Friday 28 December 2018

228 The Krotons: Episode One

EPISODE: The Krotons: Episode One
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 228
STORY NUMBER: 047
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 28 December 1968
WRITER: Robert Holmes
DIRECTOR: David Maloney
SCRIPT EDITOR: Terrance Dicks
PRODUCER: Peter Bryant
RATINGS: 9 million viewers
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who: The Krotons

"You have been chosen to receive the highest honour that can befall a Gond. You are now the companions of the Krotons!"

WARNING! Do not put Krotons in your soup!

Abu Gond and Vana Gond have been selected to become companions of the Krotons. Abu goes through the doors into the machine first but Thara, Vana's love, objects to her going and delays proceeding. The Tardis lands on the Gond planet. Finding the back door to the machine, they see Abu disintegrated by gas guns. Travelling to the Gond city The Doctor, Jamie & Zoe arrive as Vana goes into the machine, quickly working out what will happen to her. The Gonds tell the travellers that the Krotons are in machine. The Time Travellers return to the wasteland with Thara and rescue Vana as she leaves the machine, but the Doctor's favourite umbrella is destroyed to his distress. Selris, the Gonds' leader, explains to the travellers that the Gonds' two best students are selected to enter the machine to join the Krotons. No living Gond has ever seen the Krotons. Years ago silver men came from sky, killing the Gonds and creating the poisonous wasteland that nobody had been in till the Doctor walked out of it. While they talk Thara and his friends sneak into learning hall to smash the teaching machines. Since the war the Gonds have lived in peace with the Krotons with their best 2 students of every class going into the machine to be their companions. Having seen what happens to the companions the Doctor decides to stop the Krotons. Beta reports to Selris what Thara is doing. They go to the learning hall to stop it. Inside the machine a device in a control room observes what is happening. A voice booms into the learning hall telling the Gonds to leave. The Doctor tries to get Gonds to stop as an eye on a stalk emerges from the machine and observes the Doctor pinning him to floor......

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I like that: The Doctor shows up, takes one look at what's going on and decides that's got to change.

SELRIS: Ever since, we have lived in peace with them. The Krotons never show themselves to us, but we learn from them through the teaching machines.
ZOE: Teaching machines?
SELRIS: Yes, in the Hall of Learning, where you were today. The machines fill the mind with knowledge.
DOCTOR: And everyone uses these machines?
SELRIS: When they are young, yes. That is the law.
DOCTOR: Whose law, Selris?
SELRIS: Our law. The Gonds'.
DOCTOR: But I thought you said all your laws were given you by the Krotons?
SELRIS: Yes, all our science, all our culture, everything we have, has come from the machine.
DOCTOR: I see. A sort of self-perpetuating slavery. And the Krotons always choose your two most promising students?
SELRIS: To be their companions, yes. Do you think they've all been killed?
JAMIE: Aye, well, we saw one of them killed anyway.
ZOE: Well why are they doing it, Doctor? What's the point?
DOCTOR: Hmm? Well, it's time it was stopped, anyway. It's high time it was stopped!
OK yes, people are dying, so it's obvious it needs to stop but the Gonds have been living this way for a long time, unaware that their brightest and best are going to their dooms.
SELRIS: You see, every so often the two best of our students have entered the machine to join the Krotons. They can't all have been murdered.
ZOE: Well, it's possible. If they had you wouldn't know because this spray stuff just
JAMIE: Dissolves everything. In any case, none of your people ever go into the wasteland.
SELRIS: But why should they do it? Why should they kill the best of our students?
ZOE: What are they like, these Krotons?
SELRIS: No living person has ever seen them. They never come out of the machine.
ZOE: Never?
SELRIS: Not since the beginning. Not for thousands of years.

ZOE: Selris was just saying that no one's ever seen these Krotons.
JAMIE: Aye, they never leave that machine.
DOCTOR: How did all this begin, Selris?
SELRIS: According to our legends, silver men came out of the sky and built a house among us. The Gonds attacked them but the silver men caused a poisonous rain to fall, killing hundreds of our people and turning the earth black.
JAMIE: The wasteland.
SELRIS: Yes. Because it was said that ever afterwards anyone who set foot there would die in terrible pain.

The element of the best being taken reminds me of how the fittest/most beautiful are taken away to the city by the Tripods in John Christopher's The Tripods Trilogy to serve the unseen Masters. But as we'll see the author of this story will be not be averse to filing off the serial numbers and sticking to Malcolm Hulke's maxim that "All you need to work in television is a good idea. It needn't be your own"....

And that brings us quite nicely to this story's author, who's on Doctor Who Who début here, so Ladies & Gentlemen please welcome Robert Holmes. Saying he's a former army officer, policeman and journalist doesn't do justice to it so read his Wikipedia entry or better yet buy his biography from Telos Books.

