Watching The Invasion gives you a strange sense of déjà vu, as in the process of doing some story reviews for the Series 2 DVD box set, there are a number of comparisons between this story and the 2 part Rise of the Cybermen and The Age of Steel.
The Cybermen eventual aim in both stories is to take over the world and convert humanity into Cybermen.
- The Cybermen are reliant on a human ally who is successful businessman dominating the communications and media industry. Tobias Vaughn is the leader of International Electromatix while John Lumic owns Cybus industries.
- Tobias Vaughn and John Lumic are both so powerful that they can buy off any trouble caused by the government. Look at Vaughn’s manipulation of the minister that more or less causes him to have a nervous breakdown while Lumic makes sure that the Cybermen are responsible for the death of the President in Rise of the Cybermen.
- The Cybermen use the latest electronic gadgets to control humanity. In The Invasion it’s portable radio players while Rise of the Cybermen shows humanity being controlled by their mobile phones.
- In both cases, the Doctor and companions meet up with a group of people who are trying to stop the Cybermen. UNIT in The Invasion and the Preachers in The Age of Steel.
However, for me, The Invasion is a better story. It might be substantially longer but Tobias Vaughn is a much better adversary than John Lumic mainly due to the subtlety that Kevin Stoney puts into it compared to Roger Lloyd Pack.
The Invasion is a much more iconic story than Rise of the Cybermen. In the latter, the idea of the Cybermen smashing through some French windows is fine, but the idea of them creeping about in the sewers and eventually bursting out and invading London is a much more visual image. It’s an image that gave many kids nightmares as they went to bed that evening of 7 th December 1968.
The biggest controversy about the DVD was the animated missing episodes. They look very similar to Scream of the Shalka, but have a much better feel to them without wanting to show my ignorance of the animation process. The whole thing has a very film noir feel, which you could imagine in the scripts, especially as interpreted by the story’s director Douglas Camfield. It’s the closest visual representation we’ll ever get off the episodes without them being recovered.
The commentary is across all eight episodes and is a mixed bag. The first episode is from, animator Steve Maher, animation executive James Goss and sound restoration expert Mark Ayres. While it comes across as an informative, it also comes across as a little bit too dry and it might have been nice to have had a bit more reflection on the project.
The commentary on the other episodes comes from Frazer Hines, Wendy Padbury, Nicholas Courtney and production manager Chris D’Oyly John. It’s clear that they are all enjoying each other’s company as much as they did back in 1969. They also share memories of drinking at the Guinness factory, ad libbing Derrick Sherwin’s script and Camfield’s unique directorial style. Hines, Padbury and Courtney’s commentary for episode 4 is of particular delight watching and laughing at their animated selves.
The extras are spread across both episodes. Flash Frames looks at the making of the animated episodes. It’s a detailed overview and kept relatively concise with contributions from all of the key people involved. Love off Air is a fun feature which interviews many of fandom’s famous names that recorded Doctor Who onto a tape recorder and anecdotes of the frustration that doing this can cause. Character design sees all the main characters being animated to do silly things.
The main extra on the 2 nd disc is a 50 minute look at the making of The Invasion which is a little actor heavy. The production is solely represented by Terrance Dicks and Chris D’Oyly John, but this is nobody’s fault due to other people either being dead or living out of the country. Hines narration of the documentary is a little difficult to distinguish between him narrating and him contributing. However, those minor nit picks aside, this is a really good featurette and fascinating to hear from some of the lesser known actors in Doctor Who’s history.
Courtney’s links for the VHS release, production notes and a photo gallery complete a DVD that’s superb value for money and the ideal Christmas present for any Doctor Who fan.
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