Inferno

Episode 1

So far, Hannah's assessment of the Jon Pertwee era has been nothing if not consistent: all three stories have been awarded 7 out of 10. But will that change now that we've come to the most popular Pertwee adventure?

Hannah: I'm finding the Pertwee stuff a bit too gritty so far, compared to the previous ones. I appreciate seeing people behave more realistically, but it's not as fun or entertaining as I expect Doctor Who to be. I miss all his little quirks. I mean, it still could happen, but it's just not happening; all these stories are way more serious than before and don't have those quirky bits in them, and I miss it.

The story title appears over footage of an erupting volcano. It's definitely the most dramatic title card we've ever had, but even this striking image isn't enough to distract Hannah from the important questions.

Hannah: I love a bit of magma. Oh, a single-word title! How many single words have we had?
Me: It depends on whether you count the individual episode titles from the Hartnell episodes, because there were a handful of those. Funnily enough, the final episode of The Romans was actually called "Inferno".
Hannah: That's silly, then. What about actual story titles, though? Is this the first?
Me: Yes.
Hannah: See? I know these things.

For the third time in as many stories, we find the Doctor entering a high-tech installation containing a major government project.

Me: I don't suppose this area looks familiar?
Hannah: It looks a lot like Dungeness, because it's all flat and there's a nuclear power plant there. But it's also got loads of stuff that's not in Dungeness.
Me: No, it's somewhere else in Kent. But it's funny you should say that, because Dungeness Power Station will actually be turning up in a couple of weeks.
Hannah: So where's this one, exactly?
Me: Hoo St Werburgh.
Hannah: That's the wrong bit of Kent; it's the north bit, and my family lives in the south.
Me: So much for my background research.

This being a Doctor Who story, there's trouble afoot; one of the workers discovers some green slime and apparently can't resist touching it with his bare hands, much to Hannah's consternation ("Don't touch the green ooze, you idiot! Have you never seen sci-fi?").

Hannah: So it's another place where they're doing a drilling operation and there's some kind of creature that's come up a pipe and taking over people. This is just like Fury from the Deep.

Just as he's about to crack a man's head open with a wrench, we cut to Sergeant Benton hammering a nail into a wall.

Hannah: That's a very nice cut.
Me: Would you care to hazard a guess at the director?
Hannah: Is this Camfield?
Me: Of course it is.
Hannah: He does have good ideas.

Sir Keith has sent for a drilling consultant, Greg Sutton, to lend some expertise.

Hannah: They've already started the project, they're twenty-two miles down, and now they've brought in someone who know how to drill? If you need someone to troubleshoot or predict difficulties, get him there from the beginning.

Sutton takes an instant shine to Professor Stahlman's assistant Petra, delivering classic pick-up lines like "Perhaps I could borrow you for a bit?" and feeling a bit miffed when she rejects his advances.

Hannah: Maybe you deserve it, you chauvinist pig.
Me: Remember when we watched The Invasion, and you recognised Sheila Dunn's name in the credits?
Hannah: Is that her?
Me: Yep, it's the director's wife.
Hannah: She looks like a member of ABBA. I wonder if she got the part without having to audition? Maybe she had a private audition.
Me: Stop winking at me like that. You're not Sid James.

Sir Keith introduces Sutton to the Doctor and Professor Stahlman. Once Hannah has gotten over the fact that nobody is shaking hands, she turns her attention to their hiring policies.

Hannah: So they've just randomly allowed the Doctor to take part in this operation? He's got no credentials whatsoever; he's just some bloke who turns up everywhere and asks if he can join in! It's like coming up to the sandbox and saying "Can I play?" and someone gives him a spade and says "Yes, you can build sandcastles with me." And everyone's okay with him not having a name.

She's much more impressed with the outside scenery seen through Bessie's garage door.

Hannah: I can see that they've done the thingy again.
Me: CSO?
Hannah: Yes. But only just; that was really good. Why is there a canister of radioactive material in the corner of the room?

We discover the real reason for the Doctor's interest in the drilling project: he's secretly diverting nuclear power from the operation in an attempt to jump-start the TARDIS console.

Hannah: That's sneaky. Doesn't the TARDIS have its own power source?
Me: It doesn't work! The Time Lords deactivated it.
Hannah: I thought it would still have power, though? I didn't think they'd switched it off completely, just turned off one of the control circuits. It's a very complicated piece of semi-sentient machinery, you can't just switch it off. I don't see how it needs energy.

