The Doctor Who Real Time Marathon: The Android Invasion
The Android Invasion: Part One (22/11/15)
I think this story may have been better served had it been given a different title. As such, it becomes obvious from the start that practically everyone we met was an android (although some moved in a more agile, Human way), thus explaining the villagers' behaviour, but the script is by Terry Nation and he's never been one for subtlety. That said, we've seen hide nor hair of a Dalek yet, which is very unusual for him! I'd've expected it at the cliffhanger, but instead we got a rather dodgy-looking alien peeking through a trapdoor in a wall.
Anyhow, titles aside the Doctor and Sarah have landed on what smells like Earth after a rainstorm but is dry and sunny as a long Summers' day so may or may not be, and they spent the episode exploring the deserted village of Devesham and trying to figure out the plot. The were chased by space-suited robots (sorry, androids) which only Sarah has seen the circuit-board face of so far, visited the pub and split up.
Sarah returned to the TARDIS, put the key in the door, got distracted by a nearby pod and the TARDIS dematerialised. Then a man from inside the pod tried to strangle her (a lot of that about recently).
Meanwhile, the Doctor visited a nearby space station where UNIT are based and met an astronaut called Crayford who's in charge while the Brigadier is in Geneva. However, Crayford seems to answer to a mysterious Styggron who I assume is the alien we saw a glimpse of at the end and is the one responsible for all the androids.
Overall, title aside (again) I think this was one of Nation's best episodes since the 60s! Very atmospheric, some decent dialogue, gorgeous location work and some great jeopardy. Not sure about the Doctor leaping off the roof of the station and not hurting himself (it was at least 2nd floor height), but he is alien, and what with his respiratory bypass system, etc... Fun, exciting, and all rather beautiful; the village and the countryside in particular were a great contrast to those seen in the Zygon story! The model work wasn't as good as the last story, but I guess you can't have everything. A continuation of the upward swing of the series.
The Android Invasion: Part Two (29/11/15)
Harry and Benton are back! Although they weren't in it a great deal and are probably androids. Crayford is an astronaut who was lost on a deep space mission and presumed dead. Instead, it seems he was rescued by the Kraals, aliens with big, scrunched up heads like one of those pugs, who want to invade Earth and, it turns out at the cliffhanger (unless the Doctor's wrong), have made a duplicate of Devesham and environs and androids to inhabit it. For some reason.
The Doctor and Sarah escaped the Space Defense place (whatever it is) and legged it through the woods, but Sarah sprained her ankle so the Doctor took her scarf and left her up a tree while he led the soldiers and their tracker dogs away. Regardless, Sarah got captured and duplicated by Styggron and his argumentative scientist Chedaki. They scanned Crayford, who seems half mad through isolation and torture, and made a totally hostile UNIT soldier.
Meanwhile, the Doctor got a phone call at the pub from Sarah at the Post Office who said she'd escaped. They met up and went to where the TARDIS had been, where the Doctor figured out they weren't on Earth because Sarah didn't have the key so must have put it in the lock and enabled the TARDIS to continue on its journey. Also, he figured out Sarah was a duplicate because she was wearing the scarf he'd taken. Despite Sarah not having the scarf when she was duplicated. Maybe he just said that to distract her so he could knock the gun out her hand. Maybe he'd noticed that she wasn't limping. Or that she'd managed to remember the pub phone number after two years and call it on a line that was otherwise dead. Or that she called the ginger pop he gave her 'delicious' when she hates it - you'd think the duplicate would've known that! But then, maybe the duplicate would've been better off not telling the Doctor Crayford's plan involved making android duplicates.
As usual with a Nation script we have plot holes you could drive a small moon through. But still no Daleks. And it all looks gorgeous, especially the chase scenes in the woods. And Sarah's face falling off at the cliffhanger was pretty good, too.
