Who Review: The Invasion
The TARDIS reassembles itself, with crew safely inside, after the adventure with “The Mind Robber,” only to run into further difficulties. The Doctor, Jamie, and Zoe land on Earth, but a fault with the visual stabilizer renders the TARDIS invisible. The Doctor decides to call on Professor Travers, their friend from the Yeti adventures, to help with repairs. After hitching a ride to London in the back of a van, they find Travers is not at home. But the young lady who answers the door thinks her uncle, Professor Watkins, might be able to help. Except Professor Watkins hasn’t been seen since he went to work for International Electromatics. Indeed, there’s something not right about I.E., and the person in charge, Tobias Vaughn. And when our heroes try to investigate, they find not only their own lives are in danger, but Vaughn has allied himself with an alien force that plans to take control of all the inhabitants of planet Earth…
SPOILER ALERT!! My comments may (and likely will) contain spoilers for those that haven’t seen this serial. If you want to stay spoiler-free, please watch the story before you continue reading!
This eight-part story follows directly on from “The Mind Robber,” creating a neat three-story arc that started with “The Dominators.” It was common in the First Doctor era to have stories that ran into each other, particularly when each episode had its own title (overarching story titles only came in Season 3 with “The Savages”), but we haven’t seen as much of that with the Second Doctor. Unlike modern Who, these story arcs don’t have any connecting thread throughout (e.g., “Bad Wolf” or “Torchwood”)–they’re just follow-on adventures.
“The Invasion” was written by former script editor Derrick Sherwin (the legendary Terrance Dicks had just taken over the script editing job). At the time, it was the longest Doctor Who story since Season 3’s twelve-part epic “The Daleks’ Master Plan.” Some think it’s too long, but I beg to differ. It’s actually quite a well-paced story. I particularly like that we don’t actually encounter the central villains (the Cybermen) until the end of episode 4. Hints are dropped throughout (Vaughn’s unnatural blink rate, and the robotic voice Vaughn talks to, for example), but up until that point, the story plays out like an Earth-bound thriller, with Vaughn as the all-too-accommodating evil mastermind.
This story sees the return of Colonel Leithbridge-Stewart, now promoted to Brigadier, and in charge of a newly-formed military group, the United Nations Intelligence Task-force (U.N.I.T.). The purpose of this group is to investigate extraterrestrial phenomenon. We will see more of the Brigadier and U.N.I.T. in later stories. Indeed, part of the reason for U.N.I.T.’s creation was anticipating the following season, when the Doctor would be on Earth more permanently.
There’s a lot to like about “The Invasion,” not least is the fact that, again, Jamie and Zoe are made good use of–they aren’t just side-line characters who ask questions and make cups of tea. In fact, there’s a nice part near the end where Zoe asks the Brigadier what she can do to help. You’re expecting the Brigadier to send her away to put the kettle on. Instead, he has her help one of his men, and then is given room to use her mathematical genius to wipe out a whole fleet of Cyberman spacecraft.
I also like the way the Cybermen are used in this story. They’re not in every shot, and their appearances are dramatically staged. In fact, they are actually scary, which is not always the case in other Cybermen stories, unfortunately. There’s a scene when Vaughn calls his Security Chief on the visual display, and after a pause, a Cyberman’s face appears. It’s unexpected, and creates a wonderfully terrifying moment. And, of course, there’s that iconic shot of Cybermen pouring out of the sewers and walking down the steps in front of St. Paul’s Cathedral (a scene re-created in the New Series 8 story “Dark Water”).
Kevin Stoney does an excellent job as the villainous Vaughn, whose body has already been converted by the Cybermen, his brain being the only part of him still human. There’s a chilling scene where Vaughn invites the enraged Professor Watkins to shoot him, which he does. It’s really quite adult for a 1968 children’s show. Vaughn slaps Watkins because he won’t do it. Provoked, Watkins points the gun and fires three shots. We see gun blasts, and hear Vaughn laugh off-camera. Watkins reels. Then we see Vaughn, still laughing, three smoking bullet holes in his shirt. Very effective drama.
The story was released as a 2-DVD set, with the eight episodes split over the two discs, along with a good amount of extras. Episodes 1 and 4 of “The Invasion” are missing from the BBC archives, so for this release, famed animation studio Cosgrove-Hall re-created the episodes using existing pictures and footage, along with the audio for each episode, to guide them. It’s not an animation style I particularly like, where most of the action is in the eyes and mouth, but it does help bring the audio to life. They did do a good job of matching sound to action, which I don’t doubt is hard to do. One major snafu, however, is that they have Zoe wearing the wrong clothes at the beginning of episode 1. She should be wearing her shiny jumpsuit from “The Mind Robber”; instead she’s in the blouse and skirt she changes into later. Oh well.
The DVD extras include a commentary track, a 50-minute “Making of” feature, and videos of how the animation was done. There’s also a really interesting short documentary, “Love Off-Air” in which Who fans talk about how they used to audio record their favorite show in the days before VCR. It includes interviews with long-time fans whose tape recordings are the only record we have of some early Doctor Who episodes.
In short, I would say “The Invasion” is must-viewing for Whovians, and essential viewing for fans of the Second Doctor.
