Invasion of the Dinosaurs

The Doctor and Sarah return to London and find the city evacuated. London has been overrun with dinosaurs which mysteriously appear and disappear, causing chaos. UNIT and the regular army are working together to solve the puzzle and the Doctor arrives at just the right time as far as the Brigadier is concerned, although the regular army are not as welcoming. While the Doctor tries to identify a traitor in UNIT's ranks and trace the time disturbances causing the dinosaurs to manifest, Sarah finds herself in a spaceship bound for a new Earth where humankind is going to start all over again and not damage the world with technology and pollution.

Well it ain't Jurassic Park, I'll say that right away. These lumpy plasticine dinosaurs are not even up to the calibre of the original Land of the Lost episodes. The story is ambitious, though, and determinedly uses good old CSO and models and some puppets to bring the dinosaurs to life on the screen as the terrorize London. It's a good thing they're not really what the story is about. Their presence was supposed to be a big secret, so much in fact that the first episode is just called Invasion but fan rumour has it that this is why the first episode was lost for some time and only available as a black and white print: it was mistaken for the first episode of the similarly named Patrick Troughton Cyberman story and junked. Like Planet of the Daleks, though, the DVD gets the colourization treatment and can be enjoyed properly.

The dinosaurs are not invading with any kind of plan; they are not that intelligent. Someone is mucking around with time, which is causing the dinosaurs to manifest. It's far more advanced than anything on Earth but it's not aliens, not this time; the threat is home grown and masterminded by maniacs. There's a massive conspiracy at work stretching from high levels of government and right into the ranks of UNIT itself, and the goal is almost as shocking as the presence of the dinosaurs themselves.

There's a sense of some change in things since Jo Grant left, notably that the Doctor has a new car which he did not have anytime before, so maybe some time has passed since Jo's departure. The car in question is a brand new sleek spacecraft like hovercraft which was actually Jon Pertwee's own personal property and used only twice in the series. I'm sure that someone somewhere is itching to write it an introduction story or even retcon it into canon during Jo's time. Note that as canon has now come into question with The Paradise of Death, this would be Sarah's third outing with the Doctor and she has been elevated in status to the Doctor's assistant, a title he grants her to avoid her being evacuated with the rest of the civilians. The Brigadier accepts her presence more easily than one would expect, but after Paradise its now a bit better explained. And she gets right to work charming and lightly flirting her way through the UNIT men, notably with Sergeant Benton and Captain Yates.

Oh yes Yates. He's not been entirely well since that deal at Global Chemicals when he was taken over by the BOSS computer and ordered to kill the Doctor. He has a better appreciation for life and for the world as a whole having seen what pollution can cause. He'd like to see the world made into a better place, and when he finds someone trying to do that he offers all the help he can, with his place within UNIT being an asset to those people.

As with The Dalek Invasion of Earth, there are lots of visuals of a creepy empty London, and once more if you watch this one and then toss in your DVD of 28 Days Later some of the similarities between the shots in each production are very hard to miss. One turns out to be a lot more effective at telling its story, but it also has the benefit of having been produced in an era where it's easier to shut down London streets instead of sneaking around with a film camera at 6 AM and hoping nothing drives through the shot. In some cases it might have been a better choice to leave the dinosaurs out of the shot, too.

NEXT EPISODE: DEATH TO THE DALEKS