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The Invasion Of Time
daveyboy7472
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Though it's a minor improvement on Underworld, this story still continues the downwards spiral of the Series towards the end of Season 15 and is the worst of all the 6-Parters from Tom Baker's Era. As some sort of sequel to The Deadly Assassin it fails miserably.
I think the idea of of The Doctor behaving out of character for 3-4 episodes was a novel one but it starts to grate after a while with The Doctor becomingly increasingly smug during this period. The only upside to this is Leela, who effectively carries the action in The Doctor's usual absence.
There are three major problems with this story. The first is the realisation of The Vardans both in their glittery form(which does look better in the CGI version) and the revelation that they are human-like. Why couldn't they have been more alien in appearance?
The main one off course is Leela's departure. Unlike Jo's where the romance was built up from the first episode of The Green Death, Leela's sudden declaration of love for Andred is somewhat surprising as it hadn't featured previously in the story. I always have felt Leela should have gone out fighting as was her savage nature but she went out on a whimper. What made it more surprising that The Doctor allowed her to stay on Gallifrey was the fact he hadn't even allowed Sarah to go there with him.
The other big debating point about this story has always been the different TARDIS interior shown in this story. before this, I had always imagined it to be exactly as it was portrayed later in Logopolis and Castrovalva with the roundels everywhere. I just find that more acceptable. Though the TARDIS 'hum' was heard the look of the interior in this story looked exactly as it was, an inside location and it just didn't gel for me.
There are a few minor good points in this story. I like Milton John's portrayal as the smarmy and slimy Kelner and John Arnatt always amuses as Borusa, an incarnation far removed from that in The Five Doctors. (Loved the newspaper article he was reading in the TARDIS and his interest in it)I also thought the exterior scenes where Leela in her natural habitat were a welcome relief from the other aspects of the story but aside from that there was no doubt by this point in Tom Baker's Era it had hit rock bottom. Thankfully the next Season would pick it up again IMO.
I think the idea of of The Doctor behaving out of character for 3-4 episodes was a novel one but it starts to grate after a while with The Doctor becomingly increasingly smug during this period. The only upside to this is Leela, who effectively carries the action in The Doctor's usual absence.
There are three major problems with this story. The first is the realisation of The Vardans both in their glittery form(which does look better in the CGI version) and the revelation that they are human-like. Why couldn't they have been more alien in appearance?
The second is The Sontarans. After two superb performances by Kevin Lindsay in previous stories, the impact of the Sontarans surprise appearance is quickly dispersed by them being treated like idiots and the leader having a Cockney accent.
The main one off course is Leela's departure. Unlike Jo's where the romance was built up from the first episode of The Green Death, Leela's sudden declaration of love for Andred is somewhat surprising as it hadn't featured previously in the story. I always have felt Leela should have gone out fighting as was her savage nature but she went out on a whimper. What made it more surprising that The Doctor allowed her to stay on Gallifrey was the fact he hadn't even allowed Sarah to go there with him.
The other big debating point about this story has always been the different TARDIS interior shown in this story. before this, I had always imagined it to be exactly as it was portrayed later in Logopolis and Castrovalva with the roundels everywhere. I just find that more acceptable. Though the TARDIS 'hum' was heard the look of the interior in this story looked exactly as it was, an inside location and it just didn't gel for me.
There are a few minor good points in this story. I like Milton John's portrayal as the smarmy and slimy Kelner and John Arnatt always amuses as Borusa, an incarnation far removed from that in The Five Doctors. (Loved the newspaper article he was reading in the TARDIS and his interest in it)I also thought the exterior scenes where Leela in her natural habitat were a welcome relief from the other aspects of the story but aside from that there was no doubt by this point in Tom Baker's Era it had hit rock bottom. Thankfully the next Season would pick it up again IMO.
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Yes despite all it's faults Invasion of Time does have one redeeming feature and that's the appearance of the Sonrarans at the end of ep4 which for me is one of the best cliff hangers ever.
agreed - the strike that was going on at the BBC at the time certainly had a big effect on this story andthe production team did the best with what they had but the interior of the factory doubkling for the TARDIS was simply awful as did the rest of the sets. It's a pitty really because I think with better scripting and no strike action Invasion of Time could potentially have been a very good story.
I've not watched this one for a few years now, but I remember being incredibly disappointed when I bought the DVD and watched it (for the first time since its original transmission).
Even by 70s-Who standards, the special effects are just awful. The story is mostly nonsense. The inside of the TARDIS is terrible. The Sontarans seem little more than a plot device to add on an extra couple of episodes. Leela and K-9's departure is TERRIBLE.
Tom puts in a good performance throughout, though.
As for the ending, why did Leela want to marry a guy she has hardly met? How come Leela was allowed on Gallifrey but Sarah wasn't?
It really, really wasn't though. If proof were needed that bringing back a successful adversary and a successful world didn't make for a successful story, this one provides it. The Sontarans are wasted, the story is weak and even the acting isn't as good as it should be.
The set design is ghastly. K9 is very noisy. There are some very silly sound effects. Other than Kelner and Borusa, the supporting characters are unmemorable. People stand around waiting to be shot and then gently tumble to the ground. Tom is madly OTT and, even though they go some way to explain he's trying to confuse the Vardans, it's still madly OTT. At the end, the Doctor just builds a big gun and uses it to switch off the story.
Bloody awful.