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Holmes had started writing for television in the late fifties. He submitted a story, the Trap, to the Doctor Who office in 1965 where it was rejected. He resubmitted it in 1968 and incoming script editor Terrance Dicks decided he liked the look of it and developed it as a "reserve story". When the scripts for season six started going Tango Ultra - two stories had previously held the Krotons slot - the story was pressed into service. Robert Holmes had found Doctor Who and Doctor Who had found him. The two would only really be parted by Holmes' untimely death in 1986 while writing the concluding instalments of The Trial of A Timelord. Get used to his name, you'll be hearing a LOT more about him. Holmes was always very good at finding interesting ways for people to die: disintegrated by gas is just the start and Abu-Gond will not be his last victim!

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Abu is played by Terence Brown who will return as a UNIT soldier/motorcyclist in Day of the Daleks.

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His luckier companion, Vana, is played by Madeleine Mills who, although busy, hasn't appeared in anything else I've seen. One of her female friend is played by Patricia Matthews who returns in Doctor Who and the Silurians as a Technician.

This episode is also the first appearance in television Doctor Who of Philip Madoc, here playing Eelik. He'd already been in Daleks - Invasion Earth: 2150 A.D., the second Doctor Who film, as Brockley and one of my earliest Doctor Who memories is of him being exterminated in the shed. Eelik is a bit of a background character here so we'll look at him in more detail when he takes centre stage later in the story.

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During a fight in this episode Jamie can be seen wearing a wrist watch. It's not so much an anachronism as he's been travelling in the Tardis for a while but it does jump out at you, as it did for me the last time I watched this story to blog about it. However since then I've seen a few other earlier Troughton tales with Jamie wearing a watch! We have to assume while he's been travelling with the Doctor he has learnt how to tell the time as well as, as seen in previous episodes, how to read.

Some nice location work in two quarries nicely sets up the wasteland at the start of the story and is periodically returned to later.

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Filming took place at the West of England quarry and Tank Quarry, both in Malvern on 10th & 11th November 1968. Unfortunately nobody knows which exterior sequence was shot at which quarry! When I watched this episode for the first version of this blog I said:

Gosh it's video time. This is the only complete Troughton story that we'll watch on VHS.

I'm obviously spoilt by DVD as this looked nowhere near as good as I expected it to.

Actually this episode survived as a 35mm transmission print in the BBC Film & Video library. Now I'm watching it on DVD it looks *really* good.

Finally, 224 episodes since I last mentioned it, we get back to the 1981 Five Faces of Doctor Who repeat season! The Krotons was the sole 4 part Troughton story existing at the time so it was really the only choice for representing the Second Doctor in the Five Faces of Doctor Who. It was repeated from Monday 9th to Thursday 12th November on BBC2 and earned the wrath of many older fans for being broadcast instead of supposedly much better stories such as Tomb of the Cybermen. A few weeks later the Doctor Who Monthly Winter Special was released showing what state the Doctor Who archives were really in (well bar a few tinsy tiny errors!)

Friday 21 December 2018

227 The Invasion: Episode Eight

EPISODE: The Invasion: Episode Eight
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 227
STORY NUMBER: 046
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 21 December 1968
WRITER: Derrick Sherwin & Kit Pedler
DIRECTOR: Douglas Camfield
SCRIPT EDITOR: Terrance Dicks
PRODUCER: Peter Bryant
RATINGS: 7 million viewers
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who: The Invasion

"The Cybermen will deliver their bomb on the same radio beam they used for their invasion. You've got to turn it off, man. You've got to turn it off!"

At missile control the crew celebrate Zoe destroying the Cyberfleet. The Brigadier is contacted by Benton who tells them that they overheard on the Doctor's radio that the Cybermen will send their Megatron bomb to Earth. Vaughan destroys cyber machine with the Cerebration Mentor . The Doctor says Vaughan must turn of the radio beam that the cyber ships was using as guidance to stop the Cybermen delivering their bomb. Packer is killed by a Cyberman which is in turn killed by the Doctor with Cerebration Mentor. The Doctor calls UNIT in to attack the transmitter at the IE compound and have the Cyber ship attacked by missile. The Brigadier sends a helicopter for them. Captain Turner reports the Russians are ready to launch their rocket with a warhead attached. The rocket is launched. The Doctor and Vaughan are taken by helicopter to the IE compound where they attack Cybermen with the Cerebration Mentor. They find their destination is guarded by Cybermen. UNIT arrives and battle Cybermen on the ground. Rocket launchers and grenades prove successful. The Doctor & Vaughan reach the transmitter control but Vaughan is slain by Cybermen and the Doctor chased away. However he meets UNIT who destroy the Cybermen and the transmitter. The Cybermen spaceship approaches earth to avoid the Russian rocket and deliver the megatron bomb. The Russian Rocket is diverted. The Cyber Megatron Bomb is launched, but Henlow Downs fires it's missiles destroying the bomb and the Russian Rocket destroys the Cyber ship. Later Captain Turner drives Isobel along with The Doctor, Zoe & Jamie to the field in which they left the invisible Tardis. The Doctor makes it visible and they dematerialise to the astonishment of Isobel & Captain Turner.

