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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