The Invasion of Time

Chapter the 264th, David Agnew's first script for Doctor Who (his next one would be better).

Plot:

The Doctor is behaving erratically and keeping secrets from Leela. He has a mysterious meeting on a spaceship with persons unknown, then materialises on Gallifrey claiming the title of president (which he got on a technicality during his last visit home). He's erratic and rude to everybody, particularly his old tutor Borusa, and seems to be working for some baddies called the Vardans whom he helps invade. The Vardans appear to be made of light bouncing off sheets of aluminium foil. As part of his investiture, the Doctor is connected up to the Matrix (famous Time Lord MacGuffin / computer) which gives him some knowledge, but he also needs the Great Key (famous Time Lord MacGuffin / key). His erratic and rude behaviour was a tactic for blocking the Vardans from reading his thoughts, and he plans to get them to fully materialise and then trap them in a time loop. Borusa hands over the Great Key, and the Doctor opens a small gap in the forcefield around Gallifrey. The Vardans materialise and in person they are much less interesting than aluminum foil. Leela, who has been banished outside the Time Lord Citadel, allies herself with some Time Lord drop-outs; they attack and the Doctor is successful in his plan to get rid of the Vardans. As everyone's celebrating, some Sontarans appear on Gallifrey, having used the Vardans to get the forcefield gap opened, then snuck in while everyone was distracted. The Sontarans run around after the Doctor and friends for a bit, first in the Citadel and then within the TARDIS. The Doctor builds a powerful weapon, the Demat gun, and uses it against the Sontarans. Leela and K9 Mark 1 decide to stay on Gallifrey. The Doctor leaves, and starts building K9 mark 2.

Context:

This completes another season of Doctor Who, covered peripatetically over the years for this randomly ordered blog. Season 15 (Tom Baker's fourth, middle year as the titular Time Lord) is not the most popular with fandom, but it certainly has its moments. Although the middle stories were muddled up, I did start the journey to completing this set with the opening story Horror of Fang Rock back in May 2016, and have ended here with the season finale. As The Invasion of Time is six episodes long, and isn't that well thought of, I didn't even ask the children or Better Half to watch with me, but caught up with an episode every other evening or so (from the DVD, without the optional new CGI effects) across the course of a couple of weeks in late April and early May 2023. I tried to have an alcoholic tipple to accompany each episode (if you've ever seen the story, you'll know why). I realised after watching it that this also completes another set of stories more personal to me (see First Time Round section below for details).

First Time Round:

The first time I saw The Invasion of Time was exciting. Not because of the story, of course, but because of the medium. It was the 20th July 1997, and I'd just paid for cable to be connected in the flat where I was living in Worthing. This was the first time I'd ever received anything beyond terrestrial channels (of which, if I remember rightly, there were only four available to me - Channel 5 had started earlier in the year, but couldn't yet be picked up in my area by a normal aerial). I didn't want sports or movie channels, I just wanted and got a channel package that included UK Gold, who showed repeats of Doctor Who stories some of which were not yet out to buy. I paid for the channel for three months; weekly on a Sunday morning during that time, a full story would be shown as an omnibus edition, with advert breaks to separate the episodes rather than full beginning and end credits. The first weekend I was connected up, I got to watch (and tape to watch again and again), this Gallifrey and Sontaran epic in all its shabby-chic glory.

I'd timed things badly, as there then followed eight weeks of stories I already had on official BBC VHS. (An aside: the planned showing of The Armageddon Factor on the 31st August was pulled because of the breaking news a few hours earlier of Princess Diana's death - it features a princess in jeopardy - and replaced by Planet of the Spiders, which I also had on official BBC VHS.) I then watched and taped the three remaining stories I needed from season 16, and then Meglos, before I cancelled the package. I think they put the prices up, I don't think it was just because every Who story they happened to be showing at that time was sub-par. I finally got to see the full story including all those interstitial sets of credits three years later when it came out on official BBC VHS. I bought the tape, even though I had the UK Gold copy already, just for those sets of credits and a nice box, because of course I did. With this post, I have finally blogged every one of the set of five stories I taped off cable TV channel in 1997. What a milestone!  

