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#154 15 Dec 2004, 11:29 pm
Dorney
Time Lord
Bromley, Kent
Joined April 22, 2004
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Re: Day by Day
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The Invasion 1:
Darn it, I'd forgotten how irritating missing episodes were - especially those with no telesnaps. It's been yonks since I've sat down and watched the video of this story - I'd guess it's unlikely I've done it more than once. So I've little conception of how this one works, and it's all a little new.
Having said all that, it's rather a fine opening instalment. A text book example of the growing mystery structure, with an increasing amount of strange set ups promising intrigue (considering it's written by the man who provided the almost note perfect intro to Mind Robber this is no suprise). To be honest, probably a set up or two too many - the missile from the moon seems like over egging the pudding to me, in particular. In the context of the whole story there are a heck of a lot of coincidences too (bear in mind there are links between the moon attack and where they land - the compound, between the compound and the house they randomly decide to visit, and the guy that picked them up, and the ultimate villain. It's all a bit Les Miserables (the book with the most outrageous contrivance of plot coincidence ever). It's delivered with enough panache to barely matter though, but it's a bit implausible by Who standards and I think we know that's saying something.
The story does manage to effectively straddle humour and darkness - the regular's getting most of the former, with the death of the Lorry Driver being noticeably unpleasant (multiple gunshots - quite nasty for the show) and rather abrupt. Especially due to it's being surrounded by hi-jinks and a lack of a clear reason for the murder, most of the threat being vague, and out of nowhere. Perhaps the biggest reason for the shock is that the Doctor and co. don't even realise anything's happened! No one finds the body, no one escapes in horror. He goes unmourned.
It's a shame that the replacement characters for Travers and Anne are so blatantly filling in for them - if only the script had made the effort to find a better way of getting the Doctor involved. As it is, the whole Travers dialogue just feels out of place and reminds the audience that he isn't here. Not the best idea.
If I'm honest, I don't feel there's much else I can add, as it's hard to tell with just the soundtrack. Quite atmospheric, and with great music, this has a fast moving plot, and an air of menace. For this alone it feels like something of a return to quality material after the juvenilia of the last 16 or so episodes - last ten in particular. Whether this is accurate or just in response to the relief I don't know, but it's a promising episode that intrigues and definitely has me hooked.
Dorney
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#155 16 Dec 2004, 12:46 pm
The Secretive Bus
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Re: Day by Day
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Since I became a fan, "The Invasion" was the story I most wanted to get on video, and I hunted for it for years. The clips on the "30 Years" documentary made it seem, like, the best Doctor Who EVER!!!!
I was terribly disappointed with it when I got it. Even with 2 episodes missing it seemed overlong and boring, with it's best ideas (such as the effect of emotions on Cybermen) hardly being investigated. The cliffhangers to parts 5 and 6 are still fantastic, but I'm not overly fond of this story due to the acute sense of "It was a lot before I saw it," the only story that's ever suffered from that for me.
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Ben grins out of the cockpit window:
“I am only borrowing this. I’m Ben Chatham” before expertly taking off into the clouds.
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"They laughed at Gallileo once."
- Sparacus
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#156 17 Dec 2004, 1:39 am
Dorney
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Bromley, Kent
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Re: Day by Day
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The Invasion 2:
When I was younger, I refused on principal to buy the video of The Invasion. I retained the somewhat naive belief that the extra episodes might turn up one day, and buying the video was premature (and I thought the BBC were ripping us of slightly, seeing as it was the era of the twenty quid double pack).
So I did rather regret it later, when said video became impossible to track down. Enormous prices were being fetched for it on Ebay. Impossible to get hold of at a reasonable.
Unless you order it from Australia where it's on practically every shelf.
I bought the single cassette version when I was over there a year or two back. This is my first time of watching it. The intro by Courtney is as typically swift and unhelpful as those years tapes one (the cover proclaims the story is 'complete at last'. My arse it is. Really ought to have got trading standards in on that).
It's odd, seeing as this is the first extant Brig episode, that his appearance doesn't have a vast amount of impact (it's very carefully staged too, so it takes as long as possible before you see who it is - or maybe that's just to hide how atrocious his tache looks in this episode). I suppose it's because the man is so very much a part and parcel of Who it just feels like you've come home. Having said that, he is also clearly much closer to the jovial chap we know than the potentially dangerous and very real, human figure of Web. The real surprises are Benton - hanging around in the background, barely saying a word, you'd never guess he'd eventually become a big part of the show - and the actual defining of UNIT - there's no real suggestion that it's purely about alien hostilities. This should be clear from the words making up the acronym, but it's not until you actually watch you spot it. They're an intelligence force, not an alien force. Their monitoring of IE is based on security and investigation queries - rather than any specific response to alien activity.
