The Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith, have just returned from their encounter with the Sontaran Linx, back to present day London, but find the city entirely deserted. Looting is rife, and soldiers patrol the streets, arresting people on sight. Soon though, the Doctor and his companion discover that somehow, the Dinosaurs have returned, and are attacking the capital. But even more weird, is how they keep disappearing out of thin air!
First broadcast in 1974; Invasion of the Dinosaurs is the second serial of the 11th season of Doctor Who, immediately following The Time Warrior. The story was written by Malcolm Hulke, and starred Jon Pertwee as the Doctor, with Elisabeth Sladen playing his companion Sarah Jane Smith. The story sees the return of some recognisable UNIT military personel in Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart (Nicholas Courtney), Captain Mike Yates (Richard Franklin), and Sergeant Benton (John Levene). The serial also stars Noel Johnson, Peter Miles, Martin Jarvis, John Bennett, Terence Wilton, Carmen Silvera, and Brian Badcoe in supporting roles. Quite an interesting piece of trivia about this serial, is that it’s the last story from the Pertwee era, “to contain an episode that was colourised from a black-and-white telerecording after the original colour version was irretrievably lost” (Wikipedia).
Between 2006, and 2010; there was a rather hilarious sketch comedy series on BBC Two called That Mitchell and Webb Look; starring David Mitchell and Robert Webb. During the third series, they did a sketch parodying Agatha Christie‘s Hercule Poirot, where the Poirot-esque character deduced who the murderer was, which was then followed by said character “doing the evil voice”, which confirms that the Poirot-esque character was indeed correct.
In many classic TV shows now you can sort of work out who the villains are, by them doing their own take on the ‘evil voice’. Well, in the case of this Doctor Who story, I would suggest that the Doctor, go forward in time by about 35 years and watch this sketch. But then based on how much we know how the third doctor likes to “Reverse the polarity of the neutron flow“, tell him to do the same with this story, as it’s not the ones with the ‘evil voices’ who are bad, but rather the ones who are more charming in nature.
That isn’t to say that all the villains speak with a charming accent. Certainly not, as both Peter Miles and John Bennett have a more sinister tone in their approach; but virtually all other supporting cast members who speak in a more charming tone; are the bad people. Early on, this sudden reveal can cause some terrific twists, but due to one glarring issue with this story (we’ll get to that), it does become rather repetitive, long winded, and eventually borring!
But before all that, I want to talk about the Dinosaurs. Now it is no secret that the Dinosaur puppets were poorly received by both critics, and even members of the production team. Even watching the show now five decades later, they’re still not the best, but compared to some of the story’s other effects, they’re not that bad. Some of the more screen based effects, from the red lines appearing during one of those time instances, to the positioning of characters next to larger puppets, are pretty blurry now. The dinosaurs meanwhile, yes look very rubbery, and a bit pathetic when compared to how Dinosaurs are made today; but they have aged a little better than the show’s other effects. Plus they are also very colourful, which is rather nice.
But for a story called Invasion of the Dinosaurs; they do sort of disappear for the two penultimate episodes. You’d think after their big reveal after episode one that they would become a visually integral sight to the entire story. But then they just go when the story becomes about something else entirely, deciding to return for the big finale, which is after the point you’d forgotten about their presence in the story altogether. It’s called Invasion of the Dinosaurs, so why are they missing for two whole episodes?
Dodgy special effects, and missing title characters though is more or less forgiveable, compared to the incredible amount of padding in this story. You see, the reason for the Dinosaurs being in it, has a relation to a much larger conspiracy; that’s not very well explained. At all. In fact having watched all six episodes back-to-back, I still don’t have any idea as to what the purpose of it all was! And it doesn’t help, that theres so much other stuff, which serves no purpose, than to prolong the story; which is ridiculous!
The first episode of this story is terrific! The Doctor and Sarah arrive, but the city is deserted, it looks like a bomb has dropped on it, and all human life has been wiped from it. There’s all this confusion, and panic, as people resort to illegal activities, whilst the military acts almost like it was corrupt. One character suggests the existence of Monsters, whilst even UNIT makes mention of other things that are more important than the looter problem, but won’t say what. It’s a fantastic piece of setup, leading to the big reveal. So from this point on, plenty of explanation should be easy, but it’s dragged through the mud.
Later on you then have some epic twists, and Sarah finding herself lost on a spaceship three months later. It’s so juicy by this point. Things are happening, and they are skyrocketing in intensity…but the reasoning is not there. Instead we get treated to comedic car chase sequences, characters who are oviously bad, dragging on their alter-egos, and just this convoluted story, that’s lost any chance of making ‘any’ sense by the final episode! Seriously, I was pretty bored of the story by the final episode, I just wanted someone, to get to the point! Explain this nonesense, so I could at least have some kind of half-baked satisfactory conclusion! But no, there’s just more dialogue, and other bits of human interaction. It was nice to see the Dinosaurs return, at least by this point they were no longer the real disappointment.
It had the perfect start, and several key twists and turns you did not expect, but it should have remained tightly packed together. One epic moment, leads into another, then another, and so on, and so forth, leading to the big finale, after say four episodes. Instead, we get one that is being dragged through the mud by episode six, all thanks to some borring filler moments, and characters you’re sick of seeing!
Invasion of the Dinosaurs is an interesting one, and if it’s one you are seeing for the first time, is quite a cool little entry, thanks to some killer reveals, and an epic opener. Yes the Dinosaurs look ridiculous by modern standards, but are still quite a fun and beautifully colourful inclusion into the story. What really drags though, is the big picture. Some thought really went into this story, but it got too big for it’s own good. It could have been handled much more simply, whilst still allowing the occassional swerve of mis-direction, whilst ultimately leading to a decently satisfying conclusion. It’s a fun serial, and a good one to watch if you don’t fancy watching anything too heavy; just don’t be surprised if by the end of it, you had no idea what was actually going on (or if you’re looking for something else to watch)!
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