Reaction:

Just when you think The Invasion of Time's story is going to run out of steam, it does. A bit later it throws a lovely narrative curveball by introducing the Sontarans at the episode four cliffhanger, and changes the focus of its last two episodes. There's not, though, anywhere near enough story to sustain the first four episodes, or the last two either. Given the circumstances, one has to forgive this to a certain extent. The script for this story was a rush job after another one fell through. Like for the later story in producer Graham Williams's tenure when this happened, Williams and his script editor worked together to assemble a screenplay at speed, crediting the resulting story to the in-house pseudonym David Agnew. That latter story was City of Death. As part of a 60th anniversary poll, the latest Doctor Who Magazine at time of writing contains a full scored rundown of the Tom Baker stories. City of Death is at the number one position, the most popular; as the accompanying commentary to the poll says, sometimes it's possible to spin gold out of straw. Sometimes, though, you just get slightly tangled straw, as in the case of The Invasion of Time which languishes at position 36 of 41. It's not entirely a fair comparison: when Douglas Adams and Williams created City of Death they already had a plot that David Fisher had constructed. If anything, their job was more to pare away material (and add lots of jokes and good lines too). Williams and Anthony Read, the script editor when The Invasion of Time was required to plug a gap, started from an empty page. They get some jokes and good lines in there, but the plot can't help but look like what it is, something constructed in a hurry.

It starts with an intriguing idea: could the Doctor have gone rogue? Tom Baker's particular take on the main character is well suited to create some moral ambiguity, and he's always been at odds with his own people. It could work, but isn't sustainable for long; unfortunately, like everything in the story, it nonetheless has to go on for a long time, stretched out to fill a lot of pages. If you don't buy it, every scene where the Doctor is being unpleasant with people is difficult to watch as you know it's not real and there's going to be a plot switcheroo at some point; if you do buy it, it's just unpleasant to watch one's hero behave in this way. It also doesn't make much sense. Before the events of this story, the Doctor somehow bumps into the Vardans and realises that they can travel along any wavelength including thought, and he does a deal with them to let them in to Gallifrey. This is part of a plan to defeat them, but why bother doing the deal and letting them in to Gallifrey if that's what they want? Why not just leave them where they are? What threat are they if the Doctor just goes about his business and never travels back to his home planet? Any explanations given are muddled. They don't travel to Gallifrey in the Doctor's head as thoughts, as if they did, the Doctor wouldn't need to drop the transduction barrier to let them in. What is a transduction barrier, anyway? It can't be a forcefield, because in later episodes, the Doctor needs to drop the forcefield too, to let the Vardans in, erm, again (but more so). The script is rife with these repetitious beats, with just one more meaningless MacGuffin - the Matrix, the rod and sash of Rassilon, the Great Key, the Demat gun, the primary refraction tube of the fail safe controls - to be collected and used before this threadbare plot can finally be switched off.

With this intrinsic confusion, I don't think the Vardans would work as villains with even the most big budget style of visual realisation. Needless to say, they don't get this. Like everything in this story where the money looks like it's run out, they are rubbish. In their early form, they are light reflected onto some kind of foil on one camera, mixed into the picture of another; in their final form, they're just some dudes in dull uniforms. The mask of lead Sontaran Stor is okay, but the hands are very fake and plasticky. Both lead villains are essentially hidden from view, so needed very good vocal performances; unfortunately the people cast in the roles are just not strong enough vocally. It might not matter, anyway, as villains are only as good as what they do, and neither the Vardans or Sontarans do anything in the narrative. Whole episodes are taken up with characters just walking around. Maybe all the budget went on shoe leather? It's hard to call these chase scenes, as moving too fast would mean they would be over too quickly, and that can't happen in The Invasion of Marking Time. Balanced against this, the model work is particularly fine. The reused Gallifrey sets are good, but they have been embellished with tacky-looking plastic chairs and cushions, or very tatty looking desks and computer units. Controversially for fans, the final two episodes set in the TARDIS were filmed in a location rather than using specially made sets, meaning some rather drab brick walls. There's the odd interesting idea (the TARDIS power room being disguised as an art gallery) but again it all goes on far too long, and with the déjà vu gag of characters walking the same corridor and staircase over and over, is horribly repetitive too.

