April 25: "The Krotons" Episodes One & Two

The Krotons is the first story from Doctor Who's most prolific 20th-century writer, Robert Holmes, who'll go on to write some of the most highly acclaimed episodes of the series.  But his first script is an inauspicious one, being as it is a spare script that new script editor Terrance Dicks had set aside in case another script fell through.  Well, another script did fall through (and from just about all accounts -- including the positive ones -- we were spared a horrifyingly sexist "comedy" called Prison in Space, by Dick Sharples), and so this script was promoted to full production.

It's not a bad couple of episodes, and there's certainly some imagination going on, but there's also a sense of unreality.  To be fair, much of this has more to do with the actors than the script itself: the students in particular tend to be rather unconvincing.  The first fight with Jamie is actually rather good for a studio fight, but you get the sense that Jamie should be mopping the floor with him, rather than barely holding his own.  And the mini-"revolution" staged by the students in episode one is also rather stagey (and it doesn't help that some of the bits on the teaching machines are clearly just taped on).  But there's also the way in which the script gets all of its exposition about the planet of the Gonds and their relationship with their Kroton masters out of the way fairly early -- it's pretty blatant, and Holmes will soon be much better at this sort of thing.

So episode one is all about set-up, and episode two is about complications.  It's not actually clear why the Krotons decide the Doctor is the leader of the rebels, but there is the nice touch of announcing he's dead after their killer camera root thing has killed someone else -- the Doctor's thought that since it killed someone it figures it killed the one it was meant to kill being accurate.  If you know what I mean.  But episode two is quite entertaining, particularly the part where the Doctor works with the teaching machine to get a high enough score to be accepted into the Krotons' machine -- his antics with Zoe are very entertaining.  And then we get a look at the Krotons themselves, who are apparently brought into being thanks to the Doctor's and Zoe's high mental energy.  Their design is quite striking -- the problem is that they look unfinished from the waist down, with just a thick rubber skirt for legs.  And unfortunately, one of our first sights of a Kroton is of this skirt.  But then we get other looks at the Krotons, especially after Jamie is let into the machine under the assumption he's also got a lot of mental energy to drain.  And so drain Jamie they do -- except he might not survive the process...

April 24: "The Invasion" Episodes Seven & Eight

The Cybermen have invaded London, and the entire world is asleep as a result of their Cyber control.  Things are looking dire indeed, but fortunately our small band of plucky heroes is still awake and ready to put up some resistance.  So they're regrouping and fending off an attack from Vaughn's guards (there to recapture Professor Watkins) before splitting up to deal with the invading Cybermen.

And Jamie's been shot!  Oh my goodness!  He's been shot, apparently in the back, as he's fleeing Watkins' house.  And this paragraph shows far more concern about his well being than the show does.  Yes, it turns out this is just a way to give Frazer Hines a couple weeks off, so some comments about it only being a "slight flesh wound" and he's off at the hospital, safely out of camera range for the next two episodes.

The Brigadier and the Doctor discuss their next move. (The
Invasion Episode Seven) ©BBC

You can feel the tension being ratcheted up in this episode, as it's a race against time to stop the rest of the invasion fleet from arriving on Earth.  So Jimmy Turner goes off to Russia to have them send a rocket up to destroy the mothership (in a trip described as taking "two hours" -- apparently this really is the future if they get to (presumably) Baikonur in that short time), the Doctor heads back to Vaughn's London headquarters to try and talk him out of this plan (and buy some time along the way), and the Brigadier and Zoe head to Henlow Downs to wake up the missile crew so they can shoot down the incoming fleet of spaceships.  Most of the action subsequently takes place here, as they get the missiles ready to fire (using the same sequence of stock footage twice in the same episode).  And Zoe, recalling her "genius" characterization from The Wheel in Space, quickly calculates how to aim the missiles to take out all the ships.  To do this, she rushes around the base getting numbers for her figures.  And yes, it's been commented on before, but there's still something entertainingly marvelous about watching more than one squaddie react by looking at her face quizzically before casting their gaze down to her posterior.