There should be an epic sense of scale - this is Gallifrey, home of the Time Lords, being invaded!! But it's all so humdrum and minor. The Vardans are perhaps the least threatening invaders ever, certainly the most boring and none of the Time Lords seem the slightest bit bothered by what's happening. Gallifrey itself is horribly plastic and cheap looking (comprising of just a couple of short corridors and one or two rooms it seems). The acting isn't especially worse than usual, but it's all rather run of the mill and beyond Baker's manic and hyperactive performance no-one makes an impression.
The stuff that does stick in my mind is the glaring faults - the appalling direction of K-9 is one. That prop had been used for a good six months by this point so surely everyone ought to have known how slow it was, and how dreadfully noisy. So why include umpteen scenes that require K-9 to trundle around for what seems like hours and then have him 'creep' up behind guards who apparently can't hear that deafeningly whiney motor!
The inside of the TARDIS - well, there's no reason why it couldn't look like a disused hospital, but as an 11 year old watching this for the first time back in early 1978 nothing about these scenes rang true. I had happily suspended my disbelief over hundreds of Doctor Who scenes in the past, and would do again, but this location doubling as the TARDIS just seemed incredibly lazy.
And as the story was written by Graham Williams and Tony Read, you can't blame the writers for not understanding Who's budgets. What were they thinking off? How did they imagine that this would ever look good? But despite the overambitious ideas that the script half-heartedly tries to deliver, the finished programme is so woefully underambitious, slapdash and couldn't-care-less that there's little for the viewer to care about.
Surely the abandoned Killer Cats script can't have been worse than this?
yes, many aspects were lacking but as a belt and braces job, it was ok.
My gripes were:
Vardens could have been better realised.
Leela should have been killed off or left to join the Gallifreyans in the wilderness..
The Doctor less out of character, more subtlety.
The Time Lords in better numbers and reacting more appropriately to invasion.
Tardis interior scale could have been realised by moving the set walls around, or at least had brick work and plaster masked with roundels.
But, i still enjoyed it and thought that the Sontarans were portrayed appropriately as brutish tbugs.
It's basically a four-part story linked to a two-part story.
The tin-foil Vardens were a bit cringeworthy (more suited to Hartnell's era!)
I too wasn't keen on that Tardis layout......more imagination needed there there methinks!
Very abrupt departure for Leela too. But all in all I still love to re-watch it now and again, and enjoy the memories of those 70's serials! I like to play the commentary too
Leela's exit is also weak since she chooses to leave the Doctor for the biggest wet blanket on the set. Hell, she had better chemistry with Rodan. I actually heard somewhere that Jameson originally wanted Leela to be killed off, defending the Doctor, which would have been interesting, though I wouldn't be surprised if they did go with that, it would have looked flat. The fact that she takes K9 with her, only for Four to have a spare handy makes me think that they decided against losing the tin dog at the last moment but couldn't re-shoot the scene.
Not the best of the season.
I don't think that this was the case, actually.
The original K-9 prop had all sorts of problems, not least the horrendous noise of its motors, and the fact that its radio controls badly interfered with the cameramen's headsets.
So the decision was taken to almost completely rebuild the workings of the prop in the break between seasons.
So K-9 Mark II was officially introduced, though to be honest I can't imagine that the viewers would ever have noticed much difference, beyond the prop being a bit quieter.
More or less completely agree with this. One of my least favourite stories of Tom's era. I remember seeing it as a kid and being quite excited when the Sontarans turned up but watching it back it is just yet another random plot development. For all the moaning about the modern scripts I bet none has so many holes in them as Invasion of Time. In fact there is more hole than plot.
There's a cliffhanger (pt5 maybe??) when the Doctor and chums are in the Tardis and Kelner does "something" which makes the Tardis get sucked towards a hole in time, or somesuch nonsense. The next episode begins with the Doctor leaping to his feet and flicking a switch, immediately solving the problem and returning everything to normal.
Dreadful.
Speaking of which, to me Season 15 is one of the most erratic (and poor) in a long while. I'd go so far to say since Season 6 -Troughton's last (maybe even more so). If The Horror of Fang Rock & The Imagine of Fendahl were as bad as some of the others in the season I'd go so far to say the worst season across the first 6 Doctors until McCoy's first season (& that's a fairly bold call).
It is but I can see your point, in the post above I said I thought Underworld and Invasion of Time were Tom's worst and I think Invisible Enemy would get bottom 5 but I really like Fang Rock and Fendahl. probably a bit unfair to discount the best stories of a season though you coud do that with a lot of them, how bad would season 17 be without City of Death for example.
You might have a point there & I might be jumping the gun a bit in that assessment.
I missed all of Season 16 & the last 2 (completed) stories of Season 17 growing up. I've only just watched season 16 for the first time(!) -consistently average IMO, but I l adored Romana I and her interaction with Baker so this raised the stories a bit too. About to start viewing Season 17 this weekend. Considering the last 2 stories (Eden & Nimon) are meant to be pretty bad -what. an understatement you say-?, I might be more in agreement with you there! I did quite like Destiny of the Daleks though but nowhere up to the standard of a classic like Horror of Fang Rock or even Image of Fendahl.
..Hmm, this has given me an idea for a new future thread (best & worst season of each Doctor)
Silly can be good. I can appreciate The Invisible Enemy on a silliness level (a miniaturised duplicate of the Doctor messing about inside his own brain?)!
The Invisible Enemy is a hoot, and is several notches above The Invasion of Time because it's several episodes shorter.