Invasion of the Dinosaurs Part Three

The one where Sarah discovers there's another traitor in their midst...

Captain Yates - the man directly responsible for rendering the Doctor's stun gun inoperable and endangering his life - leaps to the rescue, partially through natural military heroism, but probably much more through guilt. When he reports back to his new superiors at Operation Golden Age, he stresses just how upset he is that the Doctor was almost killed due to the sabotaging of the stun gun, but come on Mike... it's completely your fault! When Mike suggests to Butler and Whitaker that perhaps they should let the Doctor in on their plans as he might be sympathetic to them, that's when you realise Mike is somewhat out of his depth with these guys. Whatever Operation Golden Age's full intentions are, Mike seems naively unaware of just how far they're willing to go to achieve them...

And anyway, as if the Doctor would even contemplate the sanity of Operation Golden Age. It's transporting rampaging killer monsters millions of years through time to central London, for heaven's sake! That's just not sane, in anybody's book.

UNIT manages to chain up the sleeping T Rex so that the Doctor can study it and trace the origin of the time dispersal when it finally zips off back to the Cretaceous. The close-up on the T Rex's head is actually much more convincing than the full-body long shots. It even has moving eyes and properly sculpted scales.

Sarah asks who else might have access to time travel technology, and they all consider who on Earth might have it, completely ignoring the fact there might be something alien behind it all. In fact, this is Doctor Who, so it's much more likely that it is alien intervention than it is human. The Doctor should be considering the Master as a prime culprit, maybe the Sontarans too (Linx was using time technology in The Time Warrior), but they bog themselves down wondering about which Earth scientists might be behind it. After mention of one Chung-Sen (who hasn't been born yet), they settle on Professor Whitaker, who once applied to the government for a grant to carry out his time experiments, but got turned down. Now, he's disappeared. What a coincidence! It's great that Sarah, the journalist, comes up with the principle lead in the investigation, which sees writer Malcolm Hulke recognising the character's strengths and using them.

Despite being told by the Brigadier that she's not allowed to take photos (as if the eight million people evacuated from central London are blissfully unaware of the giant lizards in the capital!), Sarah accidentally wakes up the slumbering T Rex using the power of flash photography. I once went to a Doctor Who convention where Nicola "Peri" Bryant insisted fans didn't use flash photography to snap her on stage because the lights blinded her. The gnashing teeth of Bryant and the T Rex were not dissimilar!

The unnecessary presence of Sir Charles Grover gains greater importance in part 3, as you begin to realise that his genial, affable demeanour is actually allowing him to gently distract and derail our heroes. First, he pooh-poohs the idea that Whitaker could be behind the time dispersal by branding him a "harmless crank", and later tries to throw Sarah off the trail of underground nuclear bunkers by claiming they were never built. He's a cat among pigeons, spying on and trying to throw the good guys off the scent. Noel Johnson is marvellous in the part.

The scene where Sarah goes to see Grover at his offices in Whitehall is beautifully played, especially by Johnson, who gently goes along with Sarah's questions and ideas as if aiding her, but actually, as we discover, leading her to danger. When he tells Sarah that he has a room full of secret files, and says: "Let's take a look...", my hackles rise immediately. They go into the room, he closes the door quietly behind them, and a second door silently glides across to trap them in. He then humours Sarah's search through the files, and those with keen hearing will notice the gentle hum in the background, which we soon discover is the sound of a lift. The entire room is a secret elevator, and it takes them down to the equally as secret underground bunker, which presumably has its own independent nuclear generator. The slow revelation of all this is masterfully written, acted and directed, and the realisation that yes, Sir Charles Grover is a traitor as well is a satisfying twist.

Also, the Doctor discovers that his machinery has been sabotaged again, and the chains which held the T Rex were tampered with, allowing it to easily escape (the scene where the dinosaur smashes through the brick wall is both ambitious and comical, like Jurassic Park done on pocket money). I love the bit where the Brigadier dismisses the UNIT soldier in the room (but not Benton, who he obviously trusts regardless) as soon as it's revealed there's a traitor in the ranks.

The cliffhanger is one of those fantastic Doctor Who moments which come out of nowhere, and are all the better for it. Sarah is lulled into some kind of coma, and when she comes round, the first thing she sees is a handsome young man in tight denim saying: "Welcome, sister!" (take me there now). Disturbingly, someone has changed Sarah out of her own clothes into tight denim as well, which suggests all sorts of illicit goings-on. The man, Mark, tells Sarah that she is on a spaceship, and when she looks out of the window she sees they are in space, travelling to another planet. "We left Earth three months ago," says Mark.

Whaaaaaaaaaaat?????

Now that's what you call a cliffhanger!

First broadcast: January 26th, 1974

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: The cliffhanger is a magnificent twist in a story packed with twists. Invasion of the Dinosaurs feels like the fifth Season 7 story.
The Bad: There's some more ropey CSO with terrible yellow fringing.
Overall score for episode: ★★★★★★★★★★

"Now listen to me" tally: 30
Neck-rub tally: 14

NEXT TIME: Part Four...

My reviews of this story's other episodes: Part One; Part Two; Part Four; Part Five; Part Six

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/2014/06/invasion-of-dinosaurs.html

Invasion of the Dinosaurs is available on BBC DVD as part of the UNIT Files box set. Find it on Amazon - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Who-U-N-I-T-Invasion-Dinosaurs/dp/B006H4R8W6