But yes, Zoe saves the day by blowing up the fleet -- except now the Cybermen feel Vaughn has betrayed them, and so they're going to send a Cyber-megatron bomb at the planet to wipe out all life on Earth.  (It's not clear what a "Cyber-megatron" bomb actually is, unless they're sending a Cyber-converted Decepticon at the planet.)  Interestingly, the cliffhanger for episode seven seems to hinge on Vaughn's decision.  "Is this what you wanted?" the Doctor cries.  "To be the ruler of a dead world?"  And we're uncertain as to whether Vaughn will join forces with the Doctor or not.

A Cyberman approaches Vaughn and the Doctor. (The
Invasion Episode Eight) ©BBC

Episode eight does in fact see Vaughn decide to fight the Cybermen alongside the Doctor, but his reasoning is exquisite: "Think of the millions of people on earth who are about to die!" the Doctor cries.  "Appealing to my better nature?" Vaughn replies wryly.  "No.  If I help you it'll be because I hate them... They destroyed my dream."  And so Vaughn and the Doctor fight their way to where the radio beam is guiding the bomb in and switch it off, but not before Vaughn is killed.

But there are still five minutes to fill, so naturally the Cybership comes in closer to drop the bomb off manually.  But Henlow Downs shoots the bomb out of the sky (using that sequence of stock footage a third time), and the Russians' rocket takes care of the ship itself.  The planet is safe from invasion.

In some ways this is deliberately pitched as the definitive invasion story (in case you couldn't tell from the title), but it's really a game of two halves: the first four episodes are all about Vaughn's machinations, while the last four deal with the actual threat of the Cybermen.  If this story succeeds, it's because of Kevin Stoney.  He's so good as Tobias Vaughn that he elevates everything around him.  This may be called The Invasion and ultimately be about the Cybermen invading, but it's really about Vaughn, as he moves from being in supreme control of the situation to helplessness at the hands of the Cybermen.  This is his story, made no clearer than by the fact that the final cliffhanger comes down to his decision, rather than the Doctor being in danger or the world about end (both of which are true at this point, but that's not how it's pitched).

None of this is to say that anyone else lets the side down: it's only his second story as Lethbridge-Stewart, but Nicholas Courtney is already giving a confident, self-assured performance as the head of UNIT.  And everyone else does a fine job as well (with the possssible exception of Sally Faulkner as Isobel, who's often rather broad in her portrayal -- but on the other hand, that's clearly how the script wants her to be).  And it's always good to have a firm hand like Douglas Camfield as director, who keeps everything moving interestingly and excitingly.  Yes, The Invasion is a nicely entertaining story, but when you come right down to it, it's squarely because of Vaughn.  Everything else is secondary to Stoney's masterful performance.

April 23: "The Invasion" Episodes Five & Six

Now we know that the Cybermen are involved in this intended invasion, we can see what they're up to.  Although at this point the answer is "not much."  Vaughn's people have been reviving them and sending them to lurk in the sewers until they're needed.

This is a "holding" episode in multiple ways.  The Brigadier attempts to get the Ministry of Defence to investigate Vaughn's facilities, but as Vaughn has gotten to the minister first, he doesn't have much luck.  He can go over Major General Rutlidge's head to UNIT HQ in Geneva, but that will still take a couple days.  (Except it does make Vaughn nervous, so he decides to bring the invasion plans forward.)  Meanwhile the Doctor's trying to work out what the extra circuits in all of IE's equipment do, but he's not having much luck either.  So all that's available is a lot of reports and hearsay but no physical proof.  Thus it's left to Isobel and Zoe (accompanied by a reluctant Jamie) to go down into the sewers and get photographic evidence that the Cybermen are in fact here.  And that's really about it.  Now, that said, the scenes between the Brigadier and Rutlidge are quite entertaining, and Vaughn remains as watchable as ever -- particularly when he gleefully orders that a half-revived Cyberman be hooked up to Watkins' Cerebraton Machine and made to experience fear -- but this is an episode in which little happens to advance the plot.  Cybermen are in the sewers and the invasion is being brought forward, and that's all you need to know.