Despite an entertaining atmosphere, and some really funky music, this episode does feel suggestive that already there's a little bit of padding. The script and direction is good enough to cover it, but it's there. The story goes back and forth between Vaughn's office and Travers house over and again, and doesn't really progress. There are loads of nice set pieces, particularly the computer befuddling, and the Brig's plane, but it's quite static. Camfield does manage to keep it entertaining though. Which is lovely.
I wasn't that fond of Mavic Chen, so it's nice to see that Stoney seems more comfortable with the more down to Earth Vaughn. There's a engaging personality to this villain - his laughter at Zoe destroying the computer makes him seem much more human than we're used to in the villains, and his anger at the controller thing gives him a number of layers. Rather an interesting, multi-faceted figure it seems to me.
One thing intriguing - even two episodes in, they're almost dismissive of the invasion of the title. The alien elements are underplayed, and you'd almost think there are no monsters at all. How wrong you'd be.
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#157 17 Dec 2004, 12:02 pm
Dorney
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Bromley, Kent
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Re: Day by Day
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The Invasion 3:
One thing I forgot to mention last time is how prescient this story is. The technology seems remarkably similar to that of today. Vaughn's robotic secretary is very much like to all those deeply irritating computerised answerphones. And the technology in practically everything is similar to the domination of all that Microsoft stuff - in deed, 'International Electromatics' is scarily close to 'Intel'.
This episode is pure capture and escape runaround, albeit runaround directed well. If I thought the last episode didn't progress particularly far, this one doesn't really move anywhere at all, bar the travel across the country. The whole story is very reminiscent of an espionage thriller, with very little sci-fi content - technically, that stuff is limited to Vaughn and Packer's conversations - from the Doctors perspective, this is a straight story. The structure pitches it as a lot of spies, break ins and chases, rather than the alien invasion the title suggests. It's kind of fun, but it's not terribly 'Who-ish', it's a bit too down to earth so far.
It's still enjoyable though. Camfield shows why he's the most popular director the series had, filling the story with lovely detail and arresting moments (the trick Jamie plays on Packer with the car is beautiful). And the story is filled with atmosphere and intelligent intent throughout, quite a relief after the first two stories of the season. Shame there's not more going on, really. In deed, it's a shame they don't take advantage of the Brig enough - as it stands, without Zoe to provide a distraction subplot, and UNIT broadly irrelevant, this episode has to focus purely on the Doctor and Jamie - and it runs out of steam fairly swiftly.
Vaughn and Packer are fab villains though. Vaughn, dry and urbane, is such an improvement on the same actor's Chen that it's in a completely different stadium. A lot of this is in the script, that makes him a richer character, but a lot is in the performance. Stoney isn't playing evil, he's playing evil under the surface. The beauty of his polite exchanges with the Doctor is in the unspoken tension - they both know he's evil, but neither of them are admitting it. The gentleman villain is quite rare in Who up to this point, and I think when people talk about this story as a Pertwee era prototype they tend to ignore how much Vaughn is an influence - enjoying his villainy, confident in his own abilities, he is definitely a proto-Master (in deed, what I recall about the finale of this story suggests even further links).
Packer is treated in the script as a dangerous sadist, but the televised version camps him up more than a little. It's a nice touch, underlining the inherent stupidity and ridiculousness of these type of characters - it's a similar feel to that of the Dominators. What it does lose, in this episode in particular, is a sense of threat. Whilst Packer is entertaining, he is just too incompent to provide a serious obstacle for the Doctor. His plans seem half hearted, and with stuff like the lift, the Doctor doesn't really have to think to outwit him. Vaughn is a much more dangerous figure - there's never any doubt that under that civilized exterior lurks someone truly scary. You can see it in his eyes. Together they work. Packer's failings are balanced with the superiority of his master.
So good fun. I just wish it'll start soon.
Dorney
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#158 17 Dec 2004, 11:54 pm
Dorney
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Bromley, Kent
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Re: Day by Day
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The Invasion 4:
Yep, it's a bumper day for Invasion fans, with two episodes at a time. With one missing, it just seemed embarissingly easy just to pop it on in the car on the way to work this evening.
Forgot to mention the terrific cliffhanger to part three. Strange and unsettling, it's the best thing in the story so far.
