The Invasion of Time

The Doctor at his inauguration. 

Wow. That was a hard six episodes to get through. ‘The Invasion of Time’ is the last story for Louise Jameson and frankly, it’s very disappointing. We have two main enemies – the Vardans for the first four parts, and then the Sontarans appear at the end of episode four and a rather non-sensical two parts are added to get the story to six episodes.

This is mostly the work of writer Anthony Read, who begins with a good premise – presenting the Doctor to have turned bad. He arrives on Gallifrey, demands to be inaugurated President (as he is President elect following ‘The Deadly

Vardan = silver foil.

Assassin’), then blows up a whole lot of things and lets some invaders in called the Vardens. That’s as far as the story holds up, by the time we’ve hit episode four there appears to be no story left, no budget left and no control left over the actors who have little asides left right and centre, make silly jokes and clearly do not take the thing seriously.

It’s reduced to such a farcical state that by episode six they are running around the TARDIS, mostly getting lost for the bulk of the episode – which over runs yet provides little plausible cause for Leela to have fallen in love with Andred and want to stay on Gallifrey. The Doctor has found the great key of Rassilon, but it seems the main purpose of that is to power a big gun.

The TARDIS workshop. Convincing? No.

Milton Johns as Kelner.

The Vardens start the descent into lunacy. Not only do they look like SS officers who weren’t told the secret handshake, they are appalling acted and in no way threatening at all. They were a poor concept to start with, and there is no logical reason why the Doctor would pretend to have gone over to the side of evil to trap them on Gallifrey considering how he had to punch a hole in the transduction barrier, which required him basically to be President to have that opportunity. There’s no real explanation with what they wanted to do with Gallifrey.

Then they are defeated with almost no climax, and the only thing that is dramatic in episode four is the

end when the Sontarans turn up. They use Chancellor Kelner, played by Milton John who does a great job as the slimiest Time Lord ever, to try and shut down the barrier to allow their entire fleet access to Gallifrey. This barrier is controlled from an old engine room somewhere which doesn’t fit with any of the sets, because it’s location work.

But so is the interior of the TARDIS in part four, filmed in a disused mental hospital. It just doesn’t match the console room or the rest of the story. The direction is woeful. The whole final episode is made up of running a bit, commenting that they are lost, making a gag and the next scene. Which is the same as that scene. AND IT OVERUNS. No material, no plot, AND IT OVER RUNS.

Then the Doctor is about to leave after defeating the Sontarans with a big laser gun, and Leela declares she’s staying. Very strange indeed. Total mess, easily the worst Tom Baker story thus far.

1.5/10

The Sontaran Experiment

Tom Baker fixes the transmat.

‘The Sontaran Experiment’, to be fair, is a largely forgettable 2-part filler between two great stories. Interesting that for the first time in its history, the Doctor is separated from the TARDIS. It follows on straight from ‘The Ark in Space’, and so it’s interesting because they were talking about going to Earth and starting anew, and then we get to see what awaits them down on Earth. Question though, presumably the beacon/ark was nowhere near Earth – I mean solar flares and the like.

Sarah and Harry decide to have a look around.

Why they did a two-parter, I’m not sure, I guess they had two episodes to fill. Like ‘Robot’, all location shooting was done on video, and in this case that’s the whole show. Not a single studio scene. Small cast, little in the way of props too, it comes across as a money-saver. Season 12 is odd because it’s only 20 episodes, after 26 had been the norm for the last 3 Pertwee years. I am unaware of any strikes or action which might have seen six episodes disappear, and indeed I believe season 13 is back to 26 episodes.

Sontaran Space Ship.

The story is about a Sontaran, again played by Kevin Lindsay who was Linx in ‘The Time Warrior’, experimenting on some humans, from colony planets, who he lured to Earth to do the experiments. It’s a bit of a stretch. Then he is wasting time seeing how long they can hold a heavy metal bar, or how they deal with hallucinations.

Bob Baker and Dave Martin got the writing job, presumably with the Sontaran brief and the location brief too. It was a hard task I think and the viewers can’t expect a brilliant show. The Sontaran mask doesn’t seem quite so good, and the monitor link with the Sontaran fleet looks very much like something from the 70s.

