The Invasion Episode Four

The one where the identity of the invaders is revealed...

It's back to animation for the missing fourth episode, and it's a real shame that this particular edition is lost as the action-packed helicopter escape scenes would be thrilling to watch (plus, it's Doctor Who's fifth anniversary episode). Douglas Camfield was one of the best action directors Doctor Who ever had, and I am sure this sequence would have been shot with class and pace (remember his work on the Yeti invasion of Covent Garden in The Web of Fear?). It's not often you get a UNIT helicopter rescuing the Doctor and his companions from the roof of a multi-storey tower block, while being shot at.

Which reminds me, Packer and his men really are incompetent fools. They're armed with machine guns and pistols, but can't seem to hit a single one of their targets. As Captain Turner jokes: "Fortunately, Vaughan's jackboots couldn't shoot a flying elephant!" I think even I, with zero experience and training in artillery fire and weapon-handling, could probably manage to shoot down a person dangling from a rope ladder, or even just blow a hole in a helicopter's fuel tank.

Packer's incompetence riles Vaughan once more, but this time Packer defends himself, saying that he should have been allowed to kill the Doctor straight away, as their allies ordered. This really annoys Vaughan, who reminds his lackey that "I give orders, not take them!" Vaughan really has a thing about control, and being seen to be in control. He decides to bring the invasion forward by 24 hours, almost on a whim, but it seems to me he's really thought this through very well. When Packer fears that they won't be able to control their alien allies, Vaughan reveals his plan: let the aliens invade and seize control, then overthrow them by using Professor Watkins's cerebraton mentor. If that doesn't work out, they can escape using the Doctor's space and time machine. Ambitious, if not water-tight.

Vaughan does have a silly habit of giving his enemies more opportunities than necessary. In episode 3 he gave the Doctor one hour to hand over the TARDIS (or else Zoe gets Packered), and here he allows him 10 minutes to give himself up (or else Zoe gets Packered). As the Doctor says, that's "just about enough time to affect a rescue operation"! Why 10 minutes? Why not immediately? Gah!

There are a couple of clues in this episode as to the true identity of the invaders, as Vaughan refers to what they might do to Packer: he would be converted and become completely inhuman. If we piece together that with what we already know - a weird electronic machine behind the wall, Vaughan's reliance on duplication and uniformity, and the presence of packing cases transferring something living from A to B - we can make an educated guess that our old friends the Cybermen might be involved.

And sure enough, the cliffhanger reveals that it is indeed the silver giants behind the invasion. The cliffhanger scene is animated beautifully by Cosgrove Hall, dripping with shadow, silhouette and flashing lights, and the final reveal, with the Cyberman bursting out of the gauze, is thrilling (copied 15 years later in Earthshock). Brian Hodgson's special sounds come to the fore here too, with the rhythmic, heartbeat-like bleeping from the revival machine adding to the automated awe.

Let's hope the Cybermen have thought their plan through properly this time, and this isn't a repeat of the jumbled mess that was The Wheel in Space.

First broadcast: November 23rd, 1968

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: The helicopter rescue is thrilling.
The Bad: Security at International Electromatics HQ is pretty poor if the Doctor and Jamie can just paddle into the basement unhindered.
Overall score for episode: ★★★★★★★★☆☆

NEXT TIME: Episode Five...

My reviews of this story's other episodes: Episode One; Episode Two; Episode Three; Episode Five; Episode Six; Episode Seven; Episode Eight

Find out birth/death dates, career information, and facts and trivia about this story's cast and crew at the Doctor Who Cast & Crew site: http://doctorwhocastandcrew.blogspot.com/2014/03/the-invasion.html

The Invasion is available on BBC DVD. Find it on Amazon - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Who-Invasion-Disc-Set/dp/B000GH2VOK.