| THE ANDROID INVASION by Terry Nation |
| Story 83 Synopsis: The TARDIS appears to land in a wood, on Earth. The Doctor and Sarah witness a man walk over a cliff to his death, but are shot at when they investigate. They make their way to a enarby village, which Sarah recognises as Devesham, where she covered a story two years before. The place is deserted. In the pub, they see a truck arrive with villagers on the back, who descend and take up positions, moving after some sort of signal. One of them is the man they saw kill himself. The Doctor walks off to the nearby Space Research Centre, but finds a man named Guy Crayford in the Brigadier's office. Sarah escapes the pub, and goes to the SRC, where the Doctor has been put in a cell. She rescues him, and they try to return to the TARDIS. But it dematerialises. Sarah is kidnapped, and replaced by an android duplicate. The Doctor is attacked by the people behind the androids, the Kraals. He is tied to a monument, with the Kraal's MD bomb at his feet. Sarah escapes the Kraal ship, frees the Doctor, and they scramble on board the Kraal ship as the MD bomb explodes. Their Earth was a duplicate built on their homeworld of Oseidon. They have a virus, with which they intend to destroy the human race. Guy Crayford will give them a bridgehead. The Doctor and Sarah escape the ship, but the Kraals now have a duplicate of the Doctor. Arriving at the real SRC on Earth, the Doctor tries to prevent the Kraal attack. By redirecting the transmitter, he freezes all the androids, then rewires the dupe of himself to attack Styggron, the Kraal leader, who dies on contact with his own plague. Crayford realises he has been tricked, but dies. |
| Review:- So, a return to "present day" Earth, and the last hurrah for Benton and Harry Sullivan. This story is also notable for being written by Terry Nation, synonymous with the Daleks, and directed by Barry Letts, synonymous with Jon Pertwee's performance as the Doctor. There are a lot of good ideas here, and much to discuss. Starting with the Kraals, it didn't really hit me as I watched, but their face-masks are suggestive of rhinoceroses. Certainly, they are better masks than the Ogrons or the Vogans. They seem unusually intelligent and creative aliens, whose doomed homeworld has prompted them to push off. Crayford's trip gave them the spark to initiate the invasion plan. Certainly, a species who create androids so quickly, who create chemical contagions so deadly, and explosive devices so devastating are a force to be reckoned with. With only three seen in total, and most of their potential focussed on Styggron, they do fairly well. The invasion fleet that gets ignored at the end would be fuel for a return, surely? Sarah has a lot to do, holding her own in the pub when surrounded, freeing the Doctor, being kidnapped, copied, escaping the ship, freeing the Doctor (again!), nearly being poisoned, nearly being blasted by g-forces... even the clone looks pretty well acted! The Doctor spends an engaging first two episodes having various wrong guesses about the nature of what is going on. As clues increase, so does his intolerance, and when he meets Styggron, he's back to his disrespectful self. His brilliant circuit design to move the satellite dish is a bit of genius, but he spends much of the time being too clever by half. Even his android double has a bad attitude. Ah well... Benton gets some inexplicable pieces of action, and is clearly adrift in the new TB era. Harry, curiously, is pretty much staid too, and he was only in space a few episodes ago! Guy Crayford is our main figure. He has been abandoned (so he feels) by Earth, and rescued by the Kraals. The whole duplicated village came from his memories, so he must have some major problems to see it around about him. The loss of his eye serves to remind him of his travails, and when the Doctor forces him to look under the eyepatch, he realises what a mistake he has made. Alas, he doesn't really get a fulfilling revenge on Styggron, which is perhaps more apt. I also watch Milton Johns and am reminded of Leonard Rossiter. Hmm... On the whole, it's an average tale, with rotten cliffhangers, but nice sunshine. |
| Disclaimer: I've seen the video, and read the book. |