The Invasion of Time
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| 097 – The Invasion of Time | |
|---|---|
| Doctor Who serial | |
 The Sontarans invade the Citadel of the Time Lords |
|
| Cast | |
| Doctor | Tom Baker (Fourth Doctor) |
| Companions | Louise Jameson (Leela) |
| John Leeson (K-9 Mk. I) | |
| Production | |
| Writer | "David Agnew" (Graham Williams and Anthony Read) |
| Director | Gerald Blake |
| Script editor | Anthony Read |
| Producer | Graham Williams |
| Executive producer(s) | None |
| Production code | 4Z |
| Series | Season 15 |
| Length | 6 episodes, 25 mins each |
| Originally broadcast | February 4–March 11, 1978 |
| Chronology | |
| ← Preceded by | Followed by → |
| Underworld | The Ribos Operation |
The Invasion of Time is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in six weekly parts from February 4 to March 11, 1978. This serial features the final appearances of Louise Jameson as the companion Leela and K-9 Mk. I (played by John Leeson, who would appear again in the next season).
Contents |
[edit] Synopsis
The Doctor returns to Gallifrey, having claimed the Presidency. His behaviour is unusual; he orders Leela thrown in jail and then expelled from the Capitol Citadel. However, the Doctor is doing this to prevent a Sontaran instigated disaster.
[edit] Plot
The Fourth Doctor returns to Gallifrey after meeting a group of aliens in space, bringing Leela and K9 with him. He is behaving very strangely and when the Chancellory Guard under their Commander, Andred, arrive at the Panopticon Chamber to interrogate him, the Doctor demands to be taken to Chancellor Borusa, who is now in charge of the Time Lords. The Doctor claims the vacant Presidency of Gallifrey having previously been a candidate and, after the demise of Chancellor Goth, is now automatically elected. Under law this request cannot be refused. The Doctor then chooses a Presidential chamber and asks it be decorated with lead lining throughout. Shortly afterward a ceremony is held to swear him in as President of Gallifrey and he is presented with the various trappings of office. However, when the circlet connecting him to the Matrix, repository of all Time Lord knowledge, is placed on his head, the Doctor collapses in pain.
The Doctor is taken to the Chancellor to rest and recover. When he regains consciousness he reminds the Time Lords that no aliens are allowed on Gallifrey and instructs that Leela be expelled from the Capitol Citadel, where she will have to fend in the wastelands. She tries to avoid banishment, but the Doctor is serious about this banishment. The Doctor now retreats to the TARDIS where he shares a secret plan with K9, but is obviously very concerned about the situation he has found himself in. He is planning to aid an invasion of Gallifrey itself and to this end sets about destroying the induction barrier that defends the planet from external threat. K9 sets about this task while the Doctor returns to the Panopticon, the great hall of the Time Lords, and laughs cruelly as three alien beings start to materialise.
The invading beings are known as Vardans. They appear as shimmering manifestations who made an alliance with the Doctor some time ago, and the Doctor advises the Time Lords, including the stubborn Borusa, to submit to their new and powerful masters. The Doctor then asks Borusa to meet him in his office, and when this happens the Doctor explains he has had the lead walls installed to prevent the Vardans entering the room on thought waves and reading his mind. He sent Leela away to protect her, he explains, and is now able to work with Borusa to defeat the Vardan threat. A new problem has emerged, however, with the ascendancy of the obsequious and compliant Castellan Kelner, who is being far too co-operative with the Vardan occupation. The toadying yet ambitious Castellan soon has Borusa placed under house arrest and starts a process of expelling trouble-making Time Lords from the safety of the Capitol.
Leela has meanwhile kept her faith in the Doctor and reasons that if he wishes her to leave the Capitol it is with good reason, so she departs for the wastelands. She is accompanied by Rodan, a Time Lady who previously maintained the transduction barrier. They are welcomed warily by the Shobogans, a tribe of outsiders who have rejected Time Lord society and live in the wastelands. Their leader, Nesbin, explains some of the background to his tribe. Back in the Capitol, however, things are looking grim for the Doctor when Andred corners him and decides to execute him in the name of liberty.
K9 helps the Doctor overpower Andred, and then explains the danger and abilities of the Vardans to Andred, with his TARDIS providing a shield to his thoughts. The Doctor is hoping to persuade the Vardans to reveal their true form so that he can time loop their planet. Leela has also organised her own resistance movement in the wastelands, comprising Nesbin’s people and the exiled Time Lords, all of whom are drilled into a fighting force which soon launches an assault on the Capitol.