What bright points there are come from some of the performances. Baker has some good moments, but it's not his finest hour. Oh, how I wish this story only lasted an hour. As it is, there's plenty of time for lapses, like various scenes of maniacal laughter, or Baker staring into the camera and breaking the fourth wall with a "Not even the sonic screwdriver can get me out of this one!". John Arnatt as Borusa gives a solid performance despite some inconsistencies in his character's behaviour from scene to scene. Milton Johns is on fine, oleaginous form as the comic relief Castellan Kelner, who - as a running gag - adapts to offer his utmost loyalty to whichever n'er-do-well is in charge of Gallifrey for that episode. Apart from this, though, he doesn't really contribute anything to the plot, and he's not the only one. All the drop-out ex-Time Lords living in the wilds of outer Gallifrey meet up with Leela when she's been cast out by the Doctor (to keep her safe / stop her from needing to be involved in the slight plot). They then storm the Citadel, achieving not very much that Leela couldn't have done on her own. In the final two episodes, they pretty much disappear altogether. If Leela had to fall in love with someone to leave the show, surely it should be one of these people who are slightly wild hunters just like her, rather than an effete guard with whom she barely shares any scenes. Properly scripting the outer Gallifrey scenes as part of a romantic subplot would have made them much more worthwhile an inclusion.

As it ends up, Leela's exit is ridiculously abrupt. Reportedly, Graham Williams didn't want Louise Jameson to leave and put off creating a proper ending until it was too late, hoping she could be persuaded to stay. He was right that she was worth the programme holding on to, as she's the best thing in The Invasion of Time. Watching these episodes was the most uncomfortable I've ever been at how she is objectified by the skimpy outfit. There's a scene where Leela swims that doesn't serve any plot function; yes, it was undoubtedly included like everything else in the story in a desperate attempt to fill time rather than for titillation, but it still strikes one as odd that it's in there. Various times that Leela is running round in her chamois underoos, I was very anxious that there was going to be a wardrobe malfunction. The only good thing about Jameson leaving the show was putting an end to that nonsense. Her performance rises above it, though, and it's a shame to see her leave. The character of Rodan, a prototype Romana, is paired with the Doctor often throughout, as a sign of things to come.

Connectivity:

Like Boom Town, The Invasion of Time features someone being held in the TARDIS (this time for their own protection), and a device being connected to the ship that threatens breaking it apart. Both stories also feature the companion character going on a date. Well, alright The Invasion of Time doesn't, but Leela's date must happen off camera between scenes, or else her falling in love with Andred after having barely looked at him previously doesn't make any sense.

Deeper Thoughts:

The High Street - My Part in its Downfall. There's not much more to say about The Invasion of Time, is there?! I already discussed its accidental forming of a subgenre of Doctor Who stories set on Gallifrey in the Deeper Thoughts section of the post about Logopolis. A couple of reminiscences recently for the blog perhaps suggested another topic of interest. Well, interest to me, at least. Be warned: this is probably the most trivial subject for investigative journalism imaginable. Above I demonstrated clear recall about my first experience of The Invasion of Time on TV and on VHS. What about on DVD? The story came out in that medium in May 2008, the final one of the four classic series Sontaran stories to come out on DVD. As well as appearing as a single disc release, it was also collected with those other three stories in the 'Bred for War' box set; this was a rare example of the DVD range tying in to something broadcast in the new series, as revamped Sontarans had just appeared on TV in the one with the killer Sat Navs. I know this because I was often online on the old Restoration Team forum (part of the website of the team who worked on the Doctor Who releases), where these things were discussed. As the 1990s turned into the 2000s, and the new millennium wore on, talking about Doctor Who with like-minded fans online gradually and then rapidly became mainstream. It had been feasible to do this throughout the 1990s, but those old newsgroups were analogous to a niche telecommunications hobby like ham radio. As things became more commoditised, another new activity then became available - buying Doctor Who stories online.

Long term readers of the blog (Hi Mum!) will know that I had preferred suppliers of Doctor Who on VHS and then DVD, and these were bricks and mortar shops. This may have been a UK thing, but I don't remember any bespoke sell-through VHS stores, neither chains nor smaller independent businesses. My favourite place to buy Doctor Who and other cult TV videos was a section within a local bookshop in Worthing called Volume One; lots of other big chains that sold books and/or music would also stock them. VHS had started as a medium for rental, and lots of rental places existed - Blockbuster for example having first arrived on our shores in 1989 - but no dedicated stores that just sold tapes. This changed in the early 2000s, with DVD seen as more of a sell-through medium than VHS. Chains adopted DVD alongside VHS to buy, but smaller shops sprouted up too. They were mainly focussed on film, and usually more expensive than places like MVC where I would regularly buy Doctor Who DVD titles in those early days, but it was nice that they were there for the rarer and less mainstream films that I was also collecting at the time. Sadly, such enterprise already had a finite life expectancy because of something else that was taking hold, that at the time I would have called e-commerce. It wouldn't be too long before the e- became superfluous; for a vast array of products that up to then would have been purchased in person, online sites became the default place and way to do commerce.

