8 episodes
Aired between 2nd November 1968 and 21st December 1968
Written by Derrick Sherwin
Produced by Peter Bryant (technically Derrick Sherwin)
Directed by Douglas Camfield
Synopsis
Having reformed from the land of fiction, the crew find that the TARDIS is now stalled, floating above the dark side of the moon. As the Doctor tries to fix the controls, they see a small bright dot moving towards them.
As the dot grows bigger, they realise it's a missile. Lucky for them, the Doctor gets the TARDIS to dematerialise just before the missile hits them.
When they land, the crew find themselves in a field just outside London.
As they exit the time machine, they discover that the TARDIS received some damage, namely to the visual stabaliser circuits, thus rendering it invisible. The Doctor removes the circuit boards from the console, and decides to go and look up Professor Travers, as he might have some equipment suitably advanced enough to repair them (see the Web of Fear as to why).
As they make their way towards London, they happen upon a van driver who stops for them. He agrees to give them a lift, but seems very cagey. It's not long before he stops the van and makes them get out, shoving them into some bushes where he hides with them. He explains that they're hiding from a motorcycle driver who was following them. The cyclist was a guard for International Electromatics (IE), a large conglomerate that owns the land they're trespassing on. The driver is skeptical when the TARDIS crew are surprised by this revelation. When the motorbike has gone past, he tells them that he's got a fake pass to get out, but he's worried it might not work. They all get back into the van and are prepared to smuggle their way out.
The driver takes the van to the guard entrance, and shows his pass. The armed security guard there looks at the pass and lets him drive through. As the van leaves, the motorbike turns up and the guard begins talking to the cyclist.
Now clear of the IE property, the driver lets them all out of the van little further down the road and tells them to get lost. They leave and as he's closing the van up, two motorbikes approach. The guards get off the bikes and approach the driver, demanding that he come's back with them. The driver acts arrogant, telling them he's not on IE property now. He gets three bullets for his troubles.
The Doctor, Jamie and Zoe oblivious to this, hitch hike their way to London. They look up Professor Travers' address, but when they get there, they find the name Watkins on the door instead. It turns out that Professor Travers and his daughter - Anne have gone to America for a bit, leaving their home in the care of Professor Watkins and his niece - Isobel. What's stranger is that Isobel is more preoccupied with her modelling career, and doesn't seem too bothered about the fact that her Uncle hasn't returned in a few days, ever since he began working for International Electromatics.
The Doctor and Jamie decide to head off to IE headquarters, leaving Zoe to have a photo shoot with Isobel. Once they arrive, they're greeted by an electronic answering machine that tells them Professor Watkins is unavailable. Not to be deterred by a "stupid machine", the Doctor leads Jamie past it to explore the building. As they do so, they're knocked unconscious and brought by Packer, the Security Chief to the Managing Director: Tobias Vaughn. Once they've come round again, Vaughn apologises for their treatment, and tries to ensure them that Professor Watkins is very well, but very busy. As a way of saying sorry, he gives Jamie a portable radio as a gift.
Jamie thoughlessly mentions that Vaughn maybe able to help the Doctor fix the circuits, given that he's the Director of a massive electronics company. The Doctor tries to hush him up, but it's too late. To be civil, he's forced to hand the circuits over to Vaughn, who says he'll get his men to have a look at them and see what they can do. With that, they are shown the door,
Once they've left, the Doctor warns Jamie that he thinks there's something unusual with Vaughn. Back in the Director's office, Vaughn opens a panel on the wall to reveal a strange alien machine.
As they walk away from IE HQ, the Doctor and Jamie are followed by a black car, and picked up by shady looking men. They're taken to an airfield where a Hercules transport plane is parked. Inside, they meet Brigadier Allistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, newly promoted from Colonel. Like Vaughn, he also apologises for the rough treatment Corporal Benton gave him.
The Brigadier explains that he's now part of an international organisation called UNIT (United Nations Intelligence Taskforce). who are interested in the activities of IE because many influential men have entered the building and never come out again. He shows the Doctor and Jamie some of their photo's and they identify the van driver from them, who is revealed to be a UNIT mole.
Vaughn orders his chief scientist to do some tests on the TARDIS circuits and gives him one hour to come back with useful answers.
Meanwhile, back in Isobel's house, Zoe grows concerned for her companions and gets Isobel to take her to IE HQ.
They also encounter the computer receptionist which fobs them off, just like it did the Doctor. Zoe has fun feeding it an impossible equation, and the computer overloads and blows up, much to the girls delight.
Vaughn watches them on security cameras, amused at their antics. He orders Packer to capture them and bring them up to him.
