The Invasion - Episode 8

After seven episodes we get to see the action and the thing that UNIT were introduced for. The story has to achieve the tricky thing of making sure this story ends properly and it ends at just the right time.  

At the end of the previous episode, Vaughn finally twigged that he wasn’t going to get things his own way. Vaughn decides that he's going to destroy the Cybermen which is probably the first sensible thing that he has done in the entire story. He starts off with the Cyber Controller and the explosion was a nice pre-filmed effect. That's about as good as it gets for Vaughn because things go downhill pretty quickly. 

 

The shot of the Cyberman appearing on the video screen was a great moment. I remember the first time I saw that and it was a moment that made me jump. There arent many instances in Doctor Who that did this to me. Packer's death was as surprising as it was quick. I've grown to like the character and even though he was a badie it doesn’t meen that he wasn’t likeable. Vaughn's death was disappointing as I think that he deserved much better than what he got. It seemed like he was shot and then that was it. He was the best thing in the entire story and he was treated a bit rubbishly. The Doctor and Vaughn working together is a nice thing to see and it forms part of a nice group of scenes. They went from being at odds to working together for the same cause and the scenes at the IE building were the highlight of the episode. The 'battle' scenes with the UNIT soldiers shooting the Cybermen was perhaps a sign of things to come as it hasn’t been seen on Doctor Who before this.  

 

The plot point about destroying the Cyber ship that’s in space seemed to be dragging the story on for a few minutes. Thankfully its only a few minutes but it did feel like it could have been dealt with earlier in the story and not right at the end.  

 

The performances from Patrick Troughton, Wendy Padbury and un-official companion Nicholas Courtney were all really good and its clear why Courtney would become part of the show in a way that no other non-companion would be able to do. Troughton's performances have been consistantly good throughout this story and seems to step up a gear when he's against Kevin Stoney. Speaking of Stoney, I loved his performance as Mavic Chen and he managed to beat that with Tobias Vaughn. One of the best villains in Doctor Who. 

 

The final scene sees Jamie return and leads to a nice bit of comedy at the end of a comedy-free episode. I must say that I had forgotten the TARDIS was invisible and so was amazed again with the effect. Overall I thought that the episode was what I thought that a final episode should be. It had plenty of action and all the plot points were tied up nicely. I think that this was a much better Cyberman story than 'The Wheel in Space'. Not sure eight episodes was the right length but it was an enjoyable story but the good times are about to end because next up 'THE KROTONS'.