Day 242 — August 30th 2021
The Invasion of Time Parts Three and Four
The Invasion of Time — Part Three
I woke up on the right side of the bed this morning and decided that I was going to make a conscious effort to enjoy more in this story, because I’ve spent the last few days being incredibly negative about all the episodes I’m watching. And do you know what? It’s worked! Well, it’s sort of worked. I’m still only going for a 4/10, but that’s double the score the last episode had, so I’m counting that as a success whatever the weather.
It helps that this episode, for me, is the best of the serial so far. We finally get to do away with all the ‘mystery’ of why Doctor Who is behaving so strangely, and I think that’s the key to making the whole thing work. As soon as we’re let in on what’s really happening everything starts to move. Doctor Who becomes the character we know almost immediately, and Tom Baker is suddenly far more back on form. He still looks as though he’s drowning in his costume (he piles it all back on here and you genuinely worry that he might suffocate under all hat wool) but he’s doing some actual acting as opposed to stomping around and yelling at things. There’s an especially nice moment when he finds out that his instructions to line his office with lead have been carried out — the weary way he tells Borusa ‘at last we can talk’ is so full of emotion that it’s the first time I’ve really felt anything from him, and it sells the threat of the Vardans more than his anger of the back of their chairs ever could hope to.
Leela also feels like she’s come back round to form here. She spent most of Part Two running around the Capitol being chased by guards and desperately trying to avoid being cast outside the city, but here she feels more like the character we know and love from earlier stories, and it’s all summed up perfectly by her words in a great exchange with Rodan;
Leela: ‘There’s no point in further discussion. The discussion is for the wise
or the helpless, and I am neither.’
Rodan: ‘Then what are you going to do?’
Leela: ‘Well, if the Doctor wished me banished, I’ll be banished.’
Rodan: ‘You will surrender?’
Leela: ‘No! You talk always of surrender. Are all your tribe like this?’
Rodan: ‘We are rational.’
Leela: ‘You are cowards. No, if the Doctor wished me banished, it was
for a reason.’
Rodan: ‘Reason dictates the Doctor is a traitor.’
Leela: ‘Never!’
Rodan: ‘Reason dictates — ’
Leela: ‘Then reason is a liar!’
Jameson has been oddly off-form for the last five or six episodes (although perhaps that’s just me projecting my own dislike of the episodes onto her) but this feels like her crashing back to normal with a bang. She’s fiery and powerful and reminds me just why I’ve thought her so brilliant before. She continues to be great once outside in the wastelands, flipping the leader of the outsiders over on their first meeting. And how great does she look in that orange cloak? I’ve always thought of the scenes outside in this story as being every bit as cheap as everything else, but there’s a surprising amount to enjoy in there.
It also strikes me that the Gallifrey we’re seeing here is the template for the version of the planet we see in the New Testament; sandy and burning under an orange sky, rather than the slightly damp version we’ll later get in The Five Doctors. I can very much picture this as the same place Peter Capaldi visits in Hell Bent. Now if only we could replace the slightly effete guard costumes in this story with the beefier versions from that one!
Of course it’s not all sunshine and roses in this episode. People mock the Vardans for being bits of tin foil, and I always sort of nod and roll my eyes at the lazy comparison… but actually, they really are just sheets of tin foil being wiggled about a bit, aren’t they? I know they’re supposed to be disguises and they’re not the creatures’ true form (or so we’re told repeatedly) but all the same, it looks dreadful. I overlooked the use of bubble wrap in The Ark in Space and write it off as being a far more exotic thing in 1975, but I can’t really do the same for tin foil. Frankly, whoever thought they could get away with this must have been having a laugh.
The worse crime, though, is how poorly integrated the creatures are at various points. When they showed up in the cliffhanger to Part Two I didn’t especially mind the tin foil — indeed, I was all ready to defend it from criticism. The issue there is less that they’ve raided the catering van for a special effect and more that they’ve overlaid them on an image which makes them look incredibly small and bizarrely close to the Time Lords. The shot needs to have a bit more space to work, and we know they’ve got it on that set!
So. Not perfect, but a massive improvement on the first third. We’re moving in the right direction…
The Invasion of Time — Part Four
The cliffhangers are getting better with each episode of this one. The first was fairly rubbish (they put the coronet on Doctor Who’s head and he looks mildly uncomfortable), the second was quite creepy but marred by a poor effect (Doctor Who laughs as a load of tin foil appears) and the third was almost dramatic, with Andred pulling a gun on Doctor Who and declaring him a traitor. This one, though, where Doctor Who declared the day saved only to turn around and see a load of Sontarans waiting to attack is brilliant, and I hope it came as a real shock to kids watching in 1978. I think part of the reason this story has been a let down for me is that I knew this twist was coming, so I’ve spent the whole time waiting for the spuds to rock up.
I’ve been quite hard on the Vardans so far — and rightly so, I think, given that they’ve been sheets of tin foil. In this episode they finally materialise fully and take their full form, revealing themselves to be… a bunch of blokes. It’s rubbish, but just as I was about to write down that it was rubbish, Doctor Who confirmed it for me;
Kelner: ‘They’re just human!’
Doctor Who: ‘Mmm. Disappointing, aren’t they.’
Somehow, that entire moment spun it all around for me. Reader, I hooted with laugher. There’s something so fun about the idea of Doctor Who being let down by the villain reveal that I can’t help but love. And actually, the design of the humanoid Vardans is quite nice — there’s something pleasingly reminiscent of The Rocketeer in the helmet design. I think if they were just the evil human bad guys in any old story, rather than being the people who invaded Gallifrey, I’d take to them a lot more.
They’re more interesting in this episode than any other, too. Doctor Who spells out to Andred the threat that they pose, able to travel along any wavelength and materialise at the end of it, and there’s some great moments where they’re being attacked and metamorphose back into tin foil form so they can’t be harmed. I think if the direction were a bit pacier, this would work a treat. I know they’ve been brought back a couple of times by Big Finish, and the general consensus is that they did something really interesting with the idea, so maybe I’ll have to check those stories out when this marathon is over.
The direction in this one isn’t awful — anything was going to be an upgrade from Underworld, let’s be honest — but it’s not anything to write home about either. The TARDIS has for some reason been shot with a single light from the side of the set rather than the traditional set up overhead, which has the effect of making it look both like there’s been a bit of a powercut, and more like a set than usual. For some reason it shows up the poor condition of the set more than the usual lighting does. That said, there’s some nice close ups of Baker in this episode, with the room out of focus behind him, and they stand out more than most other shots in the story.
Baker feels much more back on form here generally. There’s lots of little bits of business, such as the way his eyes follow K9’s probe as it extends and retracts during a scan, and I love his reaction when Andred reminds him of his presidential perks;
Andred: ‘But you have access to the greatest source of knowledge in the universe.’
Doctor Who: ‘Well, I do talk to myself sometimes, yes.’
Andred: ‘I mean the Matrix.’
Doctor Who: ‘Oh. Oh, that old thing.’
It’s never going to be a favourite, but we’re holding steady with another 4/10.