The story retains its serious dramatic core, and is exciting and enjoyable... but it really is taking a long time to get to a point. What's it about? There's no real effort being made to show why Vaughn and IE are up to no good. Yes, we get they're nasty pieces of work... but why? For all the story being called the Invasion, they're not really doing anything invasion related. They just seem to be interested in hanging around waiting to be caught, or broken into. Vaughn and Packer keep nattering about their allies and invasion plans, but this is not the same as doing something. Show, don't tell, that's what they say. They can talk all they like, but unless we actually see them doing something evil (other than just locking up various regulars from time to time) it's hard to care.
It wouldn't matter if this story was pacier. But it isn't. By the end of the episode the story has barely changed since the end of episode one (imagine if at the climax of that episode was the wall opening to reveal a Cyberman. Would the story really be too different - off the top of my head, you might need to introduce Watkins and UNIT elsewhere, but fundamentally the story has trod water for those three episodes). You find yourself wondering whether it actually has a plot. No-one seems to be doing anything.
This episode is mainly about getting everyone formally out of the scrapes they got themselves into the last episode. And then, frustratingly, they just seem to want to get back into those scrapes (Vaughn must be utterly fed up with the amount of times they escape and come back, escape and come back).
The story isn't bad - just static. There's good dialogue (Packer's still beautifully, entertainingly stupid) and lovely set pieces (the intercom threat to Zoe is chilling in it's brevity). Hopefully the climactic appearance of the Cybermen indicates the plot is ready to get going. It does suggest that the story has genuinely being trying to fill as much time as possible before bringing the plot along (there really is no dramatic point in bringing them in this late - if anything it unbalances the story). Let's see.
Dorney
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#159 18 Dec 2004, 7:27 pm
Dorney
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Re: Day by Day
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The Invasion 5:
Thank the lord, the Cybermen are here. Maybe we can get on with the plot now. Please?
As it stands, it's a little weird that the Cybermen don't have more to do in the story as it stands. It's like the writer's fallen in love with Vaughn, and really wants him as the central villain. The Cybermen are just his shock troops. That seems a little dismissive of them. They really have to be the driving force behind the plot, otherwise it just doesn't seem right. They're too big to be simply villains in someone else's story. I had a similar problem with their appearance in Illegal Alien - it should be a Cyberman story, not just a story the Cybermen happen to appear in. They're a little too interesting to be just stock monster number three. They're too calculating. Here they do seem subordinate to Vaughn, obeying him, and being his underlings, not their own masters. Practically all they do is climb into a box, and obey orders from the moronic Packer. Bit of a come down. You pretty much know they're only Cybermen for the recognition value (and there's not too much of that - they're quite different from the version of only three stories ago). Honestly, I can't see that the story to date would be vastly changed if Vaughn was just some WOTAN like nutjob trying to take over the world with home made robots. That may change, of course, but it doesn't mean this episode isn't surprisingly dismissive of the Cybermen.
In deed, it's almost dismissive of the regulars too -a lot of this episode focuses on the progression of Vaughn's plans at the expense of doing much with the Doctor and co. The significant plot developments in this episode come from him, rather than any actual activity from the Doctor - the Invasion, the emotion machine. In deed, so do most of the dramatic scenes - the emotions again, the show down with the control machine. The Doctor spends the episode sat in a plane fiddling with screws.
It's astonishing how weak the security at IE is. The Doctor and Jamie canoe in and out, witnessing the waking of a Cyberman in process and no-one notices? Why did they even bother shooting the truck driver in part one?
This episode is all to-ing and fro-ing. It's very tiring. Everyone's up and down to London every couple of seconds. Can't they just all wait in one place? Why does Vaughn need to spread his base out as much as he does? And as another logic query, why does Benton let that policeman down into the sewers? Why doesn't he go down with him?
All this might suggest I don't like it, but I do have to reiterate. It's enjoyable, well written and entertaining enough. But I can't really see enough heart in it. I'm not sure it believes in the story it's telling.
Dorney
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#160 20 Dec 2004, 11:17 am
Dorney
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Bromley, Kent
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Re: Day by Day
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The Invasion 6:
Yes, I know what you're thinking: will this pleasure never end?
I like the Invasion. It's fun, well characterised, filled with striking images and has a great villain. But wouldn't it be so much better if it had a plot? Everything has to hold off happening til the Invasion itself. The characters find themselves in little circles of plot that never go anywhere. A case in point is the sewer photography. It's given huge weight, the main thrust of episode five and the cliffhanger. However, after dealing with it here, the photo's are dismissed as looking too fake, and they wouldn't get to the UN in time. So what was the point? Bar an entertaining cliffhanger, and Captain Turner's bizarrely posh shouting for Isobel and co. at the resolution, what have we gained?
