The Invasion - Episode 6

The sixth episode is probably where the story would run into padding but that isn’t the case because we had four episode of padding really before we got to this point. The opening three or four minutes sees Jamie, Zoe and Isobel trying to dodgy the Cybermen in the sewer. It’s quite a good opening scene and it pretty much sums up the pace of the episode. The Doctor starts the episode working in a lab and spends the entire episode in the lab set. I don’t know whether it was a deliberate thing but its odd that he is relatively inactive during this episode which is a weird thing but it is what it is.

The Packer/Vaughn relationship is more friendly in this episode. They seem to be more on the same page in this episode which is nice to see. Even though we know that his body is robotic it takes Watkins shooting Vaughn him to show us this fact. I am still a big fan of Kevin Stoney because there was a sneaky menace to his performance and it was wonderful to watch. Edward Burnham as Watkins is on good form as he does what most people would probably want to do and that’s kill the bad guy.

It’s strange that we don’t get to see the rescue of Watkins by the UNIT soldiers. It’s also strange how Gregory is quickly killed off due to Watkins’ rescue. From the moment that Captain Munro starts talking on the radio about launching the rescue to Gregory being killed off less than two minutes would have passed and whilst it isn’t the most important part of the story but I think that it could have been done slightly better.

I didn’t notice it before but its 15 minutes before Wendy Padbury returns and in the first scene I notice her in and she’s moaning about Jamie going to sleep with Cybermen around. In her next scene she’s better because she’s included in the Doctor’s explanation. I may have been wrong about Isobel. I think that she wasn’t annoying in this episode and was rightly miffed when he work of taking pics of the Cybermen were dismissed by the Brigadier.

We get another of the Doctor’s explanations and diagrams to show us what’s been going on. I always enjoy these moments as sometimes I like being treated like I’m stupid and it’s a nice refresher moment which is done quickly and effectively.

I do like the shots of London early in the morning just before the Cybermen make their grand appearance. I think that its such a rare thing to see London with nobody on it so its nice to see. The cliffhanger is really good as we get to see Cybermen walking on the streets for the first time. When the Daleks invaded our little planet it wasn’t particularly successful though to be fair it was in the days before location filming became what it was in 1968. It’s a great ending and I feel like the story has really found its feet and the last two episode cant come soon enough.