The first trial run doesn't quite go according to plan.

Hannah: Why doesn't he just wait until his punishment's over?
Me: What if that takes hundreds of years?
Hannah: He should know better than to be playing around with this kind of thing.

Sutton tries to stop Petra from risking her life to check a fault with the drill head, but he loses gentleman points for doing it in the most condescending way possible.

Hannah: I don't like him. This is so annoying; he's just being a dick because she's a woman, but at the same time it's an emergency situation and she's running around trying to keep her hair behind her ears and pull her skirt down while she's running. Obviously there's nothing wrong with being pretty and clever...
Me: I do my best.
Hannah: ...but it's just annoying that they've had to write her that way. If there was an emergency I wouldn't be trying to hold my skirt down. I wouldn't be wearing a miniskirt anyway, but that's besides the point.

When the episode ends and the DVD returns to the menu screen, Hannah observes that the episode selection screen has a second page.

Hannah: How many episodes are there?
Me: Ah, yes. About that...

It's time for me to come clean and tell Hannah that this is our third seven-part story in a row.

Me: There are four stories in the season, but three of them are longer than usual so that the budget can be stretched further by using the same sets across more episodes.
Hannah: Fair enough, but it means that there's not a lot of variety.
Me: It's only for this season. After this story, the stories will go back to being a bit shorter. Actually, this is the last seven-part story ever.
Hannah: Aw. But does that mean there might be a longer one?
Me: Well, that's a bit of a grey area. We can have a chat about it when we reach 1986...
Hannah: Okay, whatever.

Episode 2

As the body count starts racking up and Stahlman decides it's none of his concern, Hannah finds herself tiring of the archetypal Head-in-the-Sand Executive character. (And God help us, it's only the fourth story of the Pertwee era!)

Hannah: These stubborn "idiots in charge" are getting on my nerves; I'm sick of all these important establishments giving total authority to people with a very skewed idea of what's actually important. It's one thing to have ambition and motivation, but it always seems to come with a huge ego and a senseless disregard for safety. Even some patience and a smidge of caution would be a huge improvement.

As if to prove Hannah's point, Stahlman picks up a vial of the green ooze and then discovers his hand has started to turn green.

Hannah: Oh no, he's turned into a hot Hulk.
Me: I beg your pardon?
Hannah: Not in a sexy way. Why is there a goo that makes people contagiously hot, anyway?

When he spitefully cuts off the power to the Doctor's hut, the Doctor surreptitiously re-connects it...

Hannah: Sneaky Doctor. So sneaky. But he's pushing his luck a little too far.

...and then goes off to find something better to do.

Hannah: I'm surprised the Doctor isn't focusing more on the murder incident; he's so distracted by the possibility of fixing the TARDIS that he's probably going to fail to act in time to prevent more deaths or a second major incident. I'm used to him being somewhat absent-minded but not so aloof as this, aware of trouble but not really interested in solving the problem. He doesn't have to fix the Earth's problems, but I thought he usually wanted to.

Despite the life-threatening danger at the complex, the Doctor is far more preoccupied with rejoining Liz and fixing the TARDIS.

Hannah: Is he teaching her how to fix the TARDIS? Is he actually teaching her Time Lord mechanics?
Me: How should I know? Maybe she's PAT testing.
Hannah: She identified broken parts and was able to replace them, so either you can use standard Earth parts in the machinery or he's got a stock-pile of Time Lord bits lying around.
Me: Remember when we were talking about companions a little while ago, and you were saying that as far as you're concerned they're not a companion if they don't travel in the TARDIS?
Hannah: So, if Liz never travels in the TARDIS...
Me: Would you still consider her a companion?
Hannah: Yeah, I suppose so.

Whilst Liz is otherwise engaged, the Doctor fiddles with the console and disappears into thin air (along with Bessie, for no discernible reason).

Hannah: Oh, and the car? That's an interesting cliffhanger. Why did it take the car but not the bookcase?
Me: Any idea where he might have gone?
Hannah: Five seconds into the future. It's not like he can control it or anything. The story's called "Inferno" and one would assume that he needs to stay there and fix the problem. So unless there's a way for him to get back, he hasn't gone anywhere.

