The Invasion Episode Two

The one where Zoe blows up an answering machine using the power of algorithmic language...

I wonder why designer Richard Hunt decided to have Vaughan's secret wall open on an awkward hinge rather than simply slide aside? It wouldn't have taken half as long to open, and would make more practical sense. However, this awkwardness doesn't prevent Tobias Vaughan from activating the wall at every possible opportunity, waiting patiently for the wall to fold away before his latest verbal tussle with, well... whatever that machine is! Again, Hunt has made some bizarre design choices when it comes to this machine, and it looks like it's made from washing-up bowls, colanders and plastic cups! Also, it talks like Rocky Balboa on Xanax.

His relationship with who or whatever is behind the machine is interesting in that Vaughan believes he is in charge, that he leads the operation (ie, the impending invasion). Who or what is intending to invade is a mystery for now, but Kevin Stoney gives Vaughan such a sharp self-confidence, in one scene his anger bubbling over as he demands information from his shadowy allies. They don't tell him very much more, but it seems the invaders have knowledge of the Doctor from a previous encounter on Planet 14... whatever that is.

The adventure on Planet 14 is never seen on TV, but is expanded on in spin-off fiction, such as in Ian Marter's novelisation of The Invasion in which it is given the alternative names Sol XIV or Sigma Gamma 14. This same planet is also referenced in the books Killing Ground, Iceberg, More Short Trips and The Hollow Men, while the DWM strip comic The World Shapers famously revealed that Planet 14 was actually Marinus! More recently, it's been mentioned in the Big Finish audio Human Resources and, rather thrillingly, by the Twelfth Doctor in The Doctor Falls.

The narrative has wisely been split into two strands by Derrick Sherwin already - the Doctor and Jamie, and Zoe and Isobel - and although the boys get to do and find out much more than the girls, Zoe and Isobel sure make a good team! I must say it feels a little strange to see Zoe in a contemporary Earth setting, and this is the only time we ever see her in such surroundings (this is the most Sixties Doctor Who has felt since The War Machines). Wendy Padbury looks gorgeous (if a little incongruous) in mini-skirt and feather boa, and her time hanging out with Isobel is a joy to share. Isobel continues to impress me - any girl who buys an old gramophone from Portobello Road market and plays The Teddy Bears' Picnic while having coffee is a girl Doctor Who should have more of!

Zoe and Isobel go to International Electromatics to try and find the Doctor and Jamie, and this is where Zoe encounters the dreaded computerised receptionist that the Doctor took so against in episode 1. Zoe uses her knowledge of computer language to confuse and diffuse the machine, quaintly using ALGOL to talk it to death. It was pretty fresh of Doctor Who to be referencing ALGOL at this time, as the computer language had only been invented ten years earlier by computer scientists in Zurich. This is obviously the direct influence of Doctor Who's own scientific adviser, Kit Pedler. It must have seemed quite futuristic in 1968, the notion that you could talk a computer into exploding, or even talk to a computer at all!

Meanwhile, the Doctor and Jamie are pursued and apprehended by mysterious men in a green 1962 Jaguar (I checked with the DVLA; this Jag's not been taxed since 1995). They're taken to an airfield, accompanied by Don Harper's jaunty musical score, and reunited with Nicholas Courtney's Lethbridge-Stewart (now a Brigadier!). Hooray - the future is born, with UNIT getting its very first mention at 6mins 41secs. But what's this? I've rewatched the scene over and over and I'm convinced that Courtney calls John Levene "Benson" rather than Benton! Also, why doesn't the Brig ask why Victoria isn't with the Doctor and Jamie?

This new-fangled UNIT has some serious hardware (as Ace might say!), including a secret base inside an aircraft (I checked with PlaneLogger; this craft was scrapped in 2001). There has to be a direct influence here from Thunderbirds, but the whole atmosphere and feel of UNIT also gives it an ITC sheen, despite being in black and white. UNIT feels serious and gritty, which it would continue to be in Season 7, but which would be gradually lost through the cosy Pertwee years.

I like how UNIT have been monitoring Vaughan's set-up for some time now, noticing that some people have been going missing there, or becoming oddly changed following a visit. We see snaps of Cambridge physics lecturer Gordon Jones and the Ministry of Defence's Billy Rutlidge who have been mixed up in Vaughan's schemes (spookily, there is a real Gordon Jones at the University of Liverpool, an Emeritus Professor of electrical engineering and electronics, while in the real world, a William Rutledge has a key part in UFO and lunar conspiracy theory). We also learn that the swarthy lorry driver from episode 1 was a UNIT agent.

Side note: In the scene where the Doctor and Jamie are being pursued by Benton (at 1min 12sec), they pass a wall with some graffiti written on and I'm very curious as to what it says. I can make some of it out and hazard a guess that it says something like "To Lulu, Demon and ????, Incomplete Education". What does it mean?! Interestingly, the initials of "Incomplete Education" are IE...

This episode has a great amount of intelligence, but ultimately goes round in circles. It serves to reintroduce the Brigadier and his new UNIT set-up, and peels back more information about IE, but on the surface all that happens is that the girls go looking for the boys and get captured, and the boys go looking for the girls and get captured! Now that everybody is in the clutches of Tobias Vaughan, maybe we'll start to find out a bit more about this impending invasion and exactly who or what is behind it...

First broadcast: November 9th, 1968

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: There's so much to celebrate about the way this episode is written and directed, but for me, the stand-out moment is all down to Patrick Troughton's unique delivery. When the Brigadier asks Walters if they have a TM-45 handy, the Doctor says: "Is that a tank?". Classic! Side note: that TM-45 prop actually lasts longer than you might think - it's also used in Doctor Who and the Silurians, The Ambassadors of Death, Terror of the Autons, The Daemons, Day of the Daleks, The Time Monster and The Green Death - look out for it!
The Bad: The alien machine is a poor design hidden behind a poorly-designed secret wall!
Overall score for episode: ★★★★★★★★☆☆

NEXT TIME: Episode 3...

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