And erm, that's it.
In the first year the villain was always Eckhart, in the second year any one can have a go, but you can always be sure that character will be sacrificed for loud explosions, that logic and plotting will be abandoned for a fight every 15 minutes and that none of the good guys ever suffer so much as a bruised toenail. Villains never learn, always hire incompetent henchmen, always choose to defeat the good guys face to face instead of picking them off from a distance with a high velocity rifle. The mutants are smug, never express any anger with Adam that his self obsessed, glory seeking experiments have turned them into freaks that will be targets all their lives, and live on a big island hideaway that the villains can never find, despite that fact that it must be using up a lot more electricity then your average mountain sticking out of the sea. Genetics can do anything, people can have whacking great spikes driven through their spinal cords to control their powers, and feel no side effects, WHY DO I WATCH THIS!!!??!??!
I've tried to think the matter through as I've been writing, and I've I have actually come up with an answer. I want to see them fail. I am watching this series in the hope that it will end with a Blakes 7 style massacre finale in which the bad guys definitely have the upper hand. I came to this series with an open mind, wanting to be entertained, and I still can't believe what I got instead. "Surely" I thought "In these days of arc stories on The West Wing, moral ambiguity in The Precinct, character evolution in ER, television executives still don't think that we'll accept this Janet and John, mental-age-of-five garbage?" And so, deep in my heart, I decided I wanted to see this series and its smug heroes taken down a peg or 17. Now, I know that's unlikely, and then when the series ends it'll probably be with all the New Mutants baking Adam a cake to thank him for making them as special as they are, but I can cherish a dream of a more satisfying ending. How about a final episode where Shalimar is distracted by a huge ball of yarn, captured by Eckhart, used as a ploy to lure all of her team into a trap and then they are locked into stasis pods and buried under a motorway flyover, while Adam is dragged off to the BBEC labs to have all of his own experiments performed on him, one by one, and then all at the same time? Now some people might say that would be a bit of a downer for a last episode, but I have to say I'd be cheering all the way.
Who says good guys always finish first?
Well, I can't answer that, but if you could take a look at my soul, you'd have a perfect example of anima ferretious. I know that Mutant X is garbage, I can deconstruct the exact points about it that make it garbage, I spend 95% of any given episode laughing or shouting at it AND YET I CANNOT STOP WATCHING!!!! I make plans to do other things, and yet always end up tuning in to Mutant X. I buy the DVD boxsets, for pity's sake! And why? I could not tell you.
What is the strange power Mutant X has over me? Partly it is true that the show is very easy to watch. Pretty young things with super powers saving the world, or at least the parts of it around Toronto, from any and everything that threatens it. Money has been thrown at this series, that's obvious by the huge split level sets, and the high quality of the rubberware the female characters are talcumed into. Chuck in a few decent character actors to paper over the fact that the younger cast members aren't always that convincing, throw a fortune at the special effects and a pittance at the writers, and you should have the perfect beer and pizza tv series. And yet. It irritates to the point where I find myself siding automatically with the villains of the piece.
A Potted Intro to Mutant X: All round clever scientific boffin Adam goes to work for Big, Bad Evil Corporation and spends a few years innocently cooking up all sorts of genetic mutations in DNA before thinking to ask why he's doing this. He is then horrified to discover that BBEC is actually a cover for the government, and they have been using his genetic experiments on PREGNANT LADIES and so their babies will be mutants!!!! Horrified by this, he wipes all the data from BBEC's databanks and goes on the run, with only his razor sharp brain and enormous trust fund to keep him safe. Spin on about 20 years, and all the New Mutants are discovering their powers, and horrifically the government tells BBEC to round them all up and...what? Lock them up because they're inherently dangerous? Use them and their powers for covert ops? Who knows? Anyway, the innocents are to be locked away by the new head of BBEC, who Adam is horrified to discover is his old nemesis Mason Eckhart, who once accidentally got in the way of one of Adams experiments and so forever more is cursed to look like Andy Warhol. No, really. White bobbed hair, shark eyed stare, pale skin, the lot. And strangely attractive with it. Who can save these innocents? Why, only Adam and his team of trained New Mutants. This lot are a mixed bunch, but thankfully the mutations that Adam gave them means that they have the skills to take on BBEC, and their powers make them a nice cross section of stereotypes. So, Shalimar has cat like powers, and so is playful, aggressive and flirtatious without meaning anything. Jesse can control his mass, becoming gaseous or very solid, so he is very reliable and dependable. Emma can read minds, which means she is thoughtful and less prone to impulse then the others, and Brennan shoots electricity and so is sparky but a little dangerous. Do I need to tell you they're all quite fit? Must I point out that they choose to battle evil in tiny little outfits and big heels, even the girls? Is it necessary to say they all hug a little too long and throw "meaningful glances" at each other all the time? Even Adam, which is a bit icky as he also has a habit of referring to the New Mutants as his children. Every week they take on a bad guy, every week they win. And erm, that's it.
In the first year the villain was always Eckhart, in the second year any one can have a go, but you can always be sure that character will be sacrificed for loud explosions, that logic and plotting will be abandoned for a fight every 15 minutes and that none of the good guys ever suffer so much as a bruised toenail. Villains never learn, always hire incompetent henchmen, always choose to defeat the good guys face to face instead of picking them off from a distance with a high velocity rifle. The mutants are smug, never express any anger with Adam that his self obsessed, glory seeking experiments have turned them into freaks that will be targets all their lives, and live on a big island hideaway that the villains can never find, despite that fact that it must be using up a lot more electricity then your average mountain sticking out of the sea. Genetics can do anything, people can have whacking great spikes driven through their spinal cords to control their powers, and feel no side effects, WHY DO I WATCH THIS!!!??!??!
I've tried to think the matter through as I've been writing, and I've I have actually come up with an answer. I want to see them fail. I am watching this series in the hope that it will end with a Blakes 7 style massacre finale in which the bad guys definitely have the upper hand. I came to this series with an open mind, wanting to be entertained, and I still can't believe what I got instead. "Surely" I thought "In these days of arc stories on The West Wing, moral ambiguity in The Precinct, character evolution in ER, television executives still don't think that we'll accept this Janet and John, mental-age-of-five garbage?" And so, deep in my heart, I decided I wanted to see this series and its smug heroes taken down a peg or 17. Now, I know that's unlikely, and then when the series ends it'll probably be with all the New Mutants baking Adam a cake to thank him for making them as special as they are, but I can cherish a dream of a more satisfying ending. How about a final episode where Shalimar is distracted by a huge ball of yarn, captured by Eckhart, used as a ploy to lure all of her team into a trap and then they are locked into stasis pods and buried under a motorway flyover, while Adam is dragged off to the BBEC labs to have all of his own experiments performed on him, one by one, and then all at the same time? Now some people might say that would be a bit of a downer for a last episode, but I have to say I'd be cheering all the way.
Who says good guys always finish first?