Episode six, on the other hand, has quite a bit of action.  There are the scenes at the beginning, where a few UNIT soldiers fight a couple Cybermen in the sewers with grenades (and one grabs Jamie as he's climbing out the sewer in a scene reminiscent of a similar one in The Tomb of the Cybermen).  There's also the quite worrying scene in Vaughn's office where Watkins is goaded by Vaughn into shooting him: Vaughn hands him a gun and tells him to fire, and when he doesn't immediately do so he slaps him hard across the face, leading to Watkins firing the gun three times.  The sight of three smoking holes in Vaughn's chest, while Vaughn himself simply laughs, is rather disturbing and memorably effective.  Of course, all this and Professor Watkins' rescue still happens offscreen by "at least thirty" UNIT men (indeed, this seems so abrupt that for years there were rumors that this part of the episode had been edited out).

The Cybermen begin their invasion. (The Invasion Episode Six) ©BBC

But really this episode has been building up to the cliffhanger, with the beginning of the invasion.  The Doctor has worked out that the extra circuits are designed to put everyone on the planet under Cyber-hypnosis, to make their takeover of the planet easy.  There's a wonderful moment of calm in the early morning.  "Do you think the Doctor could be wrong this time?" Jimmy asks.  "I mean about the invasion." "... Yeah, I know what you mean," Isobel replies.  "... Looking at all that peace out there, it's so difficult to imagine."  And at that moment the signal is broadcast.  We see people in the streets collapsing (excitingly, as this is really the first time we've seen anything like this happening out in the city, other than a man being attacked by a War Machine) -- and the Doctor succumbs too, his special anti-Cyber-signal gizmo having fallen off his neck.  And then, most memorably of all, the Cybermen burst out of hiding, throwing aside manhole covers and stalking the streets of London.  The invasion has begun, and it seems that everyone but the Doctor's small group has succumbed to the hypnotic signal...

April 22: "The Invasion" Episodes Three & Four

Has there been a better villain than Tobias Vaughn?  Episode three is a showcase for him.  From his oh-so-smooth manner at the top of the episode ("So here you are again.  You really are beginning to try our patience, you know," Vaughn tells the Doctor and Jamie in the most charming manner possible) to his fit of anger, when he learns that Packer has once again failed to catch the Doctor and Jamie ("You're a stupid incompetent!  I want that Doctor!  Put the whole compound on alert!  Have every available guard on the job!  Find him, Packer, find him!"), Kevin Stoney puts in a tour-de-force performance.  How can you not love what he does?

Yes, there are other things happening in this episode (for instance, we finally meet Professor Watkins, who's working on a special kind of teaching machine), but really, this episode does belong to Tobias Vaughn.  Everything the Doctor and Jamie do, whether it's talking with Watkins or escaping up a lift shaft, is in reaction to something Vaughn does.  Although let's take a moment to note the lovely business near the beginning of the episode, when Vaughn offers to take them to the factory out in the countryside, where Jamie climbs in the back set of Vaughn's car, goes out the other side, and gets into the front passenger seat before looking innocently at Packer, who was apparently going to sit there.  Oh, and the sheer cheek of pointing out that Vaughn's office in his factory complex is the same set as the one in his London building.  "It's exactly the same as your office in London," Jamie says.  So there are other things happening in this episode, but when it comes down to it, this one is all about Vaughn.