As his orders are carried out, Vaughn opens the panel again and asks the machine what it knows of the interlopers. The machine (seemingly looking at security pictures of the Doctor and Jamie) tells Vaughn that the TARDIS crew have been seen before on "Planet 14", they are a danger to the plan and as such, must be destroyed. Vaughn agrees to take it into consideration and closes the panel.
Zoe and Isobel are brought before the Director who smiles and tells her in a rather nice way that her Uncle is his prisoner and he will use her to ensure he cooperates.
The Doctor and Jamie take a communicator from the Brigadier and agree to investigate further. They leave and return to Isobel's house only to find that Zoe and her have gone to IE HQ to look for them. The Doctor and Jamie rush back there, this time taking the back entrance. They're spotted on security camera's, but Vaughn orders Packer to use Zoe and Isobel as bait to catch them.
As they snoop around, the Doctor and Jamie see an IE employee picking up impossibly heavy metal crates as if they were a prop from the BBC drama department, and loading them onto a train carriage. Following the girls scream that cries out suddenly, they see Packer ordering his men to stuff the girls into the metal crates and taking them away. Jamie can't contain himself and rushes off, attacking Packer, but ultimately getting him and the Doctor captured.
Vaughn in his typically nice tone, denies kidnapping Zoe and invites him to go to the countryside compound, where the train carriage will be arriving. There they can investigate the crates themselves. They are driven there, and Vaughn leaves the Doctor and Jamie in an exact replica of his London office whilst he attends to business.
Vaughn goes and visits the captive Professor Watkins, telling him that he now has his niece Isobel, and if he doesn't act like there's nothing wrong and placate the Doctor, then he will hand her over to Packer, who likes bothering women (apparently).
Whilst they're gone, the Doctor and Jamie notice some deep space communication devices out in the compound.
Vaughn returns with Packer and Watkins. The Professor assures them he's fine and tells them he's been working on a special device called a cerebration mentor, a piece of electronics that can alter people's emotional states.
The Doctor starts to query Vaughn about the deep space communication equipment, but Vaughn counter-demands to know about the source of the mysterious circuits, as his scientists have told him they're not like anything from this world. The Doctor keeps silent, but Vaughn smiles. He says he will be given one hour to tell him, or Packer will have his wicked way with Zoe too.
Packer leads the Doctor and Jamie away, but is tricked by them at the elevators. He panics as the Doctor jams the lift between the floors and begins climbing up the shaft.
Vaughn is dismayed with Packer's ineptitude, and has to coax him through simple solutions. Packer sends the lift upwards, trying to crush them, but fails to remember to place guards at the bottom of the fire escapes to stop the Doctor and Jamie getting back down again.
The dynamic duo run off into the train yard and hide in the steel crates as Packer and his men rush about trying to find them. As Jamie lies inside one with baited breath, the contents of the crate begins to move. The guards search the train cart, but cannot find the escaped prisoners.
Once the guards are gone, Jamie explains to the Doctor that he saw the cloth inside the crate move but before they can investigate, Jamie and the Doctor overhear Packer ordering his men to take Zoe and Isobel to the tenth floor. The pair waste no time in trying to reach there too.
Packer is very restless that the Doctor is roaming free, and cannot understand why Vaughn wants them captured and not killed. Vaughn reassures him that he is in control and is planning to double cross their "allies" by using Watkins' device to control them via their emotions. As a backup plan, he wants to take the TARDIS as a getaway car.
Vaughn broadcasts over loudspeaker that he intends to kill Zoe in ten minutes if the Doctor doesn't give himself up. The Doctor uses the UNIT walkie talkie to radio the Brigadier and call in a helicopter to come rescue them. They use the helicopter to dangle a rope ladder and send Jamie down it to help rescue the girls from the tenth floor.
Despite Vaughn ordering the men to shoot it down, the group escape unharmed.
Packer is panicking again, fearing that UNIT will storm the place officially, but Vaughn pulls some strings and contacts British Major General Rutlidge and hypnotises him into forbidding UNIT intervention.
Back at UNIT HQ, the Doctor and co. pour over photo's of UFO's and the Doctor decides that they are bringing down aliens in cocoons to invade, storing them at the IE locations. The Doctor and Jamie agree to head back to IE once again, this time, using a canoe on the old waterways. Once insde there, they hear commotions and discover a group of IE workers moving one of the cocoon's into place. The Doctor and Jamie look on as the IE crew start a corkscrew like metronome machine and slowly, the cocoon begins to move, revealing a Cyberman as it tears its way out!
