The Invasion Episode Six

The one where the invasion finally begins...

"Isobel, where are yoooooo!" hoots plummy thesp Robert Sidaway as Captain Turner and his men search the sewers for Jamie, Zoe and Isobel. I like the tentative romance that Derrick Sherwin has sketched in between Turner and Isobel, and although it doesn't go very far, there's an obvious attraction, and it makes a pleasant change for Doctor Who to take moments to flesh out characters like this, such as in the scene near the end where Turner joins Isobel at the window at dawn.

The scenes in the sewers are directed and lit beautifully by Douglas Camfield and Robbie Robinson, and the silver giants look truly eerie emerging from the gloom, their chest plates flashing and their powerful, implacable silhouettes picked out in the dark. I've always maintained that the Cybermen looked their best in black and white, and never quite recaptured their 60s spookiness in colour, and this is a prime example.

In fact, Camfield's whole treatment of the Cybermen is impressive. The director had a military background of his own, and makes sure the Cybermen come across as a formidable force. There are brief scenes of them gathering in the sewers, and Camfield places a Cyberman in every corner of the frame - one stands to the right, another to the left in the distance, a third climbing down into frame, and a fourth passing from left to right across the screen. It makes them look numerous and powerful, and when they start to march along the sewer tunnel, he has more step into frame to join the line as they approach camera. It demonstrates Camfield's supreme command of the screen and how to make just a little seem such a lot.

The scene where the Cyberman follows Jamie up the sewer ladder and grabs his leg is pure horror (echoing a similar scene in The Tomb of the Cybermen where a Cyberman grabs the Doctor's leg). We then have Sergeant Walters bash away at the Cyberman's metal arm with his rifle butt until it lets go, and finally Benton chucks a grenade down after it. BOOM! Both UNIT and the Cybermen come out of this looking like credible, powerful armies, thanks to Camfield's handling.

Which is all for the best because we sadly don't get to see UNIT in action in this episode, despite the fact they've been in action. Captain Turner's assault on Vaughan's convoy to rescue Watkins happens between scenes in a painfully obvious case of trying to save money. First the Brigadier's mentioning what hell Turner and his men will cause Vaughan, cut to the next scene where it's all done and dusted and a bereft Gregory is carrying the can. I don't buy it, it's edited so quickly that it leaves the viewer feeling cheated, and a little disorientated, trying to catch up. And it doesn't end there, because we then cut from this scene to the next where Gregory is being murdered by Cybermen in the sewer. But it's shot and cut so choppily that you barely have time to recognise who's being killed, where, and why, before the story moves on yet again. The failing is in the editing rather than the execution of the scenes.

The confrontation between Professor Watkins and Vaughan is tense, thanks to Edward Burnham's portrayal of a broken man whose talents have been used against his will. Watkins's dislike for Vaughan is all too obvious: "Vaughan, obviously I can't choose but to work for you. If I refuse, you'll torture me or kill me. I know I can't stand up to torture, and I don't want to die. You're an evil man, Vaughan. You're sadistic. You're a megalomaniac. You're insane. I pity you, but if I get half a chance, I'll kill you!"

And then Vaughan gives him that chance, hands him a loaded revolver and invites him to fire (and my god, Kevin Stoney doesn't half give Edward Burnham a crack across the face!). Watkins shoots, almost paralysed with a mix of fear and excitement, but then his face falls as he sees that his bullets have had no effect. As hinted at in episode 5, Vaughan's body is cybernetic, he is impregnable. Only his human mind remains organic.

Despite the Turner/ Isobel romance, Sherwin does drop the ball with other characters. Jamie and Zoe are almost entirely sidelined, with Zoe particularly suffering by having her role taken by Isobel for the most part.

And after six episodes it would have been nice to see Isobel and her uncle reunited, rather than them just appear in a scene together. I don't think they even exchange words! Just a quick embrace, or just a physical closeness in the scene we do have, would go a long way to convincing me these two people are related. As it is, I don't believe they give a fig about one another!

As the episode draws to an end, finally the invasion begins, with the Cybermen emerging from the sewers and marching down streets and past landmarks like Nazi raiders. Camfield depicts much of the human horror by concentrating on a few quick cuts between anonymous Londoners - an architect sliding to the ground, his specs disheveled, a charlady clutching her face, a window cleaner turning to the sky in horror, a driver dead at his wheel. Short, sharp snapshot reactions to the invasion, in an effort to hide the fact there isn't much footage of the actual invasion itself, which is something of a shame. The iconic shot of Cybermen at St Paul's Cathedral is so brief I'm surprised it's gone down in Doctor Who history as strongly as it has.

But again, it's directed so well by Camfield, who really sells the idea that the Cybermen are out in force. While not quite the hundreds mentioned, we're suitably convinced that the Cybermen are a force to be reckoned with... but perhaps only until UNIT come out to play? The last time Douglas Camfield directed UNIT fighting monsters on the streets of London, the result was fantastic (The Web of Fear).

First broadcast: December 7th, 1968

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: Camfield's direction makes the Cybermen seem a credible force.
The Bad: Isobel and her uncle haven't even said hello. And poor Wendy Padbury barely gets a line all episode!
Overall score for episode: ★★★★★★★☆☆☆

NEXT TIME: Episode Seven...

My reviews of this story's other episodes: Episode One; Episode Two; Episode Three; Episode Four; Episode Five; 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.