The Doctor makes his way up the rope ladder to the UNIT
helicopter. (The Invasion Episode Four animation) ©BBC
Worldwide

Episode four is action-packed, with a daring helicopter rescue from the roof of one of Vaughn's buildings.  It's a bit of a pity, then, that this is the other episode missing from this story.  Still, the animation does a good job of making up the difference (even if the shot of the Doctor dodging bullet fire on the roof is clearly based on a move from episode eight), and it remains a suitably exciting set piece.  The bits with Jamie climbing down to where Zoe and Isobel are being held captive and having them all climb up to the roof and then into the helicopter are quite thrilling, and one wonders if the helicopter really did start to fly away with Jamie still dangling from the rope ladder -- it certainly sounds that way at least.

Then we get a bit of intrigue as Captain Jimmy Turner brings up the matter of UFOs that seem to disappear around Vaughn's factory.  We know that Vaughn is planning an invasion with an alien ally, but we don't know who that ally is.  So the Doctor and Jamie decide to infiltrate Vaughn's London complex once again (this time via canoe) to find out more information.  And we learn that those alien allies are in fact the Cybermen!

Well, except it was already revealed that the Cybermen were returning in the Radio Times listing for episode one.  So maybe it was more a case of "Finally!" than "Oh my word!"  But in any case.

April 21: "The Invasion" Episodes One & Two

Episode one of The Invasion is the first season 6 episode to no longer exist.  And there are no telesnaps either (nor for any season 6 episodes after The Mind Robber episode 3).  But fortunately we have an animated version from Cosgrove Hall (makers of Danger Mouse, you know) on the DVD to enjoy, and it's definitely done well.

We open with roughly two lines of dialogue acknowledging the events of last time ("Hey Doctor, it's all right, it worked!" Jamie says) and then it's off to the new adventure, as a missile is fired at the TARDIS from the dark side of the moon.  One quick move later and we're on Earth, albeit with a faulty visual stabilizer circuit that renders the TARDIS invisible.  So it's off to look up Professor Travers again, to get some help repairing the circuit.  Well, after escaping from International Electromatics' secretive compound in a lorry being driven by a man who's later shot and killed by IE guards.

But this isn't another follow-up to The Web of Fear (though it was intended as such at some stage), as Professor Travers is in America and letting his place out to a man named Professor Watkins, who happens to be working for IE.  The Doctor and Jamie go to IE to find him while Zoe stays behind with Watkins' niece Isobel.  We don't meet Watkins, but we do encounter the head of IE, Tobias Vaughn -- played by the marvelous Kevin Stoney.  Here's a villain (and he's largely portrayed as a villain from the outset) who's charming, sophisticated, and thoroughly likeable, which means we can see how he became a success.  So many of these people in charge are such ranting lunatics that it's a wonder anyone ever gave them anything.  Vaughn, by contrast, is so slick that you can't help but be charmed.  Even if he blinks too slowly and seems to be working with some sort of alien machine.

Episode two is present in all its glory, so we can see things like the business where the Doctor and Jamie are trapped in an alley and the Doctor starts dealing out cards, including to the men there to take him away.  But then a jaunty theme from composer Don Harper suggests that maybe these men aren't in fact the bad guys, a fact which is confirmed when they're taken to a mobile HQ inside an airplane which is being led by none other than The Web of Fear's Lethbridge-Stewart, now promoted to Brigadier and the head of the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce, or UNIT -- an organization designed to investigate strange happenings that was set up after the Yeti incident.  UNIT has been watching IE with concern, as people have been going in and either coming out different or not coming out at all.  Nicholas Courtney does a fine job in this role, making him enough like his last appearance to be recognizably the same character while still having undergone a metamorphosis for the better (he's noticeably less fatalistic and helpless here than he was in The Web of Fear).  Oh, and we get our first good look at Benton (played by John Levene, who was also in The Web of Fear -- albeit as a Yeti), who will also return next year.  (All right, he's actually in episode one as well, but here we can see him.)