The Android Invasion: Part Three (06/12/15)
Well, this story's gone downhill quite fast! The Doctor escaped android Sarah, Sarah escaped the Kraals, the Kraals set off a Matter-Dissolving Bomb (yeah, it's Terry Nation) after capturing the Doctor and tying him to a monument in the village, but Sarah freed him and they escaped back into the Kraal base only to be caught and locked up.
Crayford came along to explain the plot - basically, the Kraals' planet is becoming too radioactive to inhabit, they saved him in space when he was being torn apart by a Gyro malfunction and put him back together (apart from his eye, which they couldn't find), and they plan to settle in the Northern Hemisphere using androids to infiltrate society upon Crayford's miraculous return - but he doesn't know that they plan on wiping out the Human race with a Terry Nation virus.
The Doctor was taken to have the knowledge of everything drained from his brain but Sarah escaped and saved him and they both got on Crayford's rocket as it took off and started to get crushed by the G-forces.
The village bits looked good, and there were one or two decent effects, but the plot has seemingly fallen apart. Why did the Kraals need to build the village and Defense Station and surrounding countryside if they were only going to blow it up? And Crayford must be thick as pig shit to trust or believe them. Again, android Harry and Benton were there but you only glimpsed Benton once and only knew it was him because he had a line of dialogue.
On the whole, very suddenly disappointing, It's as if Terry Nation had a really good idea for two episodes but decided to come up with a very stupid, convoluted explanation for it all.
Which is so unlike him...
Hopefully next week will improve.
The Android Invasion: Part Four (13/12/15)
Obviously, the Doctor and Sarah made it to Earth unscathed and defeated the Kraals, stopping the Android Invasion.
More Harry and Benton this week but I can't help feeling a bit short-changed as the Doctor and Sarah didn't even say goodbye to them (on screen) before buggering off back to the TARDIS, and the episode was noticeably shorter than last week! There was some good stuff this week, though, such as the look exchanged between Harry and Benton when Colonel Faraday stated Crayford had been further into space than any Human Being; and the bits with the android doubles of the Doctor and Sarah were good, especially where real Sarah met them outside the TARDIS! And Benton's got a younger sister (who he chatted to on the phone)!
I'm assuming the under-use of Harry and Benton in this story indicates that they'll be back at the end of the series; after all, Sarah did say she was getting a taxi home before the Doctor offered her a lift. So I guess we'll have another story in outer space, then a UNIT story with Harry and Benton (and the Brigadier) where Sarah leaves - after all, this is her third series which is the same amount of time Jo and Jamie stayed. And to be honest, she's not great. Better with Tom Baker than Jon Pertwee, but a little dull. And she hasn't developed much; whereas Jo and Jamie both noticeably grew as characters during their time, she's merely gone from being a bolshy, feminist reporter to being a fairly generic companion. I think Dodo had more personality and she didn't even last a series! I mean, she's likable enough, but it just feels like they've run out of ideas.
This episode can't have been much cop as I've just waffled on about Sarah and Harry and Benton. It was okay, but not really engaging. I think if the invasion had happened last week and the themes this week had been developed more it might've been better. But there was good location work, nice direction of the Doctors fighting each other, and a nice, if again under-used, Indian woman working at the Defense Station which may be the first time we've had noticeable diversity in quite a while! There's a break until January now, and I think it's needed.
I think this story may have been better served had it been given a different title. As such, it becomes obvious from the start that practically everyone we met was an android (although some moved in a more agile, Human way), thus explaining the villagers' behaviour, but the script is by Terry Nation and he's never been one for subtlety. That said, we've seen hide nor hair of a Dalek yet, which is very unusual for him! I'd've expected it at the cliffhanger, but instead we got a rather dodgy-looking alien peeking through a trapdoor in a wall.
Anyhow, titles aside the Doctor and Sarah have landed on what smells like Earth after a rainstorm but is dry and sunny as a long Summers' day so may or may not be, and they spent the episode exploring the deserted village of Devesham and trying to figure out the plot. The were chased by space-suited robots (sorry, androids) which only Sarah has seen the circuit-board face of so far, visited the pub and split up.