Episode 3

Me: Before we start, I need to tell you something.
Hannah: Is it that Pertwee died and they replaced him with his twin brother?
Me: Douglas Camfield had a heart attack. He'd already finished all the location filming, so that's all him, but the producer Barry Letts had to step in and finish off the studio work. He's working to Camfield's shooting plans, though.
Hannah: Does this mean it's not going to be as good?
Me: Not necessarily. He directed The Enemy of the World, and you gave that one 10 out of 10.
Hannah: So is this Camfield's last? Or does he recover and come back?
Me: He'll be back in the Tom Baker era.
Hannah: Good.

Liz tells the Brigadier and Sir Keith about the Doctor's disappearance.

Hannah: Do they take the whole episode to get him back? Has Jon Pertwee gone on holiday?
Me: They don't do that anymore.

Hannah's guess that the Doctor has ended up back where he started turns out to be correct. Well, nearly.

Hannah: Is he back in his hut?
Me: In a manner of speaking.
Hannah: Alternate universe?
Me: Could be.
Hannah: Or he's accidentally gone into the future, so he can see what terrible things are going to happen if you dig it all up and then he'll go back and tell them to stop drilling.

Technically, both of her theories are more or less correct; we're only two episodes into a seven-part story and she's already managed to broadly summarise the entire plot.

The Doctor finds himself in a world of fascist doppelgängers, and soon runs into the alternate reality version of Liz. When we get the dramatic reveal of the Brigade Leader, looking exactly like the Brigadier sans moustache and sporting a Nick Fury-style eyepatch, Hannah bursts out laughing.

Me: What's so funny?
Hannah: It looks like a comedic evil villain eyepatch! With a scar! He looks weird without the moustache and with his hair combed like that.

The line-up of UNIT's Bizarro World counterparts is rounded out with...

Hannah: Is that Benson?
Me: Benton.
Hannah: Oh, yeah. I'm thinking of Bensons for Beds.

When the Doctor insists that he doesn't belong in this universe, the Brigade Leader coldly replies "Then you won't feel the bullets when we shoot you."

Hannah: I want to see the making-of documentary for this. See if they enjoyed playing baddies.
Me: This is Nicholas Courtney's favourite story, for that exact reason. We can watch the documentary later.
Hannah: It's good when they get to have a go at doing something different. I love evil alternate universes; they're possibly a bit overdone and clichéd these days, but they're so much fun for the writers, actors and viewers.
Me: Speaking of the DVD special features, there's also one where Toby Hadoke reunites Havoc and they teach him how to be a stuntman.
Hannah: Awesome. We'll definitely be watching that.

Hannah is (understandably) confused as to how, in an alternate universe with at least thirty years of divergent history, the same drilling operation is still being run by the same people.

Hannah: Liz has a completely different background in this universe but she just happens to be in the same place at the same time, even though there's an entirely different regime? How would she have gotten involved with Lethbridge-Stewart? Obviously it's been written that way so that they can use the same actors, but Liz wasn't really interested in working for UNIT when she was first introduced; she only stayed because of the Doctor, and the Doctor doesn't exist in this universe so why would she have stayed? She's not even a scientist in this timeline, but somehow she still ended up with the same group of people. That's the only thing I find difficult; everything else is fine. I like the idea of parallel worlds being used as a prophecy, so that the Doctor knows that what goes wrong in this universe will soon happen in the other one.

Benton puts a gun to the Doctor's head and threatens to save him the trouble of making an appointment with the firing squad. Cue credits.

Hannah: Oh, everyone's only credited as their normal-world characters; they haven't done a "slash" and credited both characters. That's disappointing.
Me: Do you want to watch the next one straight away?
Hannah: Nah.

Episode 4

Not everyone in this reality has undergone a personality transplant; the parallel Greg Sutton may be more sharply-dressed, but he's just as blunt when speaking to Petra.

Hannah: You can dress him up in a suit, but he's still the same bloke.

Elsewhere, the Doctor is enduring a savage interrogation at the hands of the Brigade Leader and Parallel Liz.

Hannah: They're going to actually torture the Doctor?
Me: Unsettling, isn't it?
Hannah: And you've got the nice characters, the characters that you know so well, being somebody else and doing horrible things to their friend. It's quite striking. You can tell it's not for children anymore.

The Doctor tries to get Liz to accept his story ("I bet he can tell her something that only she knows"), but she believes that he's a political activist.