All this and intrigue too.  Zoe and Isobel go to IE after the Doctor and Jamie and end up wrecking a computer -- which, wonderfully, makes Vaughn laugh with delight rather than rage with anger.  And so the Doctor and Jamie go after them, snooping around the IE building in search of them.  But they're soon caught by Vaughn's guards, including his henchman Packer.  "Like rats in a trap!" Packer proclaims triumphantly as the credits roll.  Trapped indeed.

April 20: The Mind Robber Episodes 4 & 5

Episode 4 has a few more flaws than the earlier episodes.  For some reason Zoe insists on believing that Medusa is real, even though a logically trained mind such as hers must know it's not (and she didn't have any problem denying the existence of the unicorn charging at her at the top of episode 3).  There's also a moment where, after having cautiously stepped over a photoelectric cell that alerts the Master to their presence inside his citadel (as Jamie discovered when he tripped it near the start of the episode), Zoe has a panic attack and crosses all the way to the other side of the room to trip the beam, just so the three of them can be captured by the White Robots from episode 1.  (We will, sadly, see this character trait again in season 8.)  And Zoe is also the winner of a decidedly unconvincing fight versus a comic strip character from 2000 called the Karkus (who the Doctor can't deny the existence of because he's never heard of him).  There are a number of falls and flips from the Karkus as Zoe enthusiastically throws him around -- that's the idea, at least, but what we actually get is a lot of Wendy Padbury grabbing Christopher Robbie's arm, followed by Robbie doing a somersault each time.

But the love of language and literature continues to shine through in this episode, so even though it's not a very long installment, it still maintains its drive.  We're finally introduced to the Master himself, who turns out to be a rather kindly old English writer from 1926 who was kidnapped and brought to this place.  ("Oh, but that's a long story," he says on how he arrived.)  Now he's old, and the Master Brain controlling him wants to replace him with the Doctor.  The way the Master switches between a gentlemanly demeanor and a harsher, clearly under-alien-control persona is very effective.  And the final cliffhanger, in which Jamie and Zoe are turned into fictional characters (you know what I mean) by the visual conceit of being literally trapped inside the pages of a book, is a fabulous image.

The Doctor is linked into the Master Brain. (The Mind
Robber Episode 5) ©BBC

Episode 5 sees the Doctor finally engage directly in a battle of wits against the Master.  Of course, first he's tricked by fictional Jamie and Zoe into an equally fictional TARDIS, which is actually a direct link with the Master Brain -- which means the Doctor can now write the stories at the speed of thought.  This means that we start getting additional classic characters added into the mix, as Cyrano de Bergerac engages in a swordfight with D'Artagnan (a much more exciting fight, it must be said, than Zoe's tussle with the Karkus last time), who then fights Bluebeard, who then confronts Lancelot in full armor -- thanks to the Doctor and the Master fighting it out with the power of words.  And, somehow, the Doctor convinces Jamie and Zoe to free themselves from the book they've been trapped in as they push their way out.  But he can't work out how to get himself free without turning into a fictional character himself (you know what I mean).  Fortunately, Zoe and Jamie overhear a snatch of conversation from the Master and they overload the Master Brain's circuits, destroying it and the realm they've found themselves in.  As the place disappears, they disappear too, back to where they came from, as the TARDIS reforms -- and that's that.  (And, somewhat frustratingly, the events of this story are never explained or even touched upon again -- there are about two lines of dialogue next week and that's it.  And The Mind Robber episode 5 is, at 18'00", the shortest ever episode of Doctor Who's original run, so it's not like they couldn't spare the time.)

The Mind Robber is a very imaginative story, and there's enough incident to keep things entertaining.  After the impressive first episode (doubly impressive when the pressure it was made under is taken into consideration) we're treated to a tale where storybook logic beats "real world" logic, where Gulliver and Rapunzel can inhabit the same world and interact with each other.  There's a sense of joy underlying all this, so that even the somewhat repetitive nature of some of the problems confronted by the TARDIS crew (a fictional character attacks but then is defeated when the Doctor and Jamie and/or Zoe deny its existence) isn't nearly the issue it was in The Dominators.  It also helps that there's a definite sense of style here, with both the camera and staging doing an excellent job of selling this somewhat surreal tale (and here one can't help but note that this story marks David Maloney's directorial debut on Doctor Who), so that it all feels like part of the same world.  This is a triumph of imagination, both in the script and on screen, and is easily one of the standouts of Troughton's time on the show.  It's hard to believe this is the story that followed The Dominators.

