Forgotten Television: Mutant X

Adam Kane (John Shea) is a brilliant geneticist whose early experiments lead to genetic mutations within humans.  To atone for his many mistakes while working for the Genomax corporation, he forms Mutant X, a team of superpowered persons that work to protect other “New Mutants” from the Genetic Security Agency (GSA) lead by Adam’s old friend and now enemy Mason Eckhart (Tom McCamus). The Mutant X team consists of Jesse Kilmartin (Forbes March) who can alter his density, becoming either intangible of super-dense, although he can only retain these forms for as long as he can hold his breath; Shalimar Fox (Victoria Pratt) is a “feline feral” with heightened healing, strength and agility and later develops a sixth sense that can anticipate incoming danger; Emma DeLauro (Lauren Lee Smith) is a “tele-empath” who can transmit and receive emotions, she also has limited precognition, psychic blasts, and some mental domination abilities; Brennan Mulwray (Victor Webster) who is an “elemental electrical” mutant and can generate large amounts of electricity. In season 3, Emma is killed and Lexa Pierce (Karen Cliche) joins the team with light altering abilities which allow her to become invisible and shoot light blasts from her hands. The series was mainly episodic, with each week introducing a new “New Mutant” that needed help and protection from the GSA. In season two, Eckhart is replaced by Gabriel Ashlocke (Michael Easton), known as patient zero and an extremely dangerous new mutant who possesses all of the abilities of the other mutants.

Several lawsuits plagued the production as 20^th Century Fox sued Marvel, Tribune Entertainment and Fireworks Entertainment for breach of their licensing agreement and false advertising. Fox had the exclusive rights to the X-Men franchise and had put out the first movie the year before.  It claimed that Mutant X was too similar to X-Men and that in advertising the show was being touted as an ”X-Men replacement”. Marvel counter sued and arguing that the two were dissimilar and production was allowed to continue as long as X-Men material was not used any promotion of the series. In 2003, Fox and Marvel resolved their differences in confidential but Fox continued to sue Tribune and Fireworks.  In turn, Tribune sued Marvel for fraud and breach of contract, asserting that Marvel had encouraged them to advertise Mutant X with the X-Men, misrepresenting what was in their licensing, causing millions in revenue and the need to alter storylines and characters. In 2005, this lawsuit was also privately settled.

The show wasn’t bad for its time, premiering in October of 2001 and running for a total of three seasons and sixty-six episodes. It ran in “first-run syndication” and was created under a Marvel Comics license but had no connection to the Mutant X comic book series, although Marvel did publish a comic book tie-in called Mutant X: Origin, which focused on the early life of Adam Kane. The production value is what you would expect from early 2000 syndicated shows.  The special effects were hit or miss, some of them looked pretty good, but others looked sort of schlocky or cheap.  There was also a lot of wire work fight sequences done that just didn’t look quite natural or realistic but was interesting to see in a series and added a little bit of uniqueness to the series.  The acting was mostly adequate, and the storylines and scripts were entertaining. I enjoyed the music for the series composed by Donald Quan and Louis Natale.  Overall, the series wasn’t terrible, but lacked the depth and complexity in both story and character that  future superhero series would contain.