The Invasion review [Derrick Sherwin]

The Doctor, Jamie and Zoe are fired at from a spaceship hidden on the Moon before materialising on Earth, where they find themselves entangled in the mission of the newly-formed UNIT. Genius Professor Watkins has gone missing and not everyone who enters the main office of International Electromatics come out.

When and Where: The Web of Fear took place over forty years after 1935, making it 1976 at the earliest. The Invasion is in the summer four years after this, setting it in 1980. Sarah Jane Smith comes from 1980 and this takes place seven months before Spearhead from Space, so this couldn't be possible. Perhaps it's the summer of 1979 and the Brigadier was wrong about it having been four years. This means that all of UNIT's adventures from Spearhead from Space to, at least, Robot are set in 1980. Let's ignore anything that might have been said in Mawdryn Undead.

However, Last of the Cybermen explicitly dates this story as being set in 1975, meaning that The Web of Fear was in 1971 and the Third Doctor's involvement with UNIT began in 1976. This contradicts what Professor Travers says in The Web of Fear about how the Yeti attack in Tibet was over forty years before - it would have been only thirty-six years. Perhaps he wasn't very good at maths?

To conclude, The Invasion takes place in either the summer of 1975 or 1979. I'd be inclined to think 1975 given that Last of the Cybermen is the only bit of TV/Big Finish media to actually give the specific date.

The Doctor's Case:

• A Good Quotation:
  
• "Do you not write anything on paper at all?" / "I'd only lose it if I did. Writing on a wall's much safer. You can't lose a wall, can you?"
• "Next time, read the notice on the door!" / "Oh, don't tell me you can read as well. What else can you do?"
• "If there's trouble to be found, the Doctor and Jamie can't miss it."
• "Hey, are you stinking rich?"
• Cyberman reveal in episode 4
• I've seen some complaints that The Invasion is too long. Perhaps episodes 3 and 4 could have been merged, but otherwise I find Tobias Vaughn and International Electromatics to be good enough villains in their own right and more than tide us over until the Cybermen emerge. Vaughn is a memorable human villain
• In the '60s, we've had screaming girls like Susan Foreman and Victoria Waterfield travelling in the TARDIS as our heroes and identification figures. Then we've had guest characters like Samantha Briggs in The Faceless Ones and Isobel Watkins in this story. Strong, capable, active women more than capable of travelling time and space. Isobel is one that might be irritating if she was a companion but she functions perfectly well in this story, being more than just a replacement for Anne Travers. She's an ambitious photographer with a few quirks (namely writing on walls because they're more difficult to lose than bits of paper) and is very much a feminist, rebelling against what she sees as the Brigadier's bigotry. She has a fun relationship with Zoe and brings out more of the girl behind the scientist. Saying all this, she might have needed a Donna-style mellowing before being a companion.
  
• Despite being devoid of emotions, when Cybermen die they scream for some reason. However, there are times where it's not a bad thing. The cries of the Cybermen at the end of Rise of the Cybermen/The Age of Steel as they come to their senses and realise what they are is chilling. The mad Cyberman in this story, like in Tennant's story, has a valid reason for screaming and it's a very scary thing to witness, hobbling through the sewers shrieking.
• The quality of the animations of lost Doctor Who episodes are variable. Quite a few are rudimentary and unimpressive, but episodes 1 and 4 of The Invasion are absolutely beautiful, carrying so much atmosphere and conveying action so well.

The Valeyard's Case:

• A Bad Quotation:
• "I think those crazy kids have gone off to the sewers to get photographs of the Cybermen."
• "Yes, sir. Something called a Cyber-megatron bomb."
• Episodes 3 and 4 feel like padding. It's fortunate that the Doctor and his companions are charismatic and watchable enough that I don't mind.
• The Cyberman voices are borderline incomprehensible at times and are a real step down from The Tomb of the Cybermen (at the time of writing I've not yet watched The Wheel in Space).

I'll Explain Later:

• Where did these Cybermen come from? Are they from Mondas? If so, why do they look and sound so different to the Cybermen that arrive on Earth some years later in The Tenth Planet?

This Reminds Me...:

• The Doctor, Jamie and Zoe go looking Professor Edward Travers, who helped fight against the Great Intelligence in The Abominable Snowmen and The Web of Fear. Jack Watling was, unfortunately, unavailable for filming for this serial or his creators refused to allow him to be used because of their experience in writing The Dominators. It depends where you look. He later appears in Downtime.
• In the animation, the car that takes the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe to London bears the licence plate "11-22-63", the airdate of the first part of An Unearthly Child.
• In the animation, it says "Bad Wolf" on Isobel's wall.
• Jamie previously met the Cybermen in The Moonbase, The Tomb of the Cybermen and Zoe's first story, The Wheel in Space.
• Kevin Stoney (Tobias Vaughn), Sheila Dunn (the computer voice) and Clifford Earl (Major Branwell) previously appeared in The Daleks' Master Plan as Mavic Chen, Blossom Lefavre and the station sergeant respectively. Edward Burnham (Professor Watkins) previously appeared as Professor Jeremiah Kettlewell in Robot. Ian Fairbairn (Gregory) previously appeared as Questa in The Macra Terror.
  

The Inquisitor's Judgement: On a scale from Silver Nemesis to World Enough and Time/The Doctor Falls, The Invasion definitely falls on the higher end of the Cyberman stories, although this isn't really because of the Cybermen themselves. Tobias Vaughn is a menacing, smooth-talking villain and the first appearance of UNIT proves that it deserves to be the staple that it became in the Third Doctor's era and beyond. The Doctor, Jamie, Zoe, Isobel and the Brigadier are all fantastic and such an easy cast to watch and listen to. The Invasion is very good, and that earns it an A.

Doctor Who (Season 6)

The Mind Robber  |  The Invasion  |  The Krotons