Doctor Who and the Android Invasion

Story 083
Transmitted 22 November – 13 December 1975
Written by Terry Nation
“This isn’t Earth. This isn’t real wood, it’s some sort of synthetic plastic. These are not real trees… and you’re not the real Sarah.”

Answering a call from his friend the Brigadier, the Doctor arrives in a small English village on Earth only to find that nothing is what appears to be. The town is silent until the population are delivered like cargo by a masked men dressed in space suits. Like clockwork toys, the people come to life with the chiming of the hour and go about their lives. Suspecting that some terrible force is controlling the population, the Doctor and Sarah investigate the situation, only to come under fire from the astronauts armed with built-in handguns.

The Android Invasion is one of the few non-Dalek scripts that author Terry Nation provided for Doctor Who. The opening episode is very atmospheric and evocative of 1950’s Red Scare paranoia films. The Doctor and Sarah are alone in a hostile situation where it seems that everyone is against them and the world that they thought they knew has turned upside down. The pair of travelers witness a U.N.I.T. soldier jump to his death for no apparent reason in abject horror. Something is terribly wrong, but it is unclear what has changed on Earth and how it can be halted. When it is revealed that even the Doctor’s companion and friend Sarah Jane is not herself, the drama and tension gets ramped up even more.

Is it Sarah Jane Smith or a cold-blooded killer robot?

Vintage 1975 trailer

Surviving numerous attempts on his life, the Doctor meets presumably the missing and dead astronaut Guy Crayford inside U.N.I.T. headquarters. Crayford is the only person who actually is who he appears to be, however he is in collaboration with an alien race known as the Kraal. The Kraal have developed part of an alien world into a perfect replica of the planet Earth as a training ground for their invasion of the planet using androids. It’s a very clever reveal and keeps pace with the excitement throughout the first half of the story… which is where the story falls a bit flat.

The Kraals themselves are just cardboard aliens bent on world domination. It’s something of a staple of Terry Nation’s scripts that he builds a complex system of set pieces around a rather staid premise. In this case the robot replicas and the fake town are very interesting, but the plot itself is pretty bland. The expressionless rubber masks worn by the actors playing the Kraals doesn’t help matters much nor does the fact that lead actor Tom Baker sounds as if he has lost his voice.

The Doctor (Tom Baker) is tied to a bomb

When the Doctor and Sarah manage to stow away on a space craft acting as the spearhead of the Kraal invasion, things get even worse. An android replica of the Doctor enters the mix as does a deadly virus that the Kraals plan to use as a method of wiping out the human population.

Part of Tom Baker’s second year on the program, The Android Invasion’s chief strengths is in the stunning location work, crisp direction by Barry Letts and of course the chemistry between Tom Baker and the late Elisabeth Sladen. The two work against each other beautifully here and present characters that the viewer is sympathetic to as they move through the mystery and avert danger at every turn. The threat level of Android Invasion is very high, as is the violence. The Doctor seems to be just inches away from death several times throughout this story.

Guest actor Milton Johns as Guy Crayford is a strong addition to the cast and lends credibility to the scenes in which he acts against the rubbery Kraals. His journey from frustrated traitor to hero is an enticing one and an impressive part of the story(something I wager Holmes had a hand in). A man who feels that the human race has abandoned, Crayford is furious with the human race as a whole. Rescued from death by the Kraals, he joins their side in assaulting his own planet, driven by anger and resentment. But when he finds that he has been misled, he shows his true heroic strength of character.

In my opinion, series 13 is one of the high points of classic Doctor Who. This was when producer Philip Hinchcliffe, script editor Robert Holmes and lead actor Tom Baker were firing on all cylinders. The program had proven in the previous year that it could survive the loss of the entire production crew and the lead actor only to reinvent itself into something very new, an amorphous program that moved from space opera (Planet of Evil) to Gothic horror (The Brain of Morbius) to pulp drama (The Android Invasion, The Seeds of Doom) each week. It is a magnificent era that shows the possibilities inherent in the program, something that the Tom Baker era in general excelled at. Just look at the Key to Time series and you’ll see a wealth of innovation and variation with nary a returning monster to be seen.

According to the Doctor Who Guide, this story received a 11.68 Million average audience, making it one of the more successful stories of the season based on viewing figures alone. Against the rest of series 13, The Android Invasion doesn’t stand up as well to the test of time, however. Beyond the impressive camera work and sterling direction, the story is a rather straight forward alien invasion plot, something that Doctor Who had become too sophisticated for as it strove to reach an older audience.

A commemorative fold-out poster from Dr Who Classic Comics

Nothing is what it seems…

The Android Invasion is being released in the UK on the 10th of January as part of ‘The U.N.I.T. Box’ also containing the Jon Pertwee adventure Invasion of the Dinosaurs. In the US, it is being solicited in its own. While not the strongest outing of its time, Android Invasion does have some iconic moments and thrilling action sequences that make it worth a look. If nothing else, it serves as part of a time capsule when the program was redefining itself. It’s also lovely to see Tom and Lis on screen together.

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