The aliens and Kelner have meanwhile decided the Doctor is behaving in an untrustworthy manner. The Doctor reaffirms his loyalty to them by agreeing to dismantle the final force field protecting Gallifrey from attack. He does not fully disable it, but rather places a large hole in it. The Vardans use the hole to properly invade Gallifrey and appear as humanoid warriors. Their manifestation enables K9 to track down their home planet and supply the Doctor with the correct co-ordinates. He uses this to beam the Vardans back to their home world and then traps it in a time loop. At about the same time Leela and her warriors reach the Panopticon, but celebrations are shortlived when a Sontaran warrior appears in the chamber.
Gallifrey has now been invaded by the Sontarans, led by Commander Stor, who finds Kelner ever ready to pledge support, even if the other Time Lords remain resistant. The Doctor and his party escape and the Doctor uses his freedom to try and pressure Borusa into revealing to him the location of the Great Key of Rassilon, a missing item of the Presidential regalia. They then regroup at the TARDIS where Rodan is put to work using the TARDIS’ controls to repair the hole in the forcefield. However, Kelner imperils their resistance when he manipulates the stabiliser banks of the Doctor’s TARDIS to try and destroy the resistance force within by hurling them to the heart of a Black Star.
The Doctor manages to override the threat, so their enemies change tack. The Sontarans, assisted by Castellan Kelner, gain access to the Doctor's TARDIS and try to hunt down the President and his friends, pursuing them through the labyrinthine corridors. Stor is after the Great Key too, knowing the Doctor has now persuaded Borusa to yield it to him. The Doctor uses distractions to buy time while he kills the remaining Sontaran troopers. On the Doctor’s instruction, a hypnotised Rodan and K9 construct a special forbidden Time Lord weapon: the Demat Gun. Powered by the Great Key itself, the Demat Gun erases its victims from time itself. The Doctor takes the Gun and confronts Stor in the Panopticon. Stor intends to destroy the Eye of Harmony with a bomb, but the blast is cancelled out by the Doctor with the Demat Gun which obliterates Stor, wipes the Doctor’s mind of recent events, and also destroys itself. Kelner is arrested and Borusa begins the process of rebuilding Gallifrey.
The Doctor is ready to leave, but Leela decides to stay on Gallifrey because she has fallen in love with Commander Andred, leader of the Chancellory Guards. K-9 decides to stay behind to look after Leela. The TARDIS dematerializes and the Doctor reveals he is not alone: he pulls out a box labeled K-9 Mk II and, breaking the fourth wall, looks directly at the camera and grins mischievously.
[edit] Cast
- The Doctor — Tom Baker
- Leela — Louise Jameson
- Voice of K-9 — John Leeson
- Chancellor Borusa — John Arnatt
- Castellan Kelner — Milton Johns
- Commander Andred — Chris Tranchell
- Gold Usher — Charles Morgan
- Rodan — Hilary Ryan
- Lord Gomer — Dennis Edwards
- Lord Savar — Reginald Jessup
- Bodyguard — Michael Harley
- Castellan Guard — Eric Danot
- Guard — Christopher Christou
- Nesbin — Max Faulkner
- Ablif — Ray Callaghan
- Jasko — Michael Mundell
- Presta — Gai Smith
- Vardans — Stan McGowan, Tom Kelly
- Stor — Derek Deadman
- Sontaran — Stuart Fell
[edit] Cast notes
Gai Smith, now Gai Waterhouse, who played Presta, is now an extremely successful thoroughbred horse trainer based in Sydney, Australia.
[edit] Continuity
- Though Leela and K9 Mark I left the Doctor in this story, their characters would return in the Virgin New Adventures novel Lungbarrow by Marc Platt, and encounter the Seventh Doctor. Louise Jameson and John Leeson also returned to play Leela and K9 in the 'Gallifrey' series of audio plays by Big Finish Productions.
- In addition, in his next on-screen visit to his home planet, the Doctor is heard to ask after her: "Tell me, what of my former companion Leela?" He is informed that she is "well and happy". However, in the revived series, we learn that Gallifrey has been destroyed and the Doctor thereafter makes many references to all his family and friends having being killed.
- The Vardans also appeared in the Virgin New Adventures novel No Future by Paul Cornell, in which Bernice Summerfield refers to this story by dismissing them as "the only race in history to be outwitted by the intellectual might of the Sontarans".
