Diminishing Returns

Nostalgia can often raise up a mediocre or bad Doctor Who story to a higher place in my esteem. The Android Invasion is certainly no gem, but when I first watched it at 14 it had a number of elements to recommend it. A creepy first episode with a twitchy UNIT soldier falling over a cliff, a desolate little hamlet with a handful of mysteries and a pub with a single date on the calendar. We also got the return of Harry Sullivan and Sgt. Benton (yes, like the calendar, he will always remain Sergeant to me).

And of course it reminded me of the classic "fembot" episodes of The Bionic Woman. As a kid I was a massive fan of Jaime Sommers and her cybernetic counterpart Steve Austin. The fembot episodes were my favourites. The bug-eyed dopplegangers seemed invincible and the sight of them removing their faces freaked the ever living poop out of me. So when Sarah got tossed down to the ground like a rag doll and her face went the other direction, I couldn't help to be hooked.

Sadly, re-watching The Android Invasion over the years has been a case of diminishing returns. I guess the plot never really made sense, but this time around I just found myself a bit distracted and bored. The whole thing is a big throwback to classic UNIT stories, and yet it has none of the oomph of those stories. Guy Crawford is introduced rather matter-a-fact-ly and never really makes much of an impression (Milton Johns does a much better toady later on in The Invasion of Time). Once the mystery is gone, the jig is up.

Ultimately, it's a collection of Terry Nation bits with none of the polish on--it's just sort of thrown together. The Kraals are pretty generic (their motivations seem cribbed from the Zygons) and while their "rhino" design is an interesting idea, in 30 years Russell T Davies and his production team would ultimately best it. Every cool moment, like the Doctor jumping face first out a window is matched with a rubbish bit like Sarah tripping and hurting her ankle. I guess we can give Barry Letts credit for the former and Nation the latter.

Again, I quite liked the setting: it brought to mind the village from the new series story Amy's Choice. It was a nice touch that Sarah had prior knowledge of the village, but unlike say Tegan's connection to her grandfather in The Awakening, there's no real emotional connection to heighten the tension. There's a bit more of that later when Sgt. Benton and Harry show up, but then it's rather wasted when we get almost no interesting stuff with them later in the real world.

It would also have been nice to have one final goodbye to Harry, particularly since he never returned in any future stories. I guess it's indicative of the "phoned-in" quality of the story.

Random observations:

• Sarah is wearing clogs that look remarkably like crocs (no wonder she tripped)


• Colonel Faraday feels like a parody of the worst excesses of latter Petwee era Lethbridge Stewart. It's probably fortunate that Nicholas Courtney was spared being in the story


• Curiously, we have a scene where Benton is chastising his kid sister on the phone. It's a nice bit of business and seems surprising in the story. Makes me yearn for a proper UNIT story.

Original viewing date: October 29, 1983 or November 6, 1983

Spirit: Gin and tonic. Specifically Bombay Sapphire. It had to be a quintessential English pub drink and I wasn't up for lager or ale.

Music: "If This Is It" by Huey Lewis and the News.