I'm sorry, but apart from the location filmed battle sequences this episode is struggling a bit. UNIT troops vs the Cybermen looks good, but there's large amounts of stock footage used, two from the previous episode, one of which I could swear is used twice in this episode but flipped, and a new section of the rocket launching. A lot of the important action, mainly the destroying of the transmission control, happens off screen presumably another casualty of the locations problems that cost us Watkins' rescue previously. Sergeant Walters disappears this episode, replaced by Benton. John Levene's elevation to speaking role in this story is sometimes reported as he replaced another actor who was continually late but it maybe this story just applies to this episode. The Cybership design in this episode returned to our screens recently in "A Good Man Goes To War"

Making it's Doctor Who début in this story is the TCC Condensers round the corner from "The Acton Hilton", the BBC's famed rehersal rooms. The production team spent three days shooting there on the 9th, 10th & 12th September 1968.

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The location would be back twice in Jon Pertwee's first year as the Doctor! The Staircase you can see here features prominantly in the third Doctor's first story Spearhead from Space. The same story would see Nicholas Courtney returning to the program for the Brigadier's third appearance, and indeed he gets to lead Unit Troops into the same location on hat occasion too!

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The warehouse space you can see behind the soldier is seen in Ambasasdors of Death as the fight location in the first episode.

We also get to see one of the locations we missed in the first episode: Williamstrip Farm near Coln St Aldwyn was the location for the Tardis landing and we return here for it's departure at the end of the story. All scenes here were shot 3rd September 1968.

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I've not managed to spot where he is but apparently in this episode is familiar supporting artist and stuntman Terry Walsh making his début as a UNIT Soldier. He'll play a few more of them over the next few years too!

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We have a few new names bolstering the Cybermen's ranks too, Richard King would return in the Silurians as a Technician, Frontier in Space: Episode Three as a Lunar Guard and Frontier in Space: Episode Five as a Draconian Emperor Guard. He's in Doomwatch as a Man in In the Dark and Moonbase 3 as a Technician in Castor and Pollux & View of a Dead Planet.
Peter Thornton had previously been in Out of the Unknown appearing as the Lorry driver in Stranger in the Family which you can see on the Out of the Unknown DVD Set.

This is Patrick Troughton's last meeting with the Cybermen, and in fact the last Cybermen story until Revenge of the Cybermen in April 1975 by which point Tom Baker will be the Doctor. Jon Pertwee, barring cameos, never encounters the Cybermen during the five years he was in the title role. Having waited six plus years for their next major appearance the Cybermen then wait seven more till March 1982 when they return in Earthshock.

This story is also the last involvement in Doctor Who for Kit Pedler. He, along with frequent collaborator and former script editor Gerry Davis, would go onto create the popular early 1970s television show Doomwatch looking at dramatised threats for science and environmental issues. Like Doctor Who many of it's episodes were junked but the surviving episodes have been released on The Doomwatch DVD set. Kit Pedler died on the 27th May 1981. Michael Seely has written a biography of Kit Pedler entitled The Quest for Pedler, available from MIWK publishing, which is well worth a read..

The Invasion is the longest Second Doctor story so far, beating the seven part Evil of the Daleks. But as things turn out it won't even be the longest story this season! It's a bit of an odd beast: I spend the first half of the story distracted waiting for the Cybermen are going to actually turn up and when they do they're hardly in it and when they are they're just goons in a role that any monster could have filled. There's two great Cybermen moments, as the first one bursts out of it's cocoon at the end of episode 4 and as they come up out the sewers in episode 6. Even the battle in this episode isn't so great with the Cybermen falling a bit too easily. If anything the first half of the story, episodes 1-4, before the Cybermen appear is better than the second half with the mystery element of the story and the exchanges between Vaughan & The Doctor driving the story. Episode 3's cliffhanger with SOMETHING moving in the crate Jamie's hiding in is superb. I said that a lot of those episodes is padding and it is but it's being done so well there. I like The Invasion, and think it's very good but I think it could have been so so much better than that and an absolute classic like the two Douglas Camfield directed stories which it sits between.

The Invasion was adapted for book form by Ian Marter and published in October 1985. The cover is one of my favourites of the entire range and the only book to have an Invasion style Cyberman on the cover to actually feature them - they also appear on the covers of The Cybermen (Moonbase) and Tomb of the Cybermen. The Invasion was released as a double pack video during the 30th anniversary year 1993 with links recorded by Nicholas Courtney replacing the missing episodes 1 & 4. The Soundtrack to all eight episodes was released on CD in a box with The Tenth Planet as Doctor Who: Cybermen in 2004 and a solo release followed in early 2006. A DVD of the six surviving episodes and animated reconstructions of episodes 1 & 4 was released in 2006.