- This story is one of the few to contain an extended sequence inside the TARDIS (1964's The Edge of Destruction notwithstanding). The majority of the final episode comprises a chase inside the TARDIS, which appears to have extensive brick-walled areas beyond the more familiar roundells-on-white look, plus the spa/pool area ('bathroom') and art gallery. The Doctor had been seen earlier in the season in an artist's smock, apparently 'redecorating'.
- In one of the few times in the series that the Doctor directly kills anyone, he uses the de-mat gun to disintegrate the Sontaran warriors. This is unusual given that the Fourth Doctor has a particular and stated aversion to firearms.
- In the Virgin New Adventures novel, Timewyrm: Genesys, it is revealed that during the events of the episode the Doctor uses the Matrix to send a message to his future self about the Timewyrm, a recurring villain from the novels.
- K9 Mark I is able to fire his weapon in the TARDIS console room in this story despite the "temporal grace" function of the vessel, introduced in the previous season's The Hand of Fear, which prohibits weapons of any kind being used (see also Earthshock and Attack of the Cybermen).
[edit] Production
- The script is credited to David Agnew, a pseudonym often used by the BBC for work produced "in house" by contracted production team members. On this occasion it masks the authors Anthony Read (the series' script editor) and Graham Williams (series producer).
- This story was written as a replacement for another story, The Killers of the Dark by David Weir, which was considered too expensive and complex to shoot. The script was written in just two weeks, with four days for rewrites. Additionally, when asked about the unused script at a convention, Graham Williams, having forgotten the exact title, made up the name "Gin Sengh", as in The Killer Cats of Geng Singh (or Geng Singh — the spelling being indeterminate), resulting in the fan myth that this was the original title.[1]
- An industrial strike, which was eventually resolved before production, forced the studio sets to be constructed within St Anne's Hospital as BBC's Christmas holiday specials were given priority in the regular studios.[1]
- As a result of the industrial strike, Graham Williams was given the option of not producing the final six episodes of the season and have the money rollover into the next season. Williams rejected this because of the additional problem of inflation that year and didn't want the budgeted money to depreciate even further.[1]
- Louise Jameson, who had already announced her departure from the show, reportedly wished for her character, Leela, to be killed at the end of the series, and was disappointed that Leela instead opted to stay behind on Gallifrey with Andred, even though nothing in the script suggests a romance between the two characters. The producers decided that killing off her character would be too traumatic for younger viewers.
- The Sontaran costumes were cumbersome and limited the field of vision of the actors wearing them, so much so that they are often seen tripping through and over props. At one point, a Sontaran (ironically played by the actor Stuart Fell) nearly takes a fall after missing a short jump and landing on a pool chair. As the aliens originate on a planet of notably high gravity, however, their clumsiness is easily explained
- It was Robert Holmes who suggested to Graham Williams that this story be split into two segments, the first four episodes being based around the Vardans and the final two episodes being based around the Sontarans who come into the story at the end of episode 4.
[edit] In print
| Doctor Who book | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Doctor Who and the Invasion of Time | |
| Series | Target novelisations |
| Release number | 35 |
| Writer | Terrance Dicks |
| Publisher | Target Books |
| Cover artist | Andrew Skilleter |
| ISBN | 0 426 20093 4 |
| Release date | 21 February 1980 |
| Preceded by | Doctor Who and the Underworld |
| Followed by | Doctor Who and the Stones of Blood |
A novelisation of this serial, written by Terrance Dicks, was published by Target Books in February 1980.
[edit] Broadcast, VHS and DVD release
- This story was released on a two tape VHS set in March of 2000
- It was released onto DVD on May 5th 2008 with special features; The Rise & Fall of Gallifrey, The Elusive David Agnew, Out of Time; a making of mini documentry, Photo Gallery, Trails and Continuity, new CGI effects and a Coming Soon to DVD Trailer of The K9 boxset featuring The Invisible Enemy and K9 and Company.
It has also has been released in a boxset Bred for War (The Sontaran Collection) along with The Time Warrior, The Sontaran Experiment and The Two Doctors.
[edit] References
[edit] External links
- The Invasion of Time at bbc.co.uk
- The Invasion of Time at Doctor Who: A Brief History Of Time (Travel)
- The Invasion of Time at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
[edit] Reviews
- The Invasion of Time reviews at Outpost Gallifrey
- The Invasion of Time reviews at The Doctor Who Ratings Guide
[edit] Target novelisation
- Doctor Who and the Invasion of Time reviews at The Doctor Who Ratings Guide
- On Target — Doctor Who and the Invasion of Time
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