Hannah: I really thought she was actually going to believe him that time.
Me: Would you believe him?
Hannah: Well, if I'm me, I would, but if I was her, I wouldn't. I'd love to see what an evil version of the Doctor would be like. Not just an evil Time Lord, but an actual bad version of the Doctor. One of the Doctors, anyway.

We cut away to check in with what's happening back in the Doctor's universe, but Hannah is fixating on the special effects during the transition.

Hannah: Is that a blurry shot moving across some water?
Me: They're panning sideways, because it's a sideways universe.
Hannah: Yes, but what are they panning across?
Me: Well, it's... the limbo between dimensions, I suppose.
Hannah: It looks like glittery water.
Me: If you say so.
Hannah: Actually, now that I see it again, it's more like sequins. It's a disco ball.

The episode ends with the Doctor on the business end of a firearm again as the Inferno project counts down to zero.

Hannah: Very dramatic! I'm very sorry.
Me: What for?
Hannah: For not watching it yesterday.
Me: This is one of the most popular Pertwee stories, you know.
Hannah: I can see why. But those hairy hands are disgusting.

Episode 5

Hannah: This is much more interesting than just having a base where people are trying to do things; the parallel universe base is acting as a prediction of the other one. Now he's got to tell them twice that it's a bad idea, and get them to believe him. At least he's having a dry run for it.

In fact, this particular run has gone from dry to downright scorching; the Doctor tells everyone that the planet will soon dissolve due to the accumulated heat and pressure of the core, and it's already too late to stop it.

Hannah: Now I'm starting to wonder whether this entire reality is just buggered and the Doctor won't be able to help them; he's been in dire situations before and usually comes up with some kind of solution, but his solution often involves stopping people being stupid before it gets to this point. Seeing as how it's a parallel universe, I'm wondering if maybe they are just going to sacrifice everyone for the storytelling so that he can go back and save the other lot. It would be nice if he could save both of them.

The Doctor asks his doomed associates to cut their losses and help him return to his own universe so that he can stop the same thing happening there. Parallel-Liz asks him to give a demonstration of the inert TARDIS console before they waste their time finding a power source, but the Doctor scornfully retorts that he's not a conjurer.

Hannah: Well, yes, he is. He should do that little sleight-of-hand magic trick that he did in the last story.

Outside, Benton is putting some troops through their paces.

Hannah: Look, they're drilling!
Me: Yes, very amusing.

Meanwhile, we find Professor Stahlman having the mother of all bad hair days. Don't ask me how the green slime at the centre of the earth turns people into werewolves. It just does, okay?

Hannah: Why is it making people turn primal? How? Why? What's the purpose?
Me: I suppose they wanted to throw in a traditional monster for the kids.
Hannah: That doesn't explain anything!

Benton is taken by surprise and falls victim to the creatures, leaving Hannah unexpectedly distressed.

Hannah: No, not Benton!
Me: It's not Nice Benton, it's Nasty Benton.
Hannah: I don't care. It's still Benton.

Episode 6

Once Hannah has come to terms with the presence of the Primords, she begins to fixate on their bestial grunting.

Hannah: Interesting noises. How did they make these sound effects? It sounds like someone snorting on an electronic keyboard.

Meanwhile, the Doctor and his crew prepare to abandon the facility and make a break for it.

Hannah: I like it when he gets a little team together.
Me: Even when it's a team of fascists?
Hannah: Yeah. And a man with a pipe.

The exterior scenes, incidentally, are now being seen through an orange-tinted haze.

Hannah: That's a nice effect that they've done; everything's overexposed and hot. It really does feel like the end of days.

Back in the slightly less apocalyptic universe, Greg visits Liz in the Doctor's shed.

Hannah: I still can't believe that an automatic garage door is something so exciting for these people! We have so many automatic doors now that people don't even know how to use real doors. The other day there was a queue of people trying to get into the Westquay shopping centre because everyone was waiting to use the automatic doors, so I walked straight through the middle and opened the manual doors. What is wrong with people?

Meanwhile, as the other universe rapidly deteriorates, Parallel Liz wants to make herself useful.

Hannah: Make some tea. Isn't that usually what happens? Someone's got to make the tea, and it always seems to be the female companion.
Me: Do they really have time? It's the end of the world!
Hannah: Yes, I suppose you'd break out something a little stronger.

Confronted with imminent death, the Brigade Leader finally loses his temper.

Hannah: He really has gone crazy. That's definitely what Bad Brig would be like: useless in a crisis.

