In an effort to find something quick that can be written as part of Daily Doctor Who, we are continuing with Say Something Nice, where I look back at each of the Doctor Who stories and pull out one or two cool things about it.
(Daily Doctor Who #363)
Read the previous entry here. Today, we continue with the third story of the show’s sixth season…
The Invasion
The story stars Patrick Troughton as the Doctor, Frazer Hines as Jamie McCrimmon, and Wendy Padbury as Zoe Herriot. Nicholas Courtney appears as the newly promoted Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, and John Levene shows up as Corporal Benton.
The serial is written by Derrick Sherwin, and directed by Douglas Camfield.
Say Something Nice…
(Named for Missy–aka the Master–and her catchphrase from her first full appearance in Dark Water).
The Invasion is pretty iconic, with the Cybermen not only menacing earth but fully invading London and marching down the steps in front of St. Paul’s Cathedral. The London sewer settings is also pretty atmospheric. Zoe, Jamie and Isobel Watkins make for a fun little trio of young people sneaking around, and it’s cool to see UNIT and the Brigadier making their debut.
But because we’re equal-opportunity fans here, we’re not going to only be sycophantically complimentary.
You craven-hearted spineless poltroon!
(Another cry from the Master, but not exactly a catch-phrase, this time from The Deadly Assassin)
The length of the story does lead to a bit of back and forth in the story’s plot in the early episodes (breaking into International Electromatics, running into trouble, escaping…and then doing it all over again). There are is a conspicuous budget gap in the later episodes when we hear about an exciting action sequence involving rescuing Professor Watkins, but don’t get to see it. It is very obvious that Tobias Vaughn’s efforts to use the Cybermen is going to do him no good, but maybe such a plot point was lack hackneyed back then.
Catch you next time!
Blue Towel Productions 