Jamie and the Doctor decide to retreat and sneak away back to UNIT HQ. There, they inform the Brigadier about the true threat and advise him to get some action underway, quick. The Brigadier agrees, but is blocked by Major General Rutlidge, who is adamant that UNIT trespassed and advises them to drop the matter. The Brigadier is furious and vows to contact the UN in Geneva and go over Rutlidge's head. He soon realises however, that he cannot do this without proof. They brainstorm their next move.
Isobel points out the most obvious course is to go and get some proof of the Cybermen's existence by sending someone down into the London sewers with a camera to get some shots of them. The Brigadier agrees, but refuses to let Isobel be the one to go. She gets uptight about it, and convinces Zoe and Jamie to go with her, without the Brigadier's knowledge.
Meanwhile back at International Electromatics, Vaughn's chief scientist, Gregory, explains that Professor Watkins' device is now ready for testing. Vaughn orders it to be used on a newly reactivated Cyberman. They do so, instilling fear in one of the metal monsters.
It goes crazy and escapes into the sewers. Packer is mortified at the prospect of letting it go, but Vaughn is rather smug about it, and orders slight modifications to the device.
Back at UNIT HQ, the Doctor examines Jamie's radio and worries about the monolithic circuit that's inside it for no apparent reason. He finds another unrelated IE piece of equipment and finds a similar circuit inside. As he works, it comes to his attention, and the Brigadier's that Zoe, Isobel and Jamie are missing. They put the clues together and realise those crazy kids have gone after pictures of the Cybermen.
The Brigadier contacts Corporal Benton (who says he's just dropped them off) and orders him to bring them back to base. Benton rushes after the girls and Jamie, but is too late to stop them heading down into the sewers.
He is joined by a Policeman who is shouting after them too, and thinks they're just mischievous trespassers. The Police officer goes down after them, whilst Benton goes back to radio for help. Once down there, the Policeman begins making a lot of racket calling after them, and draws the attention of the Cybermen. The unfortunate lummox is killed on the spot. Zoe, Jamie and Isobel hear his death cry, and begin to get out of there. They come across the fear crazed Cyberman and snap some pictures of it, but are forced to run, only to be cornered by a pair of Cybermen heading towards them from the other direction.
Fearing the worst, the trio cling to the wall and await the inevitable, but are surprised when the crazy Cyberman wobbles past them to attack the Cybermen coming from the other end of the tunnel.
As they watch the tussle, Corporal Benton turns up with Captain Turner and two other soldiers. They sling grenades at the Cybermen, destroying all but one of them. The trio race back to the soldiers and scramble up out of the manhole as the Cyberman approaches. They all get out, but the Cyberman grabs Jamie's leg at the last moment, trying to pull him down into the sewer.
A soldier smashes the Cyberman's arm with the butt of his rifle and Benton drops another grenade down the hole, destroying it. The soldiers, Jamie, Zoe and Isobel all return to the HQ where they develop the pictures. Unfortunately, they're a little blurry and lack credibility.
Back over at bad guy HQ, Gregory informs Vaughn that his modifications to Watkins' device are complete. Vaughn is pleased, and orders Watkins to begin mass producing the device.
Watkins knows he's not in a position to refuse, but warns Vaughn that if he gets half a chance, he will kill the megalomaniac. Vaughn laughs and gives him a gun, inviting him to shoot. Watkins does, but soon finds that Vaughn's body is actually cybernetic, and thus unharmed.
Vaughn commands Gregory to take Watkins back to the countryside compound and begin producing the devices.
UNIT spot the IE vehicles moving and decide to strike, seizing Professor Watkins and killing the guards. Gregory flees into the woods and returns to report to Vaughn.
The Director is furious and has Packer take the scientist into the sewers and have him shot by the Cybermen.
As Professor Watkins is recovering back at UNIT HQ, the Doctor questions him about the purpose of the micromonolithic circuits in the radios, but Watkins hasn't the faintest idea. From talking to him however, the Doctor figures out that the Cybermen are planning to use the IE equipment (e.g. radios) to broadcast a hypnotic signal across the Earth. He begins creating small chip devices called polorising nuristors to place on the back of everyone's necks to guard against the hypnotic effects.
His plans thwarted, Vaughn contacts the Cybermen and shouts at them until they agree to step up the invasion plans.
At dawn the following morning, the hypnotic signal is transmitted, incapacitating the majority of the Earth. Cybermen pour out of the London manholes and begin walking unopposed across the city streets.