Greg and Petra rewire the nuclear reactor and make their way back to the hut, and the tension is turned up to eleven as we start building towards one of the programme's all-time greatest cliffhangers. Alas, Hannah is not watching as reverently as I'd hoped.

Hannah: Wait, hasn't the Doctor been using Bessie to get back and forth from the drilling project to the hut? How did they run back in ten seconds?
Me: Maybe it took longer and we didn't see it.
Hannah: What, so the TARDIS console has had power for a good couple of minutes, and the Doctor's just been stood there watching it?
Me: I don't know! It doesn't matter.
Hannah: It matters to me.
Me: It can matter to you later. Come on, this is a serious contender for the best cliffhanger ever to appear in Doctor Who.

As lava begins to flow towards them, the episode ends with the Doctor abandoning everyone to their fiery fate.

Hannah: That's very tense. Horrible screaming, people dying, that giant rolling wall of tomato soup...
Me: It's the actual end of the world. You don't get that in every story.
Hannah: It's very sad that he couldn't stop it for them. They're all going to die.
Me: Well, that's one of the benefits of parallel universe stories; you can actually destroy the world for once. This is what happens when the Doctor fails to save the planet.
Hannah: Yeah, they get to explore an avenue that they'd never usually be able to. It's still sad, though. And very convenient that it happens to be an alternate reality when we finally get the opportunity to see him fail.

Episode 7

Hannah: This is a wonderfully-crafted story so far. Acting, direction, storyline, most of the dialogue... it's all very good.
Me: Is anything conspicuous by its absence?
Hannah: Not really.
Me: You don't find it strange that there was no version of the Doctor in that parallel universe?
Hannah: No. The Doctor's been in a parallel universe before - well, later, in the David Tennant era - and there was no parallel Doctor, so I didn't think anything of it.
Me: Some spin-off novels have claimed that a parallel Doctor is the republic's totalitarian leader.
Hannah: And who wrote that? Is that accepted as canon, or is it just one random person's idea? It's just as likely that there's no Doctor in that universe, or he just never visits Earth.
Me: This is the last episode of season seven, by the way.
Hannah: Okay. Why is that relevant? I'm not going to do a season summary.

The Doctor arrives back in his own universe just in time to avoid being par-boiled in lava.

Hannah: All this time I've been thinking that the intro sequence was overly dramatic, and now it's actually happened.
Me: So you appreciate it more now?
Hannah: It's just a tiny part of the story, so I still think they're over-emphasising it a bit.
Me: It's quite an important part of the story!
Hannah: And why does the world explode into a giant ball of fire, anyway? There is a lot of lava down there, but there's only so much pressure; if there was enough pressure to push all that lava out through the crust, it would already be coming out through the world's volcanoes. I don't really see how it works.

Hannah watches in rapt attention as the Doctor tries to stop events hurtling towards the same inevitable conclusion, although his method largely involves shouting at Stahlman and whacking the console with a wrench.

Hannah: Yes, that'll convince everyone. Go psycho and start hitting things.

In all fairness, Stahlman seems to be taking a break from sanity himself.

Hannah: At this point everyone can see he's really not okay. Why don't they arrest him, or confine him for his own good; the military can do that, can't they? If someone's unfit to command, they take over. Just because someone's in charge it doesn't mean that they're right. In the other world they were all a lot more strict.
Me: Well, yes, it was a fascist regime. They tend to be fairly strict.

Stahlman studies the green goo dripping out of the drill head and decides it would look better all over his face. 

Hannah: Oh, that's just... is that really necessary? Smearing his face with jelly?

Just as Sir Keith demands proof of an emergency situation, a very hirsute Professor Stahlman emerges from the drill head.

Hannah: How about now? Is that proof?

The Doctor manages to convince everyone to halt the drilling operation before it penetrates the earth's crust, and manages to shut it down in the nick of time.

Hannah: But nobody else knows why they've done it! Their leader has gone crazy and turned into a werewolf, but there's no obvious reason to shut down the project except that the Doctor has told them it's a bad idea and some green stuff came out of one of the tubes. He hasn't actually told anyone that it's going to cause a massive chain reaction that will destroy the entire planet.

The story concludes with some comedy banter between the Doctor and the Brigadier, which elicits a satisfying grin from Hannah.

Hannah: It's always nice when they can have a bit of a laugh, even after something awful has happened.

The Score

If