Physical media for music, TV and films were obvious early options for online purchasing as they were easy to distribute by post, and didn't require a customer's detailed, in-person scrutiny before the decision to buy. I was a relatively early adopter, making my first online purchases in 2000. Availability was a main driver rather than cost; shopping with clicks would supplement shopping in stores made of bricks for a book or a record you couldn't easily find, or an imported region 1 DVD of a film not yet released in the UK. What is lost to my memory is when I first bought a Doctor Who DVD online. Availability for the discs wasn't a problem in those days. I know that I was still purchasing Who traditionally in 2003 (bought the final ever Doctor Who VHS box set in the London Bridge MVC) and 2004 (I remember reading the inlay of the Ghost Light DVD on a commute back to Gillingham, the first new Doctor Who DVD I'd bought to watch in my newly-wed pad with the Better Half). By autumn 2007, I was 100% pre-ordering online for delivery on the day of release (it was a big deal cancelling my pre-order of The Key to Time DVD box set to save some pennies, only to find that I couldn't buy it thereafter because of its limited edition nature). So, I've narrowed it down to sometime in 2005 or 2006 that I made the change. The trouble with investigating this is that none of the companies I was buying from is still trading, so I can't just check my order history on a website.

A good summary of the 'etailers' around in these years can be found on the marvellous Film Stories by the marvellous Simon Brew, link here. I purchased for a while from Sendit.com (and had got non-Who product from there when they were called Blackstar). Later I used play.com (and again had purchased non-Who product from them when they were called play247. What prompted the full move to online I'm not 100% sure on, but I think it probably was the loss of that convenient MVC on London Bridge. My day job office moved out of the City of London to the nearby Royal Mint Court in 2005, meaning it was out of my way to walk across London Bridge. That didn't matter for that long though, as the shop closed anyway shortly after and MVC went into administration. They wouldn't be the last traditional retailer to suffer this fate, and it would happen to etailers too. Sendit.com no longer exists. Play.com were taken over by Japanese company Rakuten in 2011, and stopped selling direct (becoming instead a marketplace for smaller vendors) two years later. I moved on to the online BBC Shop and was still purchasing DVDs from them when this blog started, though by then I was wondering how long Doctor Who on physical media would stick around (see Deeper Thoughts of The Underwater Menace post for more details). The BBC Shop then itself closed in early 2016. Non-physical sell-through was obviously becoming a bigger and bigger thing at that point, which influenced the BBC decision with them trying out a short lived download-to-own model with the BBC Store instead. The smaller etailers closing probably had more to do with their not being able to compete with the Amazon behemoth.

I have somewhat begrudgingly used Amazon for Doctor Who Blu-rays since 2016 as the only reliable option for getting titles on the day of release (but never earlier - one of my small joys in the pre-Amazon days had been the rare early arrival on a Doctor Who story on the Saturday before the release date, giving me a weekend to start on it). Amazon has a comprehensive order history for me, so I can see that the first story I purchased from there was the Blu-ray of The Power of the Daleks animation late in 2016. Purchases are less frequent now than back in the day, of course, with only the box sets of new series, and classic ones as part of the Blu-ray Collection, plus a smattering of animated stories here and there. Armed with this investigation into my personal history, I can answer the question about The Invasion of Time: I would have pre-ordered it from play.com, and received it on release day in the post. I can't tell for sure what my first story purchased online was, though. It would probably have been sometime in the Summer of 2005, so could have been one of the four single-disc volumes of the new Eccleston episodes, or a classic story that was released around then such as Revelation of the Daleks or The Web Planet. Whichever it was, it marked my first blow against the High Street, which would take many blows from many others from then on. It may well be having a bit of a renaissance of late, though. As I was writing this, I saw the good news announced that the big Oxford Street HMV store, that had been closed and replaced by one of those American candy stores / possible money-laundering fronts, is coming back. Whether it'll tempt me enough to even visit there again, let alone to buy any Doctor Who product there, remains to be seen.

 

In Summary:

It deserves some leeway because of the circumstances of its creation, but nonetheless is around one episode's worth of story (including a couple of nice moments and lines) stretched over six.