Friday 14 December 2018

226 The Invasion: Episode Seven

EPISODE: The Invasion: Episode Seven
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 226
STORY NUMBER: 046
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 14 December 1968
WRITER: Derrick Sherwin & Kit Pedler
DIRECTOR: Douglas Camfield
SCRIPT EDITOR: Terrance Dicks
PRODUCER: Peter Bryant
RATINGS: 7.2 million viewers
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who: The Invasion

"We no longer need you. A Cyber-megatron bomb will be delivered. We must destroy life on Earth completely. Every living being."

Zoe repairs the Doctor's neuristor, restoring him to conciousness. Captain Turner checks in with the Brigadier who is OK and sends transport. The Cyber Machine reports that a full invasion force is on the way. Vaughan wishes to retain control of the Invasion and sends Packer to retrieve Professor Watkins from Unit. Sergeant Walters arrives with a jeep for the Doctor and co but as he gets there Packer & some guards show up to abduct Watkins. In the ensuing battle Watkins and Jamie are injured. The Brigadier sends a helicopter to rescue them. Packer is reprimanded for their failure to retrieve Watkins and blames the Doctor. UNIT has lost radio communication to major the major world cities. The Doctor works out that Cyber control is coming from their fleet near the moon and they need to stop it. The Brigadier knows the Russians were going to send a rocket up: Captain Turner is sent to get a warhead onto the rocket. The Brigadier says that there is a Missile base nearby at Henlow Downs that they can use to shoot incoming Cyberman ships down. The Doctor says he needs to talk to Vaughan but will go with a radio on so Vaughan's plans can be broadcast to UNIT. The Doctor plans to go through the sewers, now empty of Cybermen. He drives a jeep from the airfield to the nearest manhole cover. Vaughan & Packer are discussing plans then the Doctor arrives: Packer wants to kill the Doctor but Vaughan reminds him that the Doctor and his TARDIS is their insurance policy. Vaughan tells the Doctor how he masterminded the operation and how he believes the Cybermen will be under his command. At the missile base the staff are brought round by the UNIT troops. The Doctor tells Vaughan that the Cybermen will destroy all humans. Vaughan takes no notice and summons the invasion fleet. The missile base begins preparations to launch their missiles. The Doctor wants Vaughan to stop the Cybermen. The missile base sights the incoming Cyber fleet and are ready to fire when Zoe calculates a way of destroying 90% of missiles. Given 30 seconds to make her calculations the missiles are fired destroying the Cyber fleet. Their machine tells Vaughan he has betrayed them and attacks him saying they are sending a Cyber megatron bomb to destroy everyone. The Doctor challenges Vaughan asking him if he wants to be ruler of a dead world.........

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Oh dear we've got to the missile base. This section of the story really annoys me with the stock footage of the missiles being prepared and then launched reused a few times. The footage is used twice and once here respectively, but I'm sure it'll be back some more tomorrow.

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Other than that, good stuff, though I wonder if we were meant to see more of the Doctor's retreat from Watkins attacked house but they ran into problems filming like with the sequence for Watkins' rescue by UNIT troops in the previous episode. I think we've got a first in this episode: The Doctor drives a jeep off the UNIT jet. Is this the first indication we've had that he can drive a car?

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There's one technical element of the show I have to question: when Major Branwell fires the rocket he has two keys to trigger the system. Now I've seen a few war movies: aren't control key for missile systems usually carried by two officers as a failsafe to prevent one insane officer from firing them?

Both of the credited missile base personnel have form with Douglas Camfield: Major Branwell, the commanding officer, is played by Clifford Earl who was the Station Sergeant in The Daleks' Master Plan episode 7: The Feast of Steven. He can be seen in the Sean Connery James Bond film Diamonds Are Forever as an Immigration Officer and The Professionals Mixed Doubles as the Plain Clothes Sergeant.

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Norman Hartley plays Sergeant Peters here but was previously Ulf in the Camfield directed The Time Meddler. Camfield uses him again the next year in Out of the Unknown: The Last Lonely Man as Contact Commercial Person #2. The same episode also features Peter Halliday, who plays Packer here. It's the only completely surviving third season Out Of The Unknown episode and can be seen on the Out of the Unknown DVD Set. He previously appeared in Carry On Sergeant as the Thirteenth recruit, alongside first Doctor William Hartnell, and goes onto appear in Blake's 7 as Captain Kennedy in Gold and the Porridge sequel Going Straight as the House Owner in Going to Be Alright.

