Invasion of the Dinosaurs

The story has a strong opening, with a moody montage of shots depicting an eerily deserted and silent London, and stray dogs nosing about abandoned cars. This strange dislocated impression is kept up very well throughout the first episode even after the Doctor and Sarah arrive (the latter having apparently had a haircut in the TARDIS on the journey back), with the two of them seemingly forced to navigate the apparently empty city by themselves, with phones cut off and no obvious human contact available, at least until they start encountering looters and vehicles driven by people who don't seem over-concerned for their safety... even in Black and White the film seems to show a rather warm and summery day, lending a deceptive tranquillity to the air.

The image of a ruined or abandoned London, with looters or dangerous down-and-outs roaming the streets seems to have been one with a vivid historical resonance for the programme makers (The Dalek Invasion Of Earth trades on it too), and may have been a cultural echo of memories of the Blitz in the Second World War, along with fears of what would have resulted from losing the war (something like this also appears in Terrance Dicks' New Adventure novel, Exodus). As we find that London is now effectively under martial law I don't think the associations are entirely inappropriate.

It's notable too that our perception of the army characters depends on how they view the Doctor and Sarah. Both in the first episode when they are convicted of looting, and in the fifth, when the Doctor is on the run, we see soldiers at their most harsh and stone-faced, disbelieving and ignoring any protestations of innocence, with none of the familiar and reassuring associations we get from seeing the UNIT regulars. We're seeing them from the other point of view and they can clearly be seen to be meting out rough and preremptory justice - perhaps understandable in the circumstances, but not good if you happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time...

So it's a dangerous world outdoors, and with the characters being mostly holed up in an abandoned school, it accentuates the sense of being besieged. Apart from making a change from the conventional UNIT HQ, but is also a way of suggesting the desperation and improvisation that they have been forced into. Some further tension is also kept up with an openly abrasive relationship between the Doctor and General Finch, played with quiet disdain by John Bennett. That said, Finch is fairly abrasive to most of the characters, certainly in the early stages, and his interrelating with the Brigadier and the others with the other regular characters has vague echoes of the uneasy relationship between UNIT and the regular army hinted at occasionally in earlier stories.

Also sharpening this siege mentality is the growing awareness that their operations are being sabotaged from within, and to have it revealed to the audience that Mike Yates is doing this is a masterstroke. It's a so far unique development in Dr Who for a regular "goodie" to turn against them of their own free will (as opposed to something like mind control and so on). Not only does this cleverly undercut the cosiness of the Pertwee UNIT "family", it also reflects well on the era that, even this late in the day, it was able to throw off-putting surprises and subversions of itself such as this.

Yates' treachery is also handled very believably as well. He still cares for and respects the Doctor, and won't sanction harming him - a concern which begins to disturb Whitaker at one point, as it's deviating from the required tunnel-visioned fanaticism. And even as Yates pulls a gun on the Doctor and Brigadier - surely one of the most shocking and subversive moments in the series' history - the Doctor is still able to sympathise with his ideals, which he expressed earlier in his "I saw a fox in Piccadilly" remark, whilst still condemning the means. The Brigadier's sad comment at the end that an honourable discharge from the army is the best they can do for him hints at a "more in sorrow than in anger" attitude to Yates.

The Doctor has a similar attitude to Grover, possibly the most interesting support character. He has written books on pollution, chides the Brigadier gently for not taking more interest in it, is warmly supported in his concerns by the Doctor, and conducts himself with an unflappable politeness throughout which I don't think is put on at all. He genuinely wants Sarah to be his friend afterwards when building their new world, and anything unethical he does is purely for what he sees as the greater good.

In some ways this is the obverse of The Green Death. In that story it is the environmentalists who are the heroes, with polluting corporations the enemy. Here, it is fanatical conservationists who are the danger, having taken their beliefs to the point of wanting to wipe out history altogether, from Cliff's "Who does like the plastic petrol-stinking rat trap we all live in?" comment to a desire to prevent that world from ever having existed. These beliefs are also being used as propaganda via the hectoring recordings of the Reminder Room. The Doctor's heartfelt "Take what you've got and make the best of it. It's not too late" must, if you are willing to accept the meaning, count as one of the most constructive and inspiring morals given in his stories.

Unfortunately there are many problems with story credibility. An upheaval huge enough to cause 8 million people to be evacuated from London and the Government to relocate to Harrogate involves creating a massively important historical event in the Who universe which would almost certainly continue to be long remembered and highly influential culturally afterwards. It's possibly a little too serious a crisis to be simply forgotten about in future "present day" stories.

How exactly did Whitaker discover time travel, especially with his own relatively primitive resources? Had it been possible for this story to feature the Master, it might have worked better, or at least there would have been a more credible reason. And while I can well believe in even quite intelligent people's capacity to be taken in by the con here (never underestimate human gullibility!), it strains credulity that no rumours or talk of a plan on this scale wouldn't have filtered out at some stage. Building a fake spaceship must have been quite an ambitious undertaking, even if Whitaker, Butler, Yates, Grover and Finch all co-operated. And how exactly are they able to fake the process of suspended animation for several months (not for Sarah, but for other characters who are apparently revived in the story)?

There is a fair bit of padding too, with the Doctor being framed and chased one of the most blatant. It's too late on in the Doctor's association with UNIT for us to believe the Brigadier could ever think him guilty when he puts him under arrest, and indeed, it's soon fairly obvious that he doesn't, when Finch has to forcibly prevent them being alone together. Benton doesn't believe it either, and when the Brigadier does intercept the Doctor ahead of Finch, the matter is never even referred to again. Therefore the Brigadier arresting the Doctor originally is, in story terms, most likely just for Finch's benefit.

The other problem is that some of the Dinosaurs are rather poor, and badly CSOed onto film at times. But then, as the Doctor says, "The monsters are a side issue"...