Sarah returned to the TARDIS, put the key in the door, got distracted by a nearby pod and the TARDIS dematerialised. Then a man from inside the pod tried to strangle her (a lot of that about recently).
Meanwhile, the Doctor visited a nearby space station where UNIT are based and met an astronaut called Crayford who's in charge while the Brigadier is in Geneva. However, Crayford seems to answer to a mysterious Styggron who I assume is the alien we saw a glimpse of at the end and is the one responsible for all the androids.
Overall, title aside (again) I think this was one of Nation's best episodes since the 60s! Very atmospheric, some decent dialogue, gorgeous location work and some great jeopardy. Not sure about the Doctor leaping off the roof of the station and not hurting himself (it was at least 2nd floor height), but he is alien, and what with his respiratory bypass system, etc... Fun, exciting, and all rather beautiful; the village and the countryside in particular were a great contrast to those seen in the Zygon story! The model work wasn't as good as the last story, but I guess you can't have everything. A continuation of the upward swing of the series.
The Android Invasion: Part Two (29/11/15)
Harry and Benton are back! Although they weren't in it a great deal and are probably androids. Crayford is an astronaut who was lost on a deep space mission and presumed dead. Instead, it seems he was rescued by the Kraals, aliens with big, scrunched up heads like one of those pugs, who want to invade Earth and, it turns out at the cliffhanger (unless the Doctor's wrong), have made a duplicate of Devesham and environs and androids to inhabit it. For some reason.
The Doctor and Sarah escaped the Space Defense place (whatever it is) and legged it through the woods, but Sarah sprained her ankle so the Doctor took her scarf and left her up a tree while he led the soldiers and their tracker dogs away. Regardless, Sarah got captured and duplicated by Styggron and his argumentative scientist Chedaki. They scanned Crayford, who seems half mad through isolation and torture, and made a totally hostile UNIT soldier.
Meanwhile, the Doctor got a phone call at the pub from Sarah at the Post Office who said she'd escaped. They met up and went to where the TARDIS had been, where the Doctor figured out they weren't on Earth because Sarah didn't have the key so must have put it in the lock and enabled the TARDIS to continue on its journey. Also, he figured out Sarah was a duplicate because she was wearing the scarf he'd taken. Despite Sarah not having the scarf when she was duplicated. Maybe he just said that to distract her so he could knock the gun out her hand. Maybe he'd noticed that she wasn't limping. Or that she'd managed to remember the pub phone number after two years and call it on a line that was otherwise dead. Or that she called the ginger pop he gave her 'delicious' when she hates it - you'd think the duplicate would've known that! But then, maybe the duplicate would've been better off not telling the Doctor Crayford's plan involved making android duplicates.
As usual with a Nation script we have plot holes you could drive a small moon through. But still no Daleks. And it all looks gorgeous, especially the chase scenes in the woods. And Sarah's face falling off at the cliffhanger was pretty good, too.
The Android Invasion: Part Three (06/12/15)
Well, this story's gone downhill quite fast! The Doctor escaped android Sarah, Sarah escaped the Kraals, the Kraals set off a Matter-Dissolving Bomb (yeah, it's Terry Nation) after capturing the Doctor and tying him to a monument in the village, but Sarah freed him and they escaped back into the Kraal base only to be caught and locked up.
Crayford came along to explain the plot - basically, the Kraals' planet is becoming too radioactive to inhabit, they saved him in space when he was being torn apart by a Gyro malfunction and put him back together (apart from his eye, which they couldn't find), and they plan to settle in the Northern Hemisphere using androids to infiltrate society upon Crayford's miraculous return - but he doesn't know that they plan on wiping out the Human race with a Terry Nation virus.
The Doctor was taken to have the knowledge of everything drained from his brain but Sarah escaped and saved him and they both got on Crayford's rocket as it took off and started to get crushed by the G-forces.
