Got the evening to myself so have cracked open the UNIT Files box set - Invasion!

Strange watching the time tunnel opening credits with Pertwee. Actually, its quite strange seeing Sarah Jane with the 3rd Doctor rather than the 4th.

Very creepy opening episode!

Bloody MARVELLOUS story. Utterly love it. Of course the dinosaurs are rubbish. The rest is pure, perfect DW, with an snide Carmen Silvera in it.

Totally agree Chuff. Onto episode 2 - Sarah Jane's particularly marvelous. She just saved the Doctor from being stabbed.

I thoroughly enjoyed that story (SP/FX excluded).
It was a jolly typical romp along with UNIT. I think Sarah Jane was the star of this story!

Ah! Nyder. Interesting bit of casting. And only SJS being suspicious of Yates so far.

The commentary gets a bit dreary after a while, but Peter Miles is fun: comparing how naughty his various DW baddies are.

I watched the first ep in B&W. Does anyone know if the colour version is any good? Is the mauled driver especially gory?

I watched it in colour and it was pretty good. The mauled driver would never get into Who today!

I love that Sarah is being officially introduced as the Doctor's assistant.

It would have been a very different story with Jo Grant!

I'm really looking forward to seeing IOTD on DVD. Did you watch episode 1 in b&w or colour? I think the cleaned up b&w will be great and very atmospheric.

Sarah's very much a reporter still in this story.

Oh dear . . I think those camera flashes are waking up that T-Rex ....

I must say, the dinosaur effects - whilst pretty basic - are mixed into the live action sequences extremely well.

I was disappointed when it suddenly went into colour!
I thought it looked more of a classic in B&W!! (If it had remained in b&w - the chroma-key wouldn't have shown up so badly either!!)

Blimey! Episode 3 has an unexpected cliffhanger.

And now, the Whomobile!

haha, yeah it's the only one so far where a dinosaur doesn't appear out of nowhere for no reason.

Only joking - love this story. It makes great use of the Sarah Jane as a journalist angle that makes the character stand out. Maybe she should have hacked Charles Grover's phone and that would have cut the episode down by 3 episodes.

Don'tcha just love the way it seems to raise itsself upright withoug making any leg movements or anything?
It just sort of 'floats' back up into a standing position.

Real shame they didn't do some CGI improvements to this story.
Who was never about special effects but this is the one story where they are so bad in places they do let down what is a rather good story.

Too expensive to undertake apparently .

I've read that this story was originally conceived because the producers were approached by someone who said he could provide excellent dinosaurs. Makes it all the more ironic that the dinosaurs are the main drawback to the story.

It did heavily rely on the T-Rex appearing for its cliff hangers.

I think its my new favourite Pertwee story, mainly because it feels more like a Tom Baker story. Well worth buying this one!

And an interesting interview with Lis Sladen where she says Pertwee quit because he asked for a payrise and was turned down.

This is my fave Pertwee story at the moment (Inferno will come knocking on my door shortly in order to discuss the issue with me, i daresay). It's got real energy and fun to it, and the London scenes are so powerful.

Haven't seen the DVD yet but I like this story much better than I did. Yes, there is no doubt for me that the dinosaur effects ruin the story but there are aspects of it that are good. Sarah actually gets to do some proper journalist work, the Yates storyline isn't an interesting one and the idea overall is a good one.

I think this is one of the few later UNIT stories where The Brigadier isn't quite a comic relief as he had become in some of the previous ones. Even Benton has a large slice of the action!

The only other thing I didn't like aside the effects is the constant double crossing and getting caught only to escape again storyline.

I think its a shame that there wasn't a CGI alternative on this disc. Some of the dinosaurs were actually ok. It really was just the T-Rex that wasn' really up to much.

TBH I'm glad there wasn't some how I feel putting new cgi effects on these classic series dvd's just dosen't feel right yes the dinosaurs were naff by today's standards by I just except them for the time they were made in and in truth they don't really bother me at all.

We can do that but it would have been nice as an alternative.
Some of the other CGI adjustments were unnecessary in my opinion and the original effects fitted in with the vintage of the story and overall appearance .
But for IOTD the effects definitely are way below par for the series at the time.
It's an intelligent and interesting story .
But show it to newcomers and it would get laughed off the screen.

I'm all for leaving things as they are and when they do make adjustments I always want the original there too .
With Star Trek TOS I now watch the Blurays with the new effects as they've corrected the series only shortcoming and also given it a new lease of life on broadcast tv.

But as ever , the original effects are included too for posterity.

Can I just say that some of the dinosaur effects were actually pretty good. The T-Rex was the main problem, just because it was so clearly a spongy-model. And it had a lot of close ups which really didn't help. Thoroughly enjoyable romp, all in all.

Some shots are passable - the tyrannosaur sleeping in the hangar works, and the shot of the Brig and the Doctor driving underneath the diplodocus in the last episode is actually extremely well done (it's much better than the terrible shots of an immobile Bessie CSOed 'driving' across the Giant Maggots, just two stories ago) but most of them must be considered the worst effects in Doctor Who. The 'half-hearted waving guns about with a machine gun noise dubbed on' just won't do, either.

A shame, really, as otherwise it's probably one of the best written and acted stories of the third Doctor's era. There's a lovely helicopter tracking shot that took my breath away.

As for the colour recovery - it's not perfect, but it's perfectly watchable. It's probably on a par with the old VHS 'recolourised' ones. Just don't expect 'Planet of the Daleks' standard.

Yes, have to agree. The sleeping T-Rex was actually OK. And that action sequence was great.


Yes, this bit really surprised me. There wasn't even any smoke coming out of the machine gun. It was just a soldier moving it up and down in his hand in time to a sound effect. Sometimes Who just hands its to the critics on a plate!