Faced with an almost impossible problem, the Doctor and the Brigadier come up with a plan to destroy the incoming Cyber invasion fleet. They use UNIT's UN contacts to get Russia to send a huge explosive laden rocket towards the moon (where the Cyber mothership is). Then, they head off to a defence station at Henlow Downs, just outside London, to try and send interceptor missiles to blow up the incoming invasion fleet. Captain Turner flies to Russia to help sort out the rocket, whilst the Doctor decides to give reason one last chance and goes to see Vaughn.
The Brigadier and Zoe get to Henlow Downs and revive the crew with polorising nuristors just in time to see the fleet approaching. The commander looks out of his depth and says he can't destroy them all, but he can take a few of them on with what little missiles they have.
The Doctor convinces Vaughn to have a chat with him (he secretly switches on his radio to keep UNIT informed) and heads up to the office. Vaughn is still smug as the Doctor lays out the Cybermen's intent.
In response, he merely explains that although the Cybermen intend to take over the world, they will only succeed in helping Vaughn come to power, as he will use Professor Watkins' devices to control them.
With the fleet drawing ever closer, Zoe convinces the commander to try a logical calculation to set up a chain reaction. He protests, but under the orders of the Brigadier, allows her time to make such a calculation and input it into the firing computer. They launch their missiles and as predicted, cause a chain reaction that destroys the entire fleet. Cheers and rejoicing all round.
At IE, the Cybermen contact Vaughn. He opens the panel in his office, and listens to the machine as it accuses Vaughn of causing the defeat. It says that they will ensure victory by dropping a huge Cyber Megatron bomb on the Earth instead. The Doctor panics, and yells at Vaughn, making it clear that through his arrogance, by helping the Cybermen, he's only achieved the possibility of the worlds destruction.
Vaughn acts like a petulant child and uses Watkins' cerebration mentor to destroy the Cyber-machine. He calls for Packer who runs into the office, telling them that the Cyberman have started attacking everyone. Sure enough, one of the monsters enters the office. Packer shoots at it with his pistol but it bounces off. The Cyberman kills the incompetent security chief, before it is in turn destroyed by Vaughn using the device.
With the end of the world imminent, the Doctor convinces Vaughn to help him defeat the Cyber invasion.
Vaughn agrees, but only because he's bitter about their betrayal. He agrees to take the Doctor to the source of the hypnotic signal and shut it off.
Benton, who overheard the scene at IE informs the Brigadier about the huge bomb. After a conversation with the Doctor, they come up with a new plan. Captain Turner in Russia will ensure the huge rocket destroys the mothership, the Doctor and Vaughn will go via UNIT helicopter to the complex where the signal is being transmitted; the staff at Henlow Downs will fire at the megatron bomb and try to blow it up before it hits Earth, and the rest of the UNIT forces will join Vaughn and the Doctor by assaulting the IE compound to take out the hypnotic signal.
As stated, UNIT show up and have a hell of a battle against the Cybermen.
Their bullets are useless, but they make effective use of grenades and bazooka's.
The Doctor and Vaughn sneak around the place, disabling Cybermen with the cerebration mentor, but Vaughn ultimately gets shot and killed by the Cybermen, leaving the final assault down to the UNIT troops. All the while, Isobel is in there getting some awesome shots of the fighting.
As time draws close, the missiles from Henlow Downs destroy the bomb and the Russian rocket annihilates the mothership. They end the signal and thus all that's left is to mop up the remaining Cybermen.
Some time later, the TARDIS crew return to Isobel's home, where she takes some final glamorous shots of Zoe. She explains that she's got a good job off the back of the photo's taken and will likely travel the world, when she's not spending time with her new boyfriend: Captain Turner. Speak of the devil, Capt. Turner enters and offers to drive Zoe, Jamie and the Doctor to a field that they specified, under the orders of the Brigadier. When they get there, Isobel and Captain Turner look dumbfounded as the Doctor begins feeling around at thin air, shortly before disappearing and an old Police Box wheezes and groans into sight. Zoe and Jamie enter it, waving goodbye just before the box disappears again on another adventure.
Trivia
- Peter Bryant was fed up and looking to move on, and so was Derrick Sherwin. The current story editor (Sherwin) was looking to head off to another serial, and so he promoted Terrence Dicks to fill his shoes. Dicks began a tradition of the outgoing story editor writing their exiting script. As it happened however, the job Sherwin was hoping to go to fell through, and he'd stay with Doctor Who for another year, helping Terrence as a joint story editor, and taking over more producer tasks from Peter Bryant.
- The story itself was supposed to be a stab at recreating the success of Web of Fear, especially since Derrick Sherwin wanted to take Doctor Who into more Earth bound adventures in the vein of Quatermass (see Seasons five, six and seven to see how his plan worked out). Because it was based on the Web of Fear, Professor Travers and Anne were supposed to be in it, but when the production team fell out with the writers of Web, they had to cut out the main characters to avoid paying them royalties. The Brigadier however, was too intrinsic and his use could not be avoided.