IMDB has Peter Roy down as an uncredited UNIT / Bunker Man for episode 1, which is obviously wrong as there's no UNIT soldiers or a bunker in episode 1, so I'm guessing he's present here somewhere. He was a Greek Soldier in The Myth Makers, an Extra in The Highlanders and an Airport Police Sergeant in The Faceless Ones, He returns as a Guard in The Seeds of Death, a Space Guard in The Space Pirates, an uncredited extra in Doctor Who and the Silurians, Technic Obarl in Hand of Fear, a Guard in The Face of Evil, an Extra in The Sun Makers, a Gallifreyan Guard in Invasion of Time, a Gracht Guard in The Androids of Tara, a Guard in The Armageddon Factor, a Policeman in Logopolis, an Ambulance Man in Castrovalva, a Man in Market in Snakedance and a Walk on in Resurrection of the Daleks. Like many extras used by Doctor Who in the seventies he has Blake's 7 form too appearing as a Citizen / Prisoner in The Way Back & Space Fall, an Alta Guard in Redemption, an Albian Rebel in Countdown and a Federation Trooper / Rebel in Rumours of Death. In the The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy he plays the Limousine Chauffeur in episode 2. He's got a notable role in the James Bond film Thunderball where he played British Secret Agent 006. He has a less obvious appearance in Return of the Jedi as Major Olander Brit but that hasn't stopped the character from getting a Wookipedia page!

There's a new location in this episode: St James's Gardens in Shepherd's Bush serves as the location for the Travers' house which Professor Watkins is renting and his niece is using as a studio. These scenes were recorded 11th September 1968.

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I'm wondering if there was meant to be another battle scene recorded here but, like the fight to recapture Watkins from IE, it too was lost and then restaged in the studio?

Interestingly this isn't the same location the Doctor & co were dropped off at in Episode One which was Princedale Road, Notting Hill Gate! The missile control board in this episode is not a new prop: it previously appeared in our favourite Adam Adamant Lives! episode D for Destruction.

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As well as having Patrick Troughton as a guest star this episode features the computer from International Electromatics reception from episode two and a whole host of the Power Station control panels we've been spotting everywhere!

Friday 7 December 2018

225 The Invasion: Episode Six

EPISODE: The Invasion: Episode Six
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 225
STORY NUMBER: 046
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 07 December 1968
WRITER: Derrick Sherwin & Kit Pedler
DIRECTOR: Douglas Camfield
SCRIPT EDITOR: Terrance Dicks
PRODUCER: Peter Bryant
RATINGS: 6.5 million viewers
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who: The Invasion

"It's the Cybermen! We've just seen hundreds coming out of the sewers!

Captain Turner arrives with UNIT troops who descend into the tunnels with Benton. Jamie, Zoe & Isobel hide at the side of the tunnel as the deranged Cyberman passes them. Captain Turner calls for Isobel but Jamie gets her to be quiet not to alert the Cyberman. The UNIT troops encounter a group of Cybermen, but these Cybermen are attacked by the deranged Cyberman. UNIT destroys two Cybermen with grenades but the deranged one survives killing a soldier. Jamie keeps guard as the others leave. Last out the manhole his foot is grabbed by the Cybermen, but Sergeant Walters clubs it with his rifle till it lets go then Benton drops a grenade on it. The Doctor examines the IE circuits at Watkins' house, the Brigadier asking him if he's had success. Isobel develops the photos that she took in the sewers, but the results are smeared and blurry. The Brigadier doesn't think they'll be good enough to convince UNIT command in Geneva. At IE Packer is worried about UNIT, but Vaughn says in a few hours time the invasion will be complete. Gregory brings Professor Watkins and the Cerebration Mentor machine. Vaughn tells Professor Watkins that Isobel is free. Vaughn uses the Cerebration Mentor on Professor Watkins to produce fear but Gregory intervenes. Professor Watkins says he'll kill Vaughn so Vaughn offers him Packer's gun which Watkins uses to shoots Vaughn, but the bullets don't penetrate his chest, leaving smoking holes on his shirt. Professor Watkins faints and is taken away. The Doctor works into night. Isobel brings him tea as Jamie sleeps. Captain Turner has set up base at Watkins' house. When UNIT control reports that Benton has seen guards taken Professor Watkins out of the building, Isobel & The Doctor persuade the Brigadier to mount a rescue mission using Captain Turner. Later Gregory reports what happened to Vaughn how UNIT grabbed Professor Watkins. Vaughn turns Gregory loose in sewers where he's killed by Cybermen. A shaken Professor Watkins tells the Doctor he doesn't know what the circuits are for and tells him about the Cerebration Mentor. The Doctor realises that Vaughn will use it as weapon to induce emotion, alien to the Cyber nervous systems and that the circuits are emotional controls. The Brigadier leaves for UNIT control. Cybermen patrol the sewers during the night. The Doctor discovers that the Cybermen will use communications satellite to activate the emotional circuits producing a cyber hypnotic force bringing everyone under Cyber control. The Doctor says they must build depolarisers to break Cyber control. The Cyber machine tells Vaughn that there is 1 hour till the invasion and that the Cybermen are moving into position. The Doctor tells the Brigadier to fit depolarisers to all his staff. Zoe can only make 3, so they hunt for more neuristors, the key missing component. The Cyber machine says there is 30 minutes to the invasion. Packer asks if Vaughn is sure he will control earth after the Invasion: Vaughn replies that he is certain. Morning: quiet, empty streets. Isobel looks out of the window of the house and tells Captain Turner how peaceful it is. An odd sound echoes through the air. The Doctor's depolariser falls off and he collapses as do people in the street. Captain Turner & Jamie see hundreds of Cybermen coming out of the sewers.