And whilst the Cyber-plot is engaging vast in scale, it's so huge it does begin to undermine the fabulous cliffhanger of this episode. If the Cybermen use their signal to take control of everyone, why do they need to wait until London has got a lot of Cybermen hanging around? Why not just, you know, use the signal to control everyone? What do the Cybermen leave the sewers to do? It's one of these plots where the villain's scheme is unneccessarily complex and illogical purely because not to be wouldn't give the heroes a chance to defeat them (Hello, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire). What are they waiting for?
And it's such a shame, because the rest of the story is so effective. Vaughn really is a terrific villain, best one we've had in a while (I can't recall the last time we've had a proper villainous human - it's been nothing but aliens and the slightly laughable since... ooh, Klieg I suppose). He gets two wonderfully evil scenes in this episode - the confrontation with Watkins that is simply breathtaking in it's simplicity and sadism, and his killing of Gregory (this bit seems to be cut - the OG episode guide suggest material is missing between Vaughn and Watkins, but I suspect that's a mistake. If it is, it actually helps the effect of the scene which is quite jarring and shocking, if a little disjointed).
Speaking of disjointed, it's one of the big mistakes of the story that the rescue of Watkins comes off screen. It just looks cheap. Gregory speaks of '30 soldiers', and disappointingly, we can't tell if this is him telling the truth, or exaggerating to make himself look better. It's over before we realise and it's crushingly disappointing.
Still the story looks like it might be about to kick off properly in the next episode - only seven parts in. I'm still slightly underwhelmed by the Cybermen, who the script just doesn't seem to have much interest in still, beyond their being intelligent weapons. I do think the story would have been better if they'd been replaced by robots of Vaughn's own creation. As it stands they just feel like they're there for the sake of it. You just don't get the impression of them being intelligent, dangerous creatures. But hopefully, they'll start to control the plot in the next episode.
And Zoe's spangly catsuit is around again. Which can't be bad.
21 Dec 2004, 11:45 am
Dorney
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Re: Day by Day
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The Invasion 7:
There's something lovely about typing the number seven in one of those titles. Get to do it so rarely. Got another one coming up in the next month or so too. Grrrreat.
Well, if ever one of the episodes of this story proved that the script really isn't interested in the Cybermen, then this is the one. Bar the reprise of the cliffhanger, they don't appear at all. Not for one frame (that makes it the second cliffhanger in a row that looks wonderful, but ultimately achieves nothing in story terms). Certainly the script is more interested in Vaughn, perhaps more so than the Doctor. If they made a movie of the Invasion, the actor playing Vaughn would get top billing, like Jack Nicholson in Batman. Vaughn is the character in the centre of the story. The story is about Vaughn. Most of its nuance comes from his dilemma's and problems. This can be a good thing - it's nice to have a guest villain so rounded - but in this story it does feel like it's a tiny bit at the expense of the Doctor and the Cybermen. (And by this point, they've completely run out of things for Watkins and Isobel to do, leaving them hanging around the story like stale wind. Not like Isobel's done that much in the story anyway, but you get my point. Heck, even Jamie's been limited to being asleep for an episode and a half).
All this sidelining of the Cybermen, bar their communications device that for all the world looks like Vaughn's private bar, does make for a few story problems. We keep getting told about them, and the threat they pose, but we never see them, and only see their invading spacecraft when they get destroyed. It's the whole 'show don't tell' thing again. Show us why we should be scared. The only reason we feel any threat at all from these creatures is because we are aware of their history, but this isn't really enough to form a coherent threat. The actual menace is curiously understated and distant - beyond the Cybermen stalking the streets, what are they actually doing? Everyone keeps telling us how deadly the threat is, but I want to see how deadly it is.
And incidentally, what do the Cybermen actually want? At the end of the episode, they're planning to destroy all life on Earth with their bomb - why? Do they want to live here? I just don't get it. They have no plan that fits in with their usual rationale, control and conversion, which does once again suggest that they could really have been any monster - the one thing that ties them to other Cyber-stories is their mind control abilities, which I never realised were such a part of their sixties persona until now, seeing this and Wheel pretty much back to back. Though having said that, the control seems to have altered its effects by now, knocking people unconcious rather than merely taking over their minds.
It might not help that the serial is so clearly on a tight budget - there's a second occasion in this episode where a big scene blatantly takes place off screen. After Vaughn's suspiciously similar offices, you do get the feeling that the money must have been spread pretty thin this season, no matter how they tried to stretch the individual stories out to fill time.
