Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start...
Day 433: The Android Invasion, Episode One
Dear diary,
It’s always a nice transition to go from such an acclaimed story to one which I really have no clue about when it comes to other people’s opinions. I don’t know if I hear so little about The Android Invasion because it’s considered to be a bad story, or if it’s simply by chance. I know about as much about this tale as I did Planet of Evil last week, and that turned out to be a real highlight for me, so fingers crossed…!
If this first episode is anything to go by, I may well have another hidden gem on my hands. Once again, we get to spend a lot of time in the company of just the Doctor and Sarah (Right the way through this marathon, I’d assumed that the ‘Doctor and his companion(s) explore the new location without much interference from guest characters’ was something exclusive to the early years of the programme, but it seem increasingly common at the moment for me to refer back to ‘this thing from the early 1960’s’ cropping up - it seems to be just as common in the mid-70s), and the more time we spend with this pair, the more I can understand the love for them.
It also helps that they’ve got an interesting mystery to solve. It feels more like the plot from an episode of The Avengers than it does one from Doctor Who. An entire town has suddenly become deserted? A soldier throws himself from a cliff top? All the money in his wallet (and in the till of the local pub) is freshly minted? The lanes are patrolled by mysterious figures in a kind of radiation suit who fire bullets from their fingers at anyone who trespasses? Mrs Peel, we’re needed!
The Doctor comes up with quite a good explanation for it all. A radiation leak, meaning that everyone’s been evacuated in a hurry. Makes sense. The soldier could be infected, meaning he’s not of sound mind. Makes sense. All the money has to be changed because of the high radiation levels in the area naturally, so it can’t be allowed to circulate far. Makes sense. And yet, it’s interesting to watch the deduction while knowing that he’s completely wrong. I don’t know a great deal about the plot to this story, but what little I do know tells me that it’s got something to do with androids (the clue’s in the title), and they don’t feature in the Doctor’s analysis.
But just when you start to think he’s piecing together a coherent explanation for everything, they go and make it even more mysterious, by bringing in a group of people to populate the pub with. There’s something eerie about the way they all come in silently and resume their positions (it’s a shame that one extra is forced to move his chair to sit down - there’s something creepier about the people before him who just slide down into their pre-placed seats), and when Sarah bursts into the room and they all turn to stare at her with a look of anger… oh, yes, it’s all very effective.
So it’s almost a shame when we follow the Doctor off to the Space Centre, and we’re caught up in boring old action sequences. Chasing, evading, running around… even Tom Baker flipping over a desk can’t make this part of the story as interesting as that initial mystery. It’s telling, perhaps, that all my notes for today’s episode end with Sarah at the pub. After that, I’m just not as engaged.
Something I did notice, and it’s been brought up in a few other recent stories, too, is the fact that Sarah doesn’t seem to have her own TARDIS key. We’re only a few stories away from the Doctor’s claim that she’s his ‘best friend’, and they’ve been travelling together for absolutely ages now, so it does seem a little odd that she’s not allowed her own access to the ship. But then she goes and does something silly, like put the key in the lock and wanter away from it! No wonder the TARDIS has taken off of its own accord - it’s probably trying to teach her a lesson!