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Manholes are flung back effortlessly as the Cybermen emerge all over London, walking down steps of St Paul's Cathedral as masters of the land.

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Absolute cracker and, if all had gone to plan, might have been even better!

We start off with some action down the sewers, then we move to the waiting game as we get a real sense of the hours ticking by as the Doctor tries to solve the problem of the circuits and finally we get the invasion started with one of he seminal Doctor Who moments as the populace collapses and the Cybermen emerge from the sewers to walk down the steps of Saint Paul's Cathedral. This piece obviously owes a certain debt to the Daleks parading round London but it's just so good. The bit that does it for me is when the Cyberman coming out of the sewer throws the heavy man hole cover aside and it hits the floor with a resounding clang emphasising the strength of these creatures. I first saw this sequence on a 1982 edition of Did You See...? , which did an article on Doctor Who to celebrate the Cybermen's return in Earthshock (It's on the Earthshock DVD) and it made a big impression on the nearly nine year old me confirming the Cybermen as one of my favourite monsters.

In the middle of this episode is an incident that's thoroughly downplayed in the story. It's shocking at the time but is completely unexplained and not referred to again!

WATKINS: This is madness. That machine is a deadly weapon now.
VAUGHN: Really?
WATKINS: The modifications were quite unnecessary. It worked perfectly well as it was.
VAUGHN: For your purposes, perhaps, Professor. I have a somewhat different use for it.
WATKINS: All right, all right. Do with it what you will. The machine's yours now. Now, will you let me get out of this place? And let Isobel go free as you promise?
VAUGHN: But my dear fellow, she is free.
WATKINS: Free? Where? Where is she?
VAUGHN: Probably sitting quite comfortably at home. Now then, how does one operate this?
GREGORY: Careful, Mister Vaughn. Don't point it at anyone.
VAUGHN: No? Dangerous is it? Fear, Watkins. Do you know what fear is?
WATKINS: No, don't! Don't do that! Don't!
GREGORY: Mister Vaughn, you'll kill him! Stop!
VAUGHN: Perhaps we should try the effects of the machine on you, Gregory! At full power!
GREGORY: No, no, Mister Vaughn. I was only afraid that if we still needed the Professor
VAUGHN: I'm aware of that. Unfortunately I suppose that I still need you, otherwise I. Pick him up.
VAUGHN: Professor, you'll be taken back to the factory compound. I want these machines on the production lines immediately. Do you understand?
WATKINS: Vaughn, obviously I can't choose but to work for you. If I refuse, you'll torture me or kill me. I know I can't stand up to torture, and I don't want to die. You're an evil man, Vaughn. You're sadistic. You're a megalomaniac. You're insane. I pity you, but if I get half a chance, I'll kill you.
VAUGHN: Kill me? Would you? Give me your gun, Packer. Take it. There you are. Take it.

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VAUGHN: Now you're free to shoot me, Professor. Shoot. Shoot! Come on, the gun's loaded, or haven't you got the courage to pull the trigger?

At this point Watkins does shoot, but the bullets just leave smoking holes in Vaughn's shirt.

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So what's going on here? You can put the pieces together from earlier episodes. Vaughn's workers, which we saw carrying the crates in the earlier episodes, are super strong. Then there's this scene in episode four:

VAUGHN: Our allies appear to find the Professor's machine somewhat disturbing, so much so in fact that when they saw the prototype they ordered us to destroy it and all similar machines.
PACKER: You mean they're frightened of it?
VAUGHN: The teaching power of the machine didn't worry them, but when I generated some emotion pulses. I'm convinced, Packer, that emotion could be used to destroy them.
PACKER: That's only a guess.
VAUGHN: A gamble, Packer, a reasonable gamble, and after all we are playing this game for very high stakes, are we not?
PACKER: Well, I think you're taking too big a chance.
VAUGHN: Do you wish to be totally converted? Would you prefer to be one of them? Completely inhuman?
PACKER: Oh, no! But
VAUGHN: That's what'll happen if they take over. We will cease to be human. So, we must use their force and their might and then discard them.
And this in five:
PLANNER: Humans cannot resist Cyber-control. Our forces will penetrate all areas and select suitable humans for cybernetic conversion.
VAUGHN: Conversion to Cybermen?
PLANNER: Yes. The unsuitable humans will be destroyed.
VAUGHN: No! This is not as we agreed!
The theme of converting Humans to Cybermen has been present since their very first appearance in The Tenth Planet, where it's quite explicit, and especially returned to in The Tomb Of The Cybermen, with Toberman. But over time it's been somewhat downplayed with mind control almost replacing it in The Moonbase, Wheel In Space and here. However, even though it's not explicitly stated on screen, it would seem the Vaughn, Packer and many of the IE staff have been partially converted already. I'm interested as to why this is very much downplayed here. Indeed it's a theme not returned to for some time, effectively reducing the Cybermen in he meantime to a bunch of robot soldiers. Even Earthshock, great though it is, doesn't really touch on the idea of the Cybermen wanting to make other humans Cybermen, though does talk about them once being human. It's only in Attack of the Cybermen that we return to the idea, in full graphic detail, where it comes as quite a shock but yet it's one that's been present all along. Was it the horror aspect that led to it being played down, following complaints about Tomb? Or did somebody not like the idea? I suspect that one or both of the new Script Editor Terrance Dicks and soon to be producer Barry Letts didn't like the creatures because there isn't a Cyberman story during their joint time in charge, I wonder if this aspect of them was why?

This episode would have featured more location work , including a battle between UNIT troops and and Vaughn's forces leading to the freeing of Professor Watkins. This is built up by the dialogue in advance:

TURNER: Hold on a sec. Right, the Brigadier's listening now. Go ahead, Sergeant.
WALTERS: Benton on routine observation reports two guards and another man leaving with the Professor. He's on their tail now, sir. Over.
TURNER: Hold on, Sergeant. Look, sir, we could intercept and release the Professor.
BRIGADIER: Well, officially we
ISOBEL: Oh do. Please, do.
DOCTOR: Brigadier, if you could rescue him, he might be able to help us with our problem.
BRIGADIER: All right. Your shindig Jimmy.
TURNER: Sergeant, tell Benton to stay with them. I'm on my way now. I'll contact him on route. Over.
WALTERS: Wilco. Over.
BRIGADIER: Jimmy, don't take any chances. Vaughn's lot know we mean business so they won't be playing games.
TURNER: No, sir, neither will I. I'll take the full assault platoon with me.
BRIGADIER: Right.
TURNER: Sergeant, alert the full assault platoon. I'll relay instructions on route. Have you got that, over?
WALTERS: Yes, sir. Over.
TURNER: Good. Over and out.
ISOBEL: Good luck.
TURNER: Thanks.
BRIGADIER: Yes, good luck, Jimmy.
TURNER: Sir.
TURNER: I think Mister Vaughn is going to have quite a scrap on his hands.
Unfortunately Camfield's days on location didn't go 100% to plan and the sequence was dropped leading to Gregory, who would have been killed in the battle, retelling the sequence to Vaughn:
GREGORY: There were at least thirty of them, all UNIT men and all armed, Mister Vaughn. We didn't stand a chance. Out of nowhere. They just came out of nowhere.
VAUGHN: And they just took the Professor?
GREGORY: What could we do? There were at least
VAUGHN: Thirty of them, you say?
GREGORY: It was hopeless. They shot the two guards, and they'd have shot me if
VAUGHN: If you hadn't run away.
GREGORY: Well, yes.
VAUGHN: You realise of course that without the Professor's assistance it will not be possible to get the Cerebraton Machine on the production line.
GREGORY: No, Mister Vaughn, I can. Given a little time, I'm sure I can!
VAUGHN: But you have no time, Gregory. No time at all.
6b Gregory 6b Gregory Death

Gregory is then killed in the sewers by The Cybermen as punishment for his failure. This extra piece would have changed the tone of the episode considerably turning it more into an all action piece instead of having the quieter middle it does.

Watkins' freedom allows the Doctor to work out what Vaughn wants the teaching machine for:

WATKINS: I'm sorry. I can't tell you.
DOCTOR: You've no idea what these micro-monolithic circuits are for?
WATKINS: No.
DOCTOR: Oh, my word.
WATKINS: I couldn't understand why Vaughn wanted the modifications to the machine.
DOCTOR: You say he's going to mass produce these machines?
WATKINS: Yes.
BRIGADIER: Why should he want a weapon like that if he's got the Cybermen to fight for him?
DOCTOR: I've no idea. Unless. Professor! You say that you developed this machine to produce excessively powerful emotional pulses.
WATKINS: Yes, that's true.
DOCTOR: Well, that's it! Vaughn going to use it as a weapon against the Cybermen once he has no further use for them.
BRIGADIER: What, the Professor's machine?
DOCTOR: Yes. Emotion is alien to the Cybermen's nervous system. It'll destroy it.
This thread has been running through the story, leading to the creation of the deranged Cyberman in the sewers. We're not done with it yet either!

New to the story this episode, and leaving it too, is Stacy Davies as Private Perkins. He'll return to doctor who as Veros in State of Decay but can also be seen inThe Professionals: Backtrack as Sammy Blaydon.

6 a Perkins 6 b Cybermen

Now that The Cybermen are out in force we're joined by a few more actors playing them.

Derek Chafer is the one with the largest Doctor Who CV. He's worked for Douglas Camfield on Doctor Who before playing a Saxon in The Time Meddler, which was his first appearance on the show. He returns as a Greek Soldier in The Myth Makers, a Guard in The Massacre, a Lynch Mob Member in The Gunfighters and previously played a Cyberman in The Moonbase episode 3.He'll return as an Extra in The Space Pirates, a UNIT Soldier in Doctor Who and the Silurians episode, a Prisoner in The Mind of Evil, a Guard in The Curse of Peladon, an Exxilon in Death to the Daleks, a Guard in The Monster of Peladon and and the Armourer in The Masque of Mandragora. The year after this episode was shown he'd appear in the missing third season Out of the Unknown episode 1+1=1.5 as a Man and has three Doomwatch appearances as Men in Project Sahara, Re-Entry Forbidden and The Red Sky all of which can be seen on The Doomwatch DVD.

Ralph Carrigan had previously been an Extra in The Myth Makers, Monoid Two in The Ark: The Return, a Cheerleader in The Macra Terror and a white Robot in The Mind Robber.

It's first Doctor Who appearances for Charles Finch, who'll be a UNIT Soldier in Doctor Who and the Silurians and a Villager in The Dæmons, and John Spradbury, who'll return as a Foot Soldier and Alien Technician in The War Games and another UNIT Soldier in Doctor Who and the Silurians. Terrance Denville had previously been a double for Captain Blade in The Faceless Ones. He is also a War Games Foot Soldier/Alien Technician, a Waxwork visitor/replica in Spearhead from Space, a Technician & UNIT Soldier in The Silurians, a UNIT trooper in The Three Doctors, a Cyberman again, briefly, in The Carnival of Monsters, a Guard in Frontier in Space, a Spiridon in Planet of the Daleks, an an Exxilon in Death to the Daleks and an Ice Warrior in The Monster of Peladon. He plays a Technician in Moonbase 3 Departure and Arrival, Behemoth and Outsider, appears as a Russian Security Council Member in the Pierce Brosnan James Bond film GoldenEye and appears in the Miranda episode Before I Die as an Old Man.

This episode uses a lot of location work to set up the Cyberman Invasion. There's a series of brief establishing shots to start with, the first of which was filmed at Cumberland Terrace on the Outer Circle, Regent's Park on Wednesday 11th September 1968. Another part of the Outer Circle, Cambridge Gate (south), was later used for a similar shot in Invasion of the Dinosaurs.

6 L 1 Outer Circle 6 L 2 Ludgate Hill

The remaining shots and sequences were all recorded Sunday 8th September 1968 with two static shots at Ludgate Hill & Australia House.

6 L 3 Australia House 6 L 4 Distaff Lane

Then a number of scenes of people collapsing are shot at Distaff Lane.

6 L 5 6 L 6

The man walking to work, woman, driver & man in bowler hat are all at different parts of the same street.

6 L 7 6 L 8 Queen Victoria Street

The Window cleaner however was filmed on Queen Victoria Street which is the same location used for the Cybermen flinging the man hole back.

6 L Manhole 6w

Of the many locations used in the course of this story the most famous one is St Peter's Steps to St Paul's Cathedral has been substantially changed in recent years to improve disabled and Dalek access to the site.

Publicity shots were taken on location and a black and white shot of a Cyberman, with two others behind, walking down the steps of St. Peter's Hill, with St. Paul's Cathedral in the background, accompanied the Radio Times programme listing for episode one, bearing the title Invasion and with the accompanying caption "Dr. Who starts a new adventure today at 5.15 — one that will bring him face to face with some of his deadliest enemies, the Cybermen" thus giving away the monsters early and spoiling one of the most iconic sequences Doctor Who has produced.

The shot has been emulated many times by fans, appears using Earthshock style Cybermen in Thirty Years In The Tardis and was recreated for the modern series in the Peter Capaldi story Dark Water.

6x 6y

Finally the closing shot of the Cybermen walking by the shops is filmed on Knight Rider Street.