“The Invasion of Time” is the last adventure of the fifteenth season of “Doctor Who” classic series which aired in 1978. It follows “Underworld” and it’s a six parts adventure written by David Agnew and directed by Gerald Blake.
The story
The Fourth Doctor (Tom Baker) meets with a group of aliens and doesn’t allow even Leela (Louise Jameson) to be present. Right after signing a mysterious deal, the Doctor goes to Gallifrey, where he demands to take office as President of the Time Lords. During the official ceremony, he gets connected to the Matrix but has collapses.
While recovering, the Doctor keeps on behaving in a strange way, having Leela expelled from the capital city. With the help of K9 only, he must face the real threat created by a plan of invasion of Gallifrey. However, he’s the one who opens the way for the Vardan invaders.
Extras
This DVD is rich in extras. There are typical contents such as production subtitles, a promo of “Doctor Who” DVDs to be published soon, the Radio Time Listings and a gallery of pictures from this adventure.
There are comments in the adventure alternative audio track by protagonist Louise Jameson, actor John Leeson, script editor Anthony Read and special effects designer Mat Irvine.
Out of Time. Members of the cast and crew recall the production of this adventure.
The Rise and Fall of Gallifrey. A short documentary on the Time Lords and how they have changed over the course of the series.
The Elusive David Agnew. Terrance Dicks and Anthony Read, who served as script editors in the production of “Doctor Who” at different times, try to unravel the mystery of David Agnew’s identity.
Deleted Scenes. Some scenes cut from the fifth and sixth episode of this adventure.
CGI Effects. The option to watch this adventure with some sequences containing new CGI special effects. In some cases in particular the scenes are significantly improved compared to the old special effects not always of the highest quality.
Continuity. Some BBC annoucrements during the original broadcast of this adventure.
There’s also an “Easter egg” though it’s nothing special.
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Initially, to end the fifteenth “Doctor Who” season a script was written which featured cat people. Unfortunately, the already limited budget of the classic series in those years was undergoing a further blow by the high inflation rate so script editor Anthony Read and the director in charge of shooting that adventure Gerald Blake agreed on the impossibility of producing that story due to cost problems.
One option was to close the season early and use the remaining budget in the next one but producer Graham Williams dismissed the idea because inflation would erode further that budget. Williams was interested in producing a sort of sequel to the adventure “The Deadly Assassin” but its author Robert Holmes declined the offer to write it because he had recently left his place as “Doctor Who” script editor and wanted to take a break before working as a writer for the series.
For those reasons, Graham Williams and Anthony Head came to write the script that became “The Invasion of Time”. The pseudonym David Agnew is one of those often used within the BBC for works written by members of a show production team. As it often happened in the production of the classic “Doctor Who” series, this script had to be written in a hurry and even more the story had to take into account logistical problems due to an industrial union dispute.
All those problems weigh on the story, even more because of its length. The beginning of “The Invasion of Time” is intriguing with the Doctor who’s plotting something in secret and takes the office of President of the Time Lords. The Fourth Doctor, who often seems to pay little attention in what happens around him, in this adventure is extraordinarily intense and attentive to everything.
Slowly, the Doctor’s plans and motivations start being revealed until the invasion of Gallifrey by the Vardans. The problem is that at that point the tension starts to fall when it should at least remain at the same level of the beginning. Even worse, when the Sontarans arrive, the tension falls so the last two parts of “The Invasion of Time” seem almost a parody.
“The Invasion of Time” is almost split into two different adventures because the fifth part looks like the start of another one, though related to the first. In this great adventure there’s also a group of Gallifreyans who have rejected the Time Lord society and live in primitive fashion. Honestly, this idea seems stupid to me because living with no technology may sound fantastic in theory for the life within nature but it’s actually very hard.
A better element is the presence of the Time Lady Rodan. The Time Lords society had always seemed really chauvinist in the previous adventures in which the Doctor was on Gallifrey. The presence of Rodan is a small change at least in the way of showing the Time Lords.
In the classic series, having characters who move from one place to another was a way to fill time. Unfortunately, along with a lighthearted tone, that helps removing tension from the story in its second half. Especially the last part of “The Invasion of Time” is set in the Tardis, of which we see some areas for the first time but again because there are people who are moving around inside it.
“The Invasion of Time” is the last adventure for Leela. Unfortunately, her exit scene is another weak moment because it comes suddenly. The authors didn’t have the courage to kill her so they added a hasty solution to make her stay on Gallifrey. The end of Leela’s story is the perfect example of the basic problem of this adventure in which the characters spend so much time moving around but little time is devoted to their development.
It’s difficult to make an overall judgement of “The Invasion of Time” because it’s an adventure too long that needed more time to write its screenplay. In my opinion it has an excellent start but the quality goes down and comes to a weak end so let’s say that those ups and downs give an average result. The average quality of the extras included on the DVD is good and their contents contribute to making it a product I recommend to “Doctor Who” fans. In region 2 nations, “The Invasion of Time” DVD was included in the “Bred For War” boxset available on Amazon UK
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