The village bits looked good, and there were one or two decent effects, but the plot has seemingly fallen apart. Why did the Kraals need to build the village and Defense Station and surrounding countryside if they were only going to blow it up? And Crayford must be thick as pig shit to trust or believe them. Again, android Harry and Benton were there but you only glimpsed Benton once and only knew it was him because he had a line of dialogue.
On the whole, very suddenly disappointing, It's as if Terry Nation had a really good idea for two episodes but decided to come up with a very stupid, convoluted explanation for it all.
Which is so unlike him...
Hopefully next week will improve.
The Android Invasion: Part Four (13/12/15)
Obviously, the Doctor and Sarah made it to Earth unscathed and defeated the Kraals, stopping the Android Invasion.
More Harry and Benton this week but I can't help feeling a bit short-changed as the Doctor and Sarah didn't even say goodbye to them (on screen) before buggering off back to the TARDIS, and the episode was noticeably shorter than last week! There was some good stuff this week, though, such as the look exchanged between Harry and Benton when Colonel Faraday stated Crayford had been further into space than any Human Being; and the bits with the android doubles of the Doctor and Sarah were good, especially where real Sarah met them outside the TARDIS! And Benton's got a younger sister (who he chatted to on the phone)!
I'm assuming the under-use of Harry and Benton in this story indicates that they'll be back at the end of the series; after all, Sarah did say she was getting a taxi home before the Doctor offered her a lift. So I guess we'll have another story in outer space, then a UNIT story with Harry and Benton (and the Brigadier) where Sarah leaves - after all, this is her third series which is the same amount of time Jo and Jamie stayed. And to be honest, she's not great. Better with Tom Baker than Jon Pertwee, but a little dull. And she hasn't developed much; whereas Jo and Jamie both noticeably grew as characters during their time, she's merely gone from being a bolshy, feminist reporter to being a fairly generic companion. I think Dodo had more personality and she didn't even last a series! I mean, she's likable enough, but it just feels like they've run out of ideas.
This episode can't have been much cop as I've just waffled on about Sarah and Harry and Benton. It was okay, but not really engaging. I think if the invasion had happened last week and the themes this week had been developed more it might've been better. But there was good location work, nice direction of the Doctors fighting each other, and a nice, if again under-used, Indian woman working at the Defense Station which may be the first time we've had noticeable diversity in quite a while! There's a break until January now, and I think it's needed.
There are certainly elements of this which are laudable - the location filming, most notably, but also the design of the Kraals - but as you say (and as I said in reviewing the novelisation) there are far more plot holes than there is road on this particular journey. It's also disappointing for Nicholas Courtney not being available, which is not the story's fault of course, and for underusing Benton and (even more so) Harry. In the end it's a pleasant enough romp, if a more than usually brainless one.
ReplyDeleteI must say I'm still surprised at your apathy (antipathy even?) towards Sarah. I think for most people she remains the quintessential companion, and there's no denying the ease and effectiveness of the relationship between Elisabeth Sladen and Tom Baker. I agree that she doesn't come as far as a character in her time in the show as some other companions did, but she still works as one regardless and is never less than beautifully played by Sladen. Horses for courses though :)
It could have been a brilliant story, and I really do like the first half (considerably more than the two preceding serials) but it just falls short because, frankly, Terry Nation has always been little more than an ideas man and really is a pretty shoddy writer.
DeleteAs far as Sarah is concerned, I've always been aware that she's massively popular amongst fans, but I find her really bland and I've never been able to see the alleged great relationship between her and the Doctor. It's clear in interviews that Tom and Lis (and Ian) got on famously but I just find the character of Sarah fairly annoying. There isn't the spark there is between the Doctor and Leela or Romana II, and Sarah does a LOT of complaining. I think that's my main problem with her; I dislike Tegan for similar reasons and have always felt slightly like an outcast for not liking two of the shows most popular companions, but there you go.
Overall, The Android Invasion has potential and on various levels is a massive success. It's also an utter failure on other levels and one of those is its plot, which is a shame really because it's different enough to all those around it to be the stand-out of the season. A missed opportunity.