Sunday, November 27, 2016

The Invasion by: Derrick Sherwin from a story by: Kit Pedler directed by: Douglas Camfield: I Hate Computers and Refuse to Be Bullied By Them

The Invasion stars Patrick Troughton as the Doctor, Frazer Hines as Jamie McCrimmon, and Wendy Padbury as Zoe Heriot with Sally Faulkner as Isobel Watkins, Nicholas Courtney as Brigadier Lethebridge-Stewart, John Levene as Colonel Benton, Kevin Stoney as Tobias Vaughn, Peter Halliday as Packer and the Cybermen voices, and Pat Gorman, Ralph Carrigan, Charles Finch, John Spradbury, Derek Chafer, Terence Denville, Peter Thornton, and Richard King as the Cybermen.  It was written by Derrick Sherwin, from a story by Kit Pedler, and directed by Douglas Camfield, with Terrance Dicks as Script Editor, and Peter Bryant as Producer.  It was originally broadcast on Saturdays from 2 November to 21 December 1968 on BBC1.  Episode One and Episode Four are currently missing from the BBC Archives and have been reconstructed with animation from Cosgrove Hall.

 

So the late 1960s actually saw a decrease in ratings for Doctor Who which in tandem with a rigorous filming schedule forty to fifty weeks of the fifty-two week year, and constantly being over budget, it was decided that if the show was renewed for a seventh season they would change the format to an Earth bound series of science fiction espionage thrillers.  The Invasion however actually is the third story in the sixth season, opening the sixth production block of the show, but served as a test to see if the format would work.  It is the story that sees the return of Colonel Lethebridge-Stewart from The Web of Fear and introduces UNIT as a special taskforce to deal with alien invasions.  This time they’re up against the Cybermen, who don’t appear until the very end of Episode Four and this story is eight episodes long.  Yeah this is a story where you really have to have a good story when your draw, the villains don’t show up until halfway through and don’t actually invade until the end of Episode Six.  Good news though, this one has one real flaw and that is that the story is eight episodes long and Episode Seven in particular drags on at an extremely tiring pace that is filling time for half the run time. Other than that the serial is really good.  It is telling that this is part of a Golden Age for Doctor Who when an eight episode story is of such good quality that only one part of it drags and the rest of the story is on top form.

 

Episode One and Episode Four are currently missing from the BBC Archive and for the DVD have been reconstructed using animation.  Now quickie review of the animation itself outside of the story on a scale of ten.  It’s an 8/10 as while it is really good there is are a few little errors with Zoe’s costume for Episode One being off, and a lot of it looks just a bit too choppy, but it was 2006 so what are you going to do?  It’s accurate enough to the original episodes especially considering this one has a complete lack of visual material to use as reference except from the surviving episodes.  Episode One itself is a story that opens right from the end of The Mind Robber and has a complete different feeling from the rest of the story.  It is meant to be a homage to one of the old Quatermass serials with International Electromatics having a totalitarian compound in the countryside where people are being locked in.  We don’t see much of it, but the things that we do see give this climate of fear around the company before we even meet the villainous leader, Tobias Vaughn.  We get this gripping sense of realism as the Doctor, Jamie, and Zoe have to escape the compound and only do so after the guy they hitchhike with is shot by IE guards.  It’s just terrifying to see this random guy who we don’t know shot down early on in the story.  The tone sort of stays that way throughout the story with Don Harper’s atmospheric score to the story which will stay with you long after the final credits role.  It’s just terrifying.

 


The TARDIS has malfunctioned and the Doctor wants to repair the circuits through the help of Professor Travers from The Web of Fear and The Abominable Snowmen, but as there were rights issues they used a different, new character, saying Travers has gone to America.  This introduces us to Isobel Watkins, played by the lovely Sally Faulkner.  Isobel is the fourth companion for this episode even if she really isn’t a companion.  Isobel is an aspiring photographer who has had to use herself as model as a way to try and break into the industry.  She eventually photographs the Cybermen which actually give her that happy ending and she wants to save her uncle who is trapped by Tobias Vaughn at International Electromatics.  The interesting part of this is that she is an independent party in these proceedings and is dragged along on the adventure.  It’s something that allows for an interesting perspective for the proceedings which I like.  Faulkner plays off extremely well with the main cast as they go through the adventure trying to defeat the Cybermen.

 

By Episode Two the Doctor and Jamie have actually been to International Electromatics and we get Zoe’s first real moment of genius in this story.  She talks a computer into blowing itself up by giving it complex math equations.  It’s a scene in the story that is just hilarious as Padbury is having a lot of fun filming, she of course gets herself captured, but her main role in this story is to help UNIT with blowing up the Cybermen’s fleet which is going through space heading to Earth.  Padbury just gives Zoe this character of mischievous youthfulness that really has a lot of fun with the role and Sherwin’s writing exploits this for a lot of the runtime.  Episode Two also introduces us to Corporal Benton played by John Levene who throughout the actual story we get this impression of who this side character is.  It’s not down to Levene completely though as Douglas Camfield has cast actors with detailed character dossiers to play the characters even if they only get one line.  It’s just one reason I love Camfield’s direction in general and The Invasion is another great example of that happening.  Camfield is the best director for Doctor Who and The Invaion is full of great moments with direction, the cliffhangers are all great with Episode One, Episoe Three, Episode Four, and Episode Six are all great when looking at them.

 


Brigadier Lethebridge-Stewart appears in this story and UNIT really feels like a real military group especially considering the British Army helped with some of the action.  Seriously they got involved and the siege on International Electromatics and fighting the Cybermen are both great and done well.  Nicholas Courtney is great in the role and actually this is the story that made the Brigadier and the Doctor close friends.  Kevin Stoney plays Tobias Vaughn and he is just perfect in the role.  Stoney is an actor who has this sort of apathy in his performance and there is this dry sense of evil as he has a master plan to rule the world.  Stoney is just great in the role and you will love to hate the character.  Packer as played by Peter Halliday is Fritz to Vaughn’s Dr. Frankenstein.  He’s the henchman but you just love him as he screws almost everything up whenever he’s asked to do something.  It seems to be that Vaughn just cannot get rid of him as it would screw up with his plan.  Oh and of course there is no reason not to mention the star of the show Patrick Troughton as the Doctor.  He is the best thing about this story as he is the one to get into the action and the way he plays off Tobias Vaughn is just brilliant.  Going any further into it would really ruin this story if you haven’t seen it yet.

 

To summarize, The Invasion is nearly perfect.  The only flaw is that Episode Seven is too long.  95/100.  Oh I barely talked about the Cybermen? Who cares?

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