Format: DVD
Warts & All: Rubber Tentacle Wrestling!
Quote: Shoes!
Review: After a short break, Doctor Who returns – in colour! It’s funny now we take such things for granted and I know our family wouldn’t have noticed the change since we only had a B&W telly in our house for years. Still, it was something to experience the shift in the context of my Who rewatchathon and beyond the addition of colour it’s a different show.
It feels like an Avengers episode, with plastic mannequins in overalls prowling the woods in search of pink plastic glow globes and strange shiny faced people up to no good at a plastics factory. Pertwee makes his mark as the new Doctor, even though – or maybe because – he’s supposed to be all out of sorts and disoriented post-regeneration. It creates some nice comic touches to bridge the transformation from Troughton. There’s no Steed and Mrs Peel vibe but Caroline John as Liz Shaw is an instant hit (with me anyway) and she’s shown cracking on with the science bit while the Doctor’s still searching for his shoes and his lost marbles. And when they do meet they get to share a few nice moments as (near) intellectual equals, creating an enjoyable science club dynamic with the Brigadier on the sidelines.
In some respects it’s a fairly run of the mill invasion story, the battle with Autons at the factory almost a reenactment of one with the Cybermen in Invasion, but the plastics element and the nature of the Nestenes lend it a distinctive quirkiness about it. With it all condensed into four parts it also feels like there’s a lot going on. There are oddities: the Autons’ motives for attempted kidnap of the Doctor are tenuous and who the hell would want to go see an exhibit of civil servants at Madame Tussauds? But it’s all delivered with flair and panache and it’s not shy about dishing out the scares and genuine horror along with the action. Besides the obvious hall of fame shop window mannequin rampage, Hugh Burden is memorably creepy as Channing, ably assisted by Who semi-regular John Woodnutt, and it’s even a pleasant surprise to spot dependable Prentis Hancock as a reporter.
The standard Autons are a formidable and unstoppable enemy, I do hope they’ll return. All in all, this is a new era setting out its stall right out of the gate, establishing UNIT’s credentials and promoting the Brigadier to key series regular. And much as it seems a shame to have the Doctor stranded on one planet in one time, instead of being able to freely travel anywhere between Cardiff and London, this remains my favourite new Doctor intro story.
