Invasion is the first part of Invasion of the Dinosaurs, which starred Jon Pertwee as the Doctor, Elisabeth Sladen as Sarah Jane Smith, Nicholas Courtney as Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, Richard Franklin as Mike Yates, and John Levene as Sergeant Benton. It is the ninth of the Pertwee Six-Parters.
Originally broadcast in 1974, this was the first episode to have an individual title since 1966's The O.K. Corral, and should not be confused with the eight-part story from 1968 called The Invasion. Legend has it that once upon a time somebody at the BBC did get confused between these two stories, leading to an unfortunate sequence of events the final result of which is that this is the only Jon Pertwee-era episode to be released on DVD in black-and-white.
It starts with a film montage of various locations around London, with no mannys present. But we do see a doggy walking in the street, which makes for a promising beginning. Into this the TARDIS materialises. The Doctor claims to Sarah that this is "when we left. Give or take a few weeks." She replies
"It's not the 19th century, or the 21st?"
which is very cynical of her considering the one time she has travelled through time in the TARDIS so far it got the Doctor exactly where he was intending. Maybe she's just a fan of the show?
The Doctor tries to telephone the Brigadier but the public telephone he finds is borked. The Doctor and Sarah begin to get suspicious about the lack of mannys, and
"No bicycles, no pedestrians, no cars, nothing."
The Doctor thinks this is because "it's Sunday."
"Great Britain always closes on Sundays."
he asserts. Maybe they have arrived in the middle of a lockdown, which would explain why the car they see doesn't want to stop for them? Actually, the manny driving the car was on his way to rob a shop, and he gets interrupted when the Doctor and Sarah come in after him. He points his gun at them then runs away, but crashes his car (off-screen) and goes
The Doctor and Sarah follow another car to a gang's hideout, but they don't know it's a gang until the mannys attack them. Fair play though - the gang don't know it's the Doctor until he does some Venusian Aikido on them, lol. They run away at the sound of gunfire from outside, leaving the Doctor and Sarah behind. They're trying to get out when a dinosaur flies in and attacks them.
They escape in a car.
At UNIT's HQ (not to be confused with UNIT HQ) the Brigadier is speaking to General Finch (played by John "Li H'sen Chang" Bennett), who asks him what UNIT are doing.
Finch: "And waiting for this mysterious scientific advisor of yours to turn up?"Brigadier: "That's right, sir."Finch: "I suppose he'll just materialise out of thin air."Brigadier: "Very probably."
Lol.
Things are more serious with the Doctor and Sarah. They are pleased at first to see some soldiers, but not so pleased when they get captured by them. The Doctor is obviously annoyed by the Brigadier getting to do some komedy in the other scene, because he starts taking the piss out of the soldiers when they try to take his photograph.
"I'll think you'll find that the right is my best side."
Alas these soldiers aren't in the mood for lols.
Elsewhere, some other soldiers are shooting at a terrifying dinosaur* while one of them is on the telephone to the Brigadier saying
"It's coming straight for us, sir, and we're trapped. Same as usual - the bullets won't do any good."
Although I note that this doesn't stop them from firing loads of bullets at it anyway. "Same as usual" indeed, mew.
The Brigadier and Benton see the Doctor and Sarah's photographs so they send for them to be brought to their HQ. The Doctor and Sarah don't know about this, though, so they get busy escaping from the soldiers. The Doctor knocks out one with Venusian Aikido and they run away, but unfortunately they run straight to some other soldiers and get recaptured and pawcuffed together.
They are being driven to a "detention centre" when they hear a "rar!" from outside the car. They look out and see it is a scary dinosaur.
It turns out that this is an invasion... of the dinosaurs!
Dinosaur cliffhanger count: 1
* I might need Scary Cat's help with reviewing this story if it gets any scarier, mew.
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