- As mentioned in the previous story, Patrick was getting earache off at least one of his families to leave the show, but in addition to that, the grueling shooting schedule and chaos with script re-writes was getting on his nerves too. Troughton spoke to Frazer Hines about his thoughts on leaving and they both agreed to hold off until the end of the season and leave then, when Troughton's contract was up. Wendy Padbury heard this, and decided that "if they're off, I'm off."
- Sheila Dunn, wife of Director Douglas Camfield, got to be the voice of the answering machine, and the receptionist for Major General Rutlidge. In addition to that, she stood in and had model shots taken of her to replace the ones stolen from the walls of Isobel's flat.
- There was a great combat scene planned to show the rescue of Professor Watkins, but it had to be scrapped due to the lack of budget. Lack of money was also one of the reasons that prompted stretching this story to eight episodes long to depreciate the huge costs involved.
What worked
- Vaughn makes a beautiful Bond villain, and has a nice unique way of disobeying all orders from the aliens. His acting is superb, and a big improvement on his role as Mavic Chen
- Isobel could have been an interesting companion
- Pretty awesome story to re-introduce Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart, and to show the first appearance of UNIT and Corporal Benton. In fact, the UNIT setup worked very well as a one off story in the middle of this season.
- Packer's comical ineptitude does work in a lot of places
- Watkin's defiance is pretty good too.
- The sewer scenes are just as atmospheric as the Web of Fear was, and the Cybermen walking in front of St Paul's cathedral was just as iconic as the Daleks in Trafalgar square
What didn't work
- What was the point of the writer making the TARDIS invisible? Anything else could have happened to it
- Why have International Electromatics decided to keep cows on their property?
- Whilst we're on the subject of pointless things, why have an answering machine as a receptionist?
- If Vaughn was going to threaten the Doctor with hurting Zoe anyway, why try to bluff his way out of things by getting Watkins to talk to him all nicely?
- Packer's watch communicator
- The limited budget made it hard to believe that the Cybermen were really invading the whole Earth
Overall Feelings
Ok, so from the trivia section, you probably get the feeling that the production team wanted to create a more Earth based show, with alien invasion threats being the new base under siege schtick. This is the point where they began to implement that...but then again, is it?
Think about it, if the focus of this story is the Cybermen, why do they not even show up until the end of episode four? Going back to the beginning, we get some music that really invokes an espionage / spy story. It sounds like it comes straight from Enter the Dragon, or The Ipcress file (I'll have to take people's word on that one because I've never seen it). Indeed, the van driver's death sets this up as a very dark modern day version of the Enemy of the World. Kevin Stoney's portrayal of Tobias Vaughn is every bit as powerful as Troughton's Salamander, and Packer is just like the latter's hapless guards. There's no doubt that this story is really about Vaughn, and his ambition and I think that's great.
The pacing is done well. The story is eight episodes long, but it seems to pass as quickly as a four parter. That's pretty impressive, especially at the side of some six parter's that feel like they're dragging on for eight or ten episodes.
As noted, the soundtrack is pretty good, and the Cybermen look better than they ever have done before. The scene where they're shambling down the steps of St Paul's is very effective and adds to their menacing character.
I can only see two significant downsides to this story providing you assume that Russia will just agree to strapping a great big bomb onto one of their rockets and sending it to the moon. The first is the lack of scope. This is an invasion of earth in progress, whereas we met the Daleks when all the conquering was completed. Turn Left and the Stolen Earth would return in the 2000's to show how it should be done, but for now, we get a handful of Cybermen moving about a deserted street and are asked to believe that they're everywhere. It just doesn't work as good as it should.
The second problem is that if this story is really about Vaughn and his attempt to control the Cybermen, it just seems a bit of a let down to kill him off the way it happened. I like the realism and suddenness of it, but if he had to die, it would have been better to do it in a much more dramatically critical moment.
All in all, this is a shining example of a good Second Doctor story, and has a range of plots, sub-plots, moves and counter-moves; with plenty of what would be iconic characters thrown into the mix.
Rating
9.5 out of 10
A cracking story, just let down a tiny bit by the ending.
Rewatchability Factor
10 out of 10
I've already seen it like six or seven times and it's just as enjoyable now as it was the first time.
Watch this if you liked...
- The Sontaran Strategem (Doctor Who, Series 4)
Consulting the Matrix
Hands up who would have liked Isobel to be on the TARDIS crew
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