Vural lies under a piece of metal getting heavier as his mates try to hold it.

We have a guest cast all with South African accents. Ok, it’s all uniform but an interesting choice with no relevance to the story at all. In all we have 10 character including the three regulars. Kevin Lindsay actually plays two Sontarans, and has a video call with himself! Donald Douglas plays the leader of the humans, Vural, who has in fact betrayed them to the Sontarans.

It really comes across as filler. It’s not bad per se, but just pointless. They had an opportunity to explore and create an Earth after fire, and it could have been really interesting. Somethings might have survived here and there. Underground passages, metro systems, bomb shelters etc. New types of animal life might have evolved, sadly we didn’t get any of that. They had two episodes to fill and this is what they did.

Kevin Lindsay returned as not one but two Sontarans.

The regulars are all good value as always, wonderful bits between Ian Marter and Liz Sladen especially. The Doctor doesn’t get a heck of a lot to do, we have Terry Walsh the stuntman filling in wherever possible as Tom Baker broke his collarbone during the filming. The effect of using video instead of film is a bit disappointing, a bit plain to be fair. With a full two episodes though on location, I guess the editing time couldn’t be spare. Still, they did it for ‘Spearhead from Space’.

5/10

The Time Warrior

Greeted by new credits

The season-opener for Season 11 is really a wonderful piece of writing, with some fantastic performances from the guest cast. It’s a fun romp, with a wonderful humorous  edge. Whilst Robert Holmes introduces the Sontarans, a potato-headed warrior race, the real stars of the show are the characters he wrote so beautifully in Irongron and Bloodaxe, portrayed by David Daker and John J. Carney. As a pair they are simply very funny, and work brilliantly off each other. There is something very funny about seeing two stupid people in positions of power.

Irongron (left) with Bloodaxe.

For Example: Bloodaxe (to Irongron): Indeed yours is a towering intelligence.

Then we have Professor Rubeish, played by Donald Pelmear.  A doddering old scientist blind without his glasses who potters along for the whole story like he’s invisible to Linx, the Sontaran, played by Kevin Lindsay, holding up a piece of glass he fashioned into a spectacle. Linx looks great, the mask is well proportioned to the actor’s face, and they cast exactly the right man for the job in my opinion. We only see his face sparingly too, the director has avoided revealing too much of his chief-villain.

Kevin Lidsay as the lovely Linx.

However, the end of episode one is extremely contrived. The Doctor is hiding in the castle behind a wagon or something, and Linx strolls out, and takes his helmet off so we can see his ugly features. There’s no good reason for him to do so unless he was desperate for air I guess.

Elizabeth Sladen as Sarah Jane Smith.

Now, we have a new character as well, a new ‘companion’ for the Doctor when she sneaks aboard the TARDIS as the Doctor sets course for medieval England, Sarah Jane Smith. Quite a departure from Jo Grant, Sarah is very aggressive and in fact thinks the Doctor is responsible for the missing scientists for a time. Played by the late Elizabeth Sladen, Sarah is very good in this story, making a strong debut, organising attacks on Irongron’s castle, kidnapping the Doctor and the like.

Eventually she realises the Doctor is on the side of good of course, and helps him out. She helps the rather helpless Edward of Wessex (Alan Rowe), who is attacked by Irongron and fears for his castle and lands.

personal favourite: Bloodaxe

What is strange is that Irongron and his band of men with questionable intelligence don’t seem to be very good at hunting, instead preferring to capture castles, stay there until all the food and drink has been consumed and move to the next castle. Not really sure what the ultimate aim is.

Linx and Irongron plot together.

It’s a nice, compact four-part story. The DVD release includes some new CGI effects, which is a good thing because to be frank the effects in the original telecast version are all a bit rubbish, especially the exploding castle at the end. Robert Holmes was apparently reluctant to write a story in an historical setting, however ‘The Time Warrior’ proves that mixed with science fiction elements, an historical setting is a great place to set a Doctor Who story.

8/10