The Invasion - Episode 3

This episode sees Wendy Padbury take a week off so she spends this week in a crate (or Zoe does). It means that Jamie and the Doctor get to do their double act and that is my abiding memory of this episode. The story shifts location during this episode and there something of interest is Vaughn’s office, despite travelling a long distance the office is the same design, size and layout and all they’ve done is change the backing cloth and given a rather clever line and uniformity and keeping things similar.

We finally get to see Professor Watkins we see that he is ‘working’ for Vaughn. I liked the scene where Watkins is talking to the Doctor and Jamie as it seems like the episode was taking a breather. With Isobel and Zoe not being around that meant that Watkins became the human contact for the Doctor and Jamie. I’ll be honest that I didn’t really miss Zoe in this episode and I definitely didn’t miss Isobel. I think that I was too distracted by Jamie and the Doctor that I wasn’t bothered that Zoe wasn’t in the episode. I’m not saying that I don’t want her in the show but unfortunately she’s teamed up with Isobel and I don’t mind if we don’t see Isobel again.

I love how Vaughn refers to the Cybermen as allies. Considering that they aren’t mentioned in the title it’s still a mystery to the 1968 viewer. Apart from that Cyber Planner that we saw at the beginning of episode two, we haven’t really had much of a hint that they are the ones involved. Vaughn just gets better and better as he spends most of the episode shouting and belittling Packer. It almost seems like Vaughn has him around just so that he can shout at him. I almost felt sorry for Packer because if the Doctor was a normal person then he would have been caught and Packer would be in Vaughn’s good books but sadly the situation is what it is and Packer becomes Vaughn’s punching bag.

The big scene came when the Doctor and Jamie were trying to get away from Packer and climbing up the lift shaft. It took up a fair portion of the episode and led towards the cliffhanger. The cliffhanger was much better. It was a good thing to question just what Jamie was snuggling up to. I thought that it was atmospheric and the look on Frazer Hines’ face helped make it much creepier. Whilst I enjoyed this episode I cant say that there was anything special that happened during this episode. It was just perfectly paced and moved the story along enough to feel like it wasn’t stationery.