Still, there's a lot to admire in the story still. The dialogue is gorgeous (I particularly like the Doctor announcing himself to Vaughn with 'I hope this isn't an inconvenient time'), and Vaughn is still a fab character (his scenes with the Doctor are a clear highlight). Again it does go to prove how a poor plot (find me any pitch for this story that could justify eight episodes - it's simplistic as hell) can be covered with good dialogue, acting, atmosphere and direction, because it's still less of a chore than either of the previous two this season. It feels good despite it's obvious flaws. Odd. Maybe I'm just shallow.
And am I the only one who thinks Jamie is blatantly shot dead about half way through?
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Last edited by Dorney; 21 Dec 2004 at 12:49 pm. Reason: Extra Thoughts
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#162 22 Dec 2004, 10:11 pm
The Secretive Bus
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Re: Day by Day
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This is why I was disappointed with it - lack of Cybermen. Maybe a shallow reason, but for a story called "The Invasion" there's little actual invading. It might as well be eight episodes of the Doctor trying to bring down an electronics corporation because he doesn't like the man in charge.
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Ben grins out of the cockpit window:
“I am only borrowing this. I’m Ben Chatham” before expertly taking off into the clouds.
- "Face of Death" by Sparacus
"They laughed at Gallileo once."
- Sparacus
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#163 22 Dec 2004, 11:45 pm
Dorney
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Re: Day by Day
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The Invasion 8:
Like the story itself, this episode is a mix of good and bad. It nice that we finally get to see some proper Cybermen action, although it remains disappointinly limited (they've been swarming the city, but for no obvious point - we really ought to see them invading properly, taking over, rather than just getting told they are).
And the sad thing is, when we get to see them they're very very effective. The silent expressionless killers are chilling, as you can see in the sequence climaxing with the death of Packer (the blank face appearing on the monitor is one of the most memorable images for quite some time). When they get to attack in force, you do get a real sense of what you've been missing. Cyber-action. When we get to see the threat it all becomes scarier, more real. You can put a perspective on it all. Similarly, it's only in this episode that I realised how little use the Brigadier has had - he's just been hanging around in the base for seven episodes, co-ordinating. Finally, he gets to get involved. And so we do get a proper action sequence, the one we've kept getting promised and not got. It doesn't quite justify the avoidance of set pieces in the previous two parts, but it does remain an enjoyable shoot-em-up.
Vaughn is the star, still. His turn to the 'good' is written brilliantly, not being a moment of realisation and redemption, but rooted in his selfishness and bitterness. The character isn't compromised, all for the good. Interesting the way that his eye opens up as he decides to help, with his barking change of attitude. I'm not quite sure what this is meant to signify (a cynic might suggest he only decided on the twitch after the location filming and changed for continuity purposes). However, what is disappointing is that his death is rather thrown away. He's shot, and then forgotten instantly. No shot of his body after the shooting, and the story immediately slipping onto, actually surprisingly misjudged, comic antics from Troughton. The guy has pretty much led the script single handed, and his death is treated as incidental.
In deed, this is rather like the episode itself, which starts strong, but does rather lose itself in the finale, missing the point of what we need. After the big cyber-battle, the creatures get forgotten again - and the climax mainly involves two blokes sat watching a screen and getting intercut with stock footage. Come on, that's not very exciting, is it?
And I would add that it's also a very bizarre idea giving one of the regular's a holiday in the final episode of the serial. It just feels bizarre. All of the regulars should be instrumental in the finale. They should be the centre of the stories, not that dismissable.
So overall, disappointing, especially since this was one I was really looking forward to. It's very intelligent and enjoyable, great dialogue and acting, but ultimately this is style over substance. The story could have been a classic six parter with a bit more Cyber-action, but as it is, it remains a hollow script that would have been fab if they'd just remembered to add a plot.
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#164 23 Dec 2004, 2:56 pm
The Secretive Bus
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Re: Day by Day
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Yup, some good images in this (though I have to confess I love Troughton's comedy run from the Cyberman, especially as it's immediately followed by a comical rapidly edited sequence of "GET DOWN!" BLAM! "Aaaaaaaaaaaaah!" ) but a disappointing ending.
Actually, it seems that by this time the stories were utilising the Doctor less and less, after Troughton had been at the centre of a lot of his stories. It seems to start in earnest in The Wheel in Space, where the Doctor doesn't do anything until episode 4 (and likewise for the Cybermen), and then continues in The Invasion with little Doctor and Cybermen action. Then the Doctor's away for some of The Seeds of Death, and does sod all in The Space Pirates. A bit disappointing, really. This kind of thing worked in part for Hartnell stories, where you could believe the Doctor was sitting in the background, working things out, and so didn't need to be shown, but the second Doctor can't do this. He's always in there, and when he's absent nothing ever happens.
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