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Doctor Who Review: ‘Invaders from Mars’ (Eighth Doctor Audio)

By James Aggas

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After looking back at the Eighth Doctor’s end in ‘The Night of the Doctor,’ it’s time to go further back, to the start of his second season, beginning with ‘Invaders from Mars.’

I’m going to let you know something in advance. The Eighth Doctor’s second season with Charley is, without question, one of my favourite seasons of Doctor Who ever. And I do mean ever. In any format, this season is up there with Hartnell’s first, Tom Baker’s first three, and Smith’s second for me. (There’s also another season with McGann that I rate very highly, but we’ll get to that later.)

Looking back on it, it’s funny to think how similar in structure this season feels to the New Series, particularly in Russell T Davies’s era. It’s a season that starts off very light, before getting to darker stories with more depth, and bringing an epic sense of scale as it goes on.

‘Invaders from Mars‘ is a perfect example of a light-hearted opener. It features just about everything you could want from a story set in 1930s New York. Gangsters. Private detectives. Russian spies. Orson Welles. Oh, and of course, aliens.

Seriously, this is just sheer fun to listen to. You can tell that the cast had a lot of fun with this one. It’s interesting to note that Simon Pegg and Jessica Hynes (then credited as Jessica Stevenson) both feature in this. Not just because they would feature in the TV series later (notably ‘The Long Game‘ and ‘Human Nature‘/’The Family of Blood‘), but also because, at the time, they had recently finished working on the British sitcom Spaced. I was a big fan of the series, and it’s great to hear another instance of the pair working together again, particularly when it’s something as gloriously British and geeky as Doctor Who.

I must admit, I rather like the specific historical setting of this story. The title does not refer to our favourite Martians the Ice Warriors, who don’t feature in this story. Instead, it refers to a rather infamous broadcast of The War of the Worlds by Orson Welles, which caused a mass panic in New York. That event heavily features in the story, with Welles as a key character.

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The American setting and characters are handled nicely, and a lot better than in the previous story ‘Minuet in Hell.’ A key reason for this is that, unlike the previous story, it’s all done purely for fun. The whole story is an affectionate tribute to 1930s pulp radio drama, instead of an attempt at a more serious piece — a good direction to go in, when British actors are playing American characters!

I think the one thing that I’m not keen on in the story is the aliens themselves. They’re not your typical “invaders,” and are an interesting concept, but they still come across a little like clichés, at times. I acknowledge that this is an odd opinion to have regarding a story with a lot of pulpy characters like gangsters and spies. But I think that’s the problem – they don’t feel quite as pulpy as the human characters do. They feel closer to Doctor Who clichés than genre clichés, the latter of which was really needed here.

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However, while it’s not a story that’s in my top ten, ‘Invaders from Mars’ is undoubtedly a good time. It’s what you want from an opening story — light-hearted, not too serious, with just a hint of foreshadowing. But most important of all, it’s pure fun.

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