If you’ve followed my
classic Doctor Who ramblings over the years, you’ll know that I make no secret
of my intense feelings for the Philip Hinchcliffe-produced and Robert
Holmes-script edited era, particularly the latter two seasons, which more or
less amount to the greatest straight run of stories the series ever produced.
But the time has finally come to address the “more or less” part, which
basically adds up to the “The Android Invasion” – a fly in the Hinchcliffe/Holmes
ointment.
The Doctor (Tom Baker) and Sarah Jane (Elisabeth
Sladen) arrive in a quiet English village, which Sarah recognizes as Devesham,
as she’d been there for a story a couple years earlier, involving the nearby
Space Defence Station and missing astronaut Guy Crayford (Milton Johns). But
Devesham is too quiet. The town seems
deserted, and when the time travelling duo finally spies a person – a UNIT
soldier – he’s freaking out and committing suicide by jumping over the side of
a cliff. Upon inspecting the body, they find his pockets full of freshly minted
coins all from the same year, and clearly all is not what it seems. A race
known as the Kraals has a devious, if not entirely original plan for an
invasion of Earth.
For the uninitiated I won’t delve
into story details much further, because the mid-story twist might sort of work
for some people, even if I find it to be largely unengaging. No points will be
awarded for guessing that the Kraal invasion involves androids, and the title
of the serial is somewhat emblematic of its bigger problems: the whole thing
just seems rather ordinary, or it descends into a sort of tedium as it moves
along, anyway. Episode One is actually rather nice, being an exploration of the
oft-talked about “spooky English village” concept, but things start quickly
falling apart in the second episode, and it’s as if the more you find out, the
less you care to know.
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| The Kraals |
Part of the problem stems
from the villains, the Kraals, who don’t look all that bad until they have to
move around and/or talk, at which time it becomes a little too apparent that
they are men in rubber masks. Perhaps that wouldn’t be so bad if they didn’t
feel like such generic aliens otherwise – these guys are about as middle of the
road as Doctor Who gets, leaving the viewer filled with neither wonder nor
disgust. Much the same can be said for
Milton Johns’ Crayford, the wayward astronaut - a character in dire need of
character.
Perhaps most lackluster of
all is the whole android doppelganger thing (“Who’s the real Doctor?” or “Who’s
the real Sarah?”), which is a thoroughly played out and well worn sci-fi trope,
even if it was used as recently as the latest series in the Ganger two-parter. I
guess for some people this gimmick still works, but I can go the rest of my pop
culture-imbibing life without seeing any more of these types of stories. It’s
also the final story for both Sgt. Benton (John Levene) and Harry Sullivan (Ian
Marter) and neither character ever gets to even remotely shine. Granted, nobody
really knew these guys wouldn’t be back, but it’s something of a shame that
they didn’t have better moments to exit on.
“The Android Invasion” was
written by Terry Nation and directed by Barry Letts, and it’s difficult to not
point fingers in their directions, although if we’re being honest, Hinchcliffe
and Holmes surely deserve some scolding as well. Nation wrote some great Doctor
Who stories over the years – all of which featured the Daleks. He could write
the hell out of the Daleks, but I’m not sure he was necessarily a great Doctor
Who writer, and there is a
difference. He only ever wrote two non-Dalek stories for the show – this one,
and “The Keys of Marinus” way back in the first season. The end result of both
would seem to back up that notion. Barry Letts probably deserves the least
amount of criticism, as he seems to do a fair job given the script he was
working with, but there’s no denying the series had moved forward considerably
since he left his post as producer, and the new vision of the show was
considerably different from his era. This story, in fact, would have been very
much at home in a later Pertwee season, and it probably would’ve come off
feeling less intrusive and more of a success.
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| Tom Baker signs autographs on location |
I’ve probably been too hard
on “The Android Invasion.” It feels a little bit like kicking a puppy around. It
is by no means bad Doctor Who, as much as it is very average for this series. It’s
a story bookended by excellent fare like “Pyramids of Mars” and “The Brain of Morbius,” so it’s difficult to not take it to task for its failures when so
much of what surrounds it was breaking down barriers and challenging and
redefining what the show could be. There’s no question that regardless of these
criticisms, the story still has that same great chemistry between Baker and
Sladen – apparently nothing can dim that light – and if a story has that, it
most definitely has something worth checking out.
DVD Extras: The commentary
features Milton Johns, Martin Friend (Styggron, the lead Kraal), Hinchcliffe,
and Marion McDougal, who was a production assistant on this story. There’s a
somewhat apologetic making of doc entitled “The Village That Came to Life” that
runs for 30 minutes. The piece goes back to the village that the story was shot
in, and interviews some folks who were there back in the 70s, which is pretty
cool. “Life After Who – Philip Hinchcliffe,” hosted by his daughter, is another
30-minute piece that’s title is pretty self-explanatory. There’s a Weetabix
commercial, which may be the coolest extra on here. Also, there’s the usual
photo gallery, production notes subtitle option, and Radio Times listings in
PDF form, as well as bunches of Weetabix promo stuff that’s more loads of fun.
Finally, there’s a coming soon trailer for “The Sensorites,” which comes out
next month.