April 19: The Mind Robber Episodes 2 & 3

The imagination continues here.  After the console and the Doctor spin away into the void, they all find themselves in a strange forest.  Jamie is attacked by a Redcoat who turns him into a photograph, Zoe is trapped inside a building and then a jar (as part of a riddle), and the Doctor is confronted by, er, some schoolchildren.  Well, they don't all have to be dangerous.  He also encounters an odd English gentleman from 1699, who seems to also talk in obscurities and riddles.  And this is all being watched over by someone who the Englishman (and the credits) both call the Master -- but don't get excited, it's not that one.

The Doctor puts the wrong face on Jamie. (The Mind Robber
Episode 2) ©BBC

This is a story which relies on imagery and story logic.  The best part is when the Doctor has to reconstruct photograph Jamie's face and gets it wrong, which means Hamish Wilson is playing the part of Jamie this week.⁴³  He does a good job, and it's definitely unsettling to see someone unfamiliar playing such a familiar part, particularly because the Doctor simply accepts that Jamie looks a little different right now.  (And this is the reason why a different Jamie is unsettling in a television show that changes lead actor every few years -- in almost every case regarding the Doctor there's a degree of uncertainty when the change happens, and each one has a degree of build-up, to let the audience know something's coming⁴⁴; here it's brought up briefly and then treated as normal.)  There's also a nice moment where, after Jamie sees that the forest they're in is actually a forest of printed words, the three of them attempt to hide from the toy soldiers that are searching for them, while telling the Englishman not to give them away.  Except the Englishman apparently can't see the soldiers, so he inadvertently does give them away by addressing them: "I could not forebear smiling, sir.  What you told me is mistaken.  There was no army here."  So the soldiers lead them away to be run down by a unicorn.

Episode 3 is more of the same.  The unicorn problem is solved by the Doctor having Jamie and Zoe insist that the unicorn isn't real; once they do, it turns into a statue (well, a photograph blowup, but the Doctor calls it a statue later).  It seems that belief is a powerful force in this realm.  Jamie is once again turned into a photograph, but with Zoe's help (who's very funny by the way when she works out why Jamie's face looked different: "You got it all wrong!") they bring Jamie's proper face back.

After this most of the action occurs inside a labyrinth underground, complete with a ball of string to help guide them.  The Doctor and Zoe go ahead to confront the Minotaur, which the Doctor once again insists isn't real (he'll change his mind when we get to The Time Monster) and thus isn't a danger to them.  Jamie manages to outwit and escape from a toy soldier, and climbs up a cliff via a convenient rope which turns out to be Rapunzel's hair.  Except Jamie finds himself inside not a medieval tower but a more futuristic library, which happens to be printing out a new story: the one that the Doctor and Zoe are currently experiencing.  After encountering the Englishman again, who the Doctor works out is in fact Lemuel Gulliver from Jonathan Swift's novel, they head back to the center of the labyrinth where the minotaur was, only to find Medusa confronting them...

These two episodes are different in style from episode 1, but the same sense of story logic and hidden danger is present here, which means that even though we've moved from a white void and robots to a fairytale place and toy soldiers, the underlying threat is still the same.  Let's hope they can keep this up for the last two episodes.







⁴³ The real world reason: Frazer Hines has chickenpox this week.  Fortunately they're doing a strange surreal story at the moment, so they can use this to their advantage.
⁴⁴ With the obvious exception of Time and the Rani, for reasons we'll no doubt come to when we reach that particular story.