Invasion of the Dinosaurs - Episode 3

The third episode starts with the rather disappointing cliffhanger which has become the form during this story so far. The T-Rex collapsing to the ground was rather silly and undermined the good scenario that the episode begins in. It’s hard to really be angry at Yates because he is conflicted. This is something that is done quite well in the early half of this story but in the latter half he sort of disappears but I think that Richard Franklin does a very good job of making us feel conflicted about whats going on.

General Finch is being the nice as pie general in this episode. He helps Sarah get a camera so that she can take pictures of the T-Rex. The part of the episode where Sarah is taking pictures is slow and works quite well even though half of it is using CSO and the T-Rex rising doesn’t quite work but before that it’s a good effort.

The moment when a bit of timber falls on Elisabeth Sladen’s head is a bit funny because it almost sounds like a comedy thud. It’s where the issues with the story are bought to the screen. For the rest of the story she has a slight graze to the head and had this happened a decade later then Sladen would have spent the rest of the story in bed but on this occasion she is still active and gets into a world of trouble. The Doctor realises that there is a conspiracy after what happened to Sarah and the fact that there were no readings on his machine. It’s about time that some time was meat put to this part of the story and we get that with the various members of the conspiracy doing their part to thwart the attempt to find out who is behind bringing the dinosaurs to London.

Despite having a comedic thump to the head, Sarah Jane gets frustrated at being left out of things and goes off to try and find out where a generator might be. She has been rather foolish in this episode by waking up the T-Rex and then going off to see Grover without telling the Doctor, Brigadier or Mike Yates.  She ends the episode being hypnotised and made to think that she’s been on spaceship. The cliffhanger belongs to Sarah Jane even though it ends with a shot of space and some stars and it’s the best end to an episode so far because it hasn’t involved a naff dinosaur model shot. This time there was shock and amazement in the ending. Even though there isn’t as much dinosaur activity as they seems have been in previous episodes and that’s why it’s the best episode so far. At the half way mark I think that there is still plenty of story to tell in the remaining episodes and apart from the dinosaurs, this is a very solid story.