The ending episode of Minuet in Hell only added to the
intrigue of the mystery of Charley Pollard with the revelation that she is
already dead and that Charley and the Doctor are going to Singapore which
becomes the motivation for the next three stories. Invaders
from Mars sees the Doctor missing the mark by eight years and being on the
other side of the world. Mark Gatiss’
story uses a concept that took way too long to actually come up in Doctor Who,
which is what if the famous War of the
Worlds Orson Welles broadcast was actually a forefront to an actual alien
invasion and the CIA covered it up. This
story takes place on that night in 1938 with the Doctor and Charley finding the
dead body of a private investigator which the Doctor cannot help to take when
he gets wrapped up in a woman finding her uncle taken by the New York Mafia led
by the mysterious Phantom, named for his disfigured face in reference to The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston
Leroux. The story however doesn’t have
the Doctor and Charley in the middle of the action as Gatiss instead focuses on
the Phantom who is having Professor Stepashin experiment with alien technology which
has fallen to Earth which leads to actual aliens showing up to pick it up. Simon Pegg is standout as the Phantom as he
is basically your stereotypical mobster, but as played by Simon Pegg.
A complaint from a lot of
people is the New York accents, like the Southern accents in Minuet in Hell, are horrible, which yeah
I can see bits of it. They aren’t very
bad as there are quite a few characters who vary the accent even when you have
one actor playing multiple roles. David
Benson plays Orson Welles which as far as I can tell is a good interpretation,
while it isn’t perfect it still feels like Orson Welles much in the way of Katy
Manning’s impression of Jon Pertwee.
There is also in this story a Nazi sympathizer, Cosmo Devine played by
John Arthur, who is completely camp. He
seems to be a reputable man on the outside but is a complete ass on the inside
and with that in mind and his name, it feels like Gatiss was parodying Ian
Levine which I honestly found kind of funny.
Now let’s talk about Paul
McGann and India Fisher, who here both feel like they are even more comfortable
with each other. Their first season
together, while hosting some great chemistry between the two leads, at times
felt like they were a little on edge especially in Storm Warning and bits of Minuet
in Hell. They work off each other so
well that I don’t really want to see them leave as the Doctor is getting
himself into trouble while Charley is just along for the ride as she knows she
can’t stop him from getting them into trouble.
She wants to go to Singapore but knows the TARDIS will get her there in
time so she enjoys the ride while she can.
McGann is good as well as he is completely in love with the script as
they have to go through everything.
The story isn’t
completely perfect however which is down to two things. First, the pacing is a bit off as the first
part takes a while to get going and the ending of the story feels rushed and
the second thing is just how this feels like a traditional Mark Gatiss story
which has the same tropes of good ideas with some weak characters, mainly because
there are a lot of stereotypes of gangsters and Cold War era Soviets even
though it doesn’t take place during the Cold War, but the Great Depression. I will praise Gatiss for actually directing
this story which makes it feel different from a production from Gary Russell or
Nicholas Briggs. It feels like the
direction is for a comedy with the timing of the music to let the jokes sink
in. The music was done by Alistair Lock
who makes the score feel very American yet very much fitting with the
depression era with a lot of trumpets and horns.
To summarize, Invaders from Mars is nothing perfect
but it’s got a story which was well done with some great comedy. Paul McGann and India Fisher are the best and
the guest talent is also really good with Simon Pegg having a guest part, but
there are quite a few stereotypes which bring it down along with some
lackluster pacing. 85/100
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