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.........

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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!