Doctor Who Retro Review: ‘The Invasion’

The Cybermen invade London in the classic Patrick Troughton serial, ‘The Invasion.’ (Credit: BBC)

Featuring the Brigadier, UNIT, and the Cybermen, we take a look back at a very influential and highly regarded classic Doctor Who serial.

With the finale of Big Finish’s second season of The Early Adventures set immediately after ‘The Invasion,’ I thought a revisit of this classic serial was in order. It’s not exactly one of my all-time favourites, but there’s no denying how hugely influential it was for the rest of the series.

After escaping the Land of Fiction at the end of previous serial ‘The Mind Robber,’ the Second Doctor, Jamie, and Zoe are having problems with the TARDIS (well, more problems than usual) and the Doctor needs help fixing some crucial circuits. He intends to meet an old friend, Professor Travers (who previously appeared in ‘The Abominable Snowmen’ and ‘The Web of Fear’), but finds him unavailable. Instead, he meets Tobias Vaughn, a very intelligent man with some very dangerous friends…

It’s interesting watching this story from a modern viewpoint, as there are a lot of key elements that would become a major part of the series, especially in the early seventies. First, there’s the return of Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart, now promoted to Brigadier, and the introduction of UNIT, a military organisation designed to fight unusual threats after the Yeti attack on the London Underground in ‘The Web of Fear.’

Both UNIT and Lethbridge-Stewart would become key parts of almost every story in the following three seasons, and recur throughout the rest of the Classic Series. In fact, Nicholas Courtney as the Brigadier would continue to meet almost every single incarnation of the Doctor pre-New Series, with the exception of the Sixth and Eighth Doctors (and even then, he got to meet them in a couple of audio stories. God bless Big Finish).

As a result, while it isn’t exactly the first “modern Earth invasion” story (previously, we had stories like ‘The War Machines,’ ‘The Faceless Ones,’ and ‘The Web of Fear’), they were still rare at the time — and you could tell that the production team were testing the waters for something that would become a story template that would be used a lot more often in the near future. As such, there are a lot of elements that would become rather common in future Earth invasion stories, and some not so common.

The very basic outline of the story is that an alien force tries to invade the Earth (mostly from London) while also being assisted by a good, strong villain with a face. I have to say how fantastic Kevin Stoney is to watch as Tobias Vaughn. He can be charming and persuasive one moment and horrifyingly ruthless the next.

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He’s also great to watch with his goon Packer. It’s amazing just how many ways he can say Packer’s name. Seriously, there are times when he even adds extra letters to it. “Packerrrrrrrrr…”

An alien force allying itself with a classy villain would be something that would become very common only two seasons later, when the writing team decided to introduce the Master in Season Eight. (Yes, it took eight entire seasons for someone as seemingly iconic to the show as the Daleks and the Cybermen to finally show up!)

While it may have gotten rather repetitive using the exact same template for almost every story for an entire season, it was a template that undeniably worked when cast with a great actor as the villain, as ‘The Invasion’ proved. And when an equally great actor like Roger Delgado was later cast as the Doctor’s arch-enemy, it became impossible for the production team to resist repeating that element.

Next: Page 2: Iconic Moments

Patrick Troughton as the Second Doctor in ‘The Invasion.’ (Credit: doctorwhomindrobber.com)

What wasn’t repeated as much was the serial’s length. At eight episodes, ‘The Invasion’ is one of the longest stories in the show’s history, beaten only by the ‘The Daleks’ Masterplan,’ ‘The War Games,’ and ‘The Trial of a Time Lord’ in terms of episode count. (The last one of which is highly debatable, considering it was really structured as four stories in one). The story is so long that the Cybermen don’t appear until the end of Episode 4, which in later years would usually be at the end of the story!

Is the sheer length of the serial a bad thing, though? While it does suffer occasionally from padding, it does work as a slow-burner, and works very well as a story of two distinct halves.

The first half focuses more on the mystery of what Vaughn’s plans are and the identity of his allies. Episode by episode, as the Doctor and his companions find themselves in more and more danger, little pieces of information are revealed, letting the mystery unravel at a slow but deliberate pace. When the Cybermen finally show up at the end of Part Four, it really pays off.

That’s not to say that the story isn’t without its flaws. In some places, it does have its pacing problems, but in others, there’s issues of editing and storytelling, as well. One prominent example is the rescue of Professor Watkins from Vaughn. After many episodes of Watkins being shown to be held hostage by Vaughn, it feels like his rescue from UNIT late in the serial should be a big moment.

But it isn’t. In fact, it’s entirely off-screen. One moment, the UNIT people are making plans to rescue him, the next, Vaughn’s assistant Gregory is explaining how he barely escaped from UNIT soldiers. I can see why it may have been told off-screen for budgetary reasons, but it still feels like a bit of a cheat — especially considering how lengthy most of the serial’s plot is and how “blink and you’ll miss it” Watkins’s rescue is by comparison.

But if I’m honest, these flaws are very small compared to how successfully the story works overall. Not to mention the fact that it gave us one of the most iconic cliffhangers of Doctor Who ever: a plethora of Cybermen bursting out of the sewers of London and slowly making their way through the city, with St Paul’s Cathedral in the background. It’s a moment that’s been referenced many times since, with ‘Dark Water’ paying more than a nod to it with its own cliffhanger.

Another thing I have to mention is the sound design, which really helps to enhance the iconic moments. The sound the machine makes as the Cyberman bursts from its cocoon, or the noise of the cyber-signal as the invasion truly kicks off, really add an extra level of power to those scenes.

Next: Doctor Who: Filling in the Gaps

As long as it is, ‘The Invasion’ is a rather essential story for Whovians to watch. Not just because of how much it adds to the mythology, but also because, while it’s not without its faults, it’s still overall a strong story. Not my favourite story of Troughton’s final season (of which I’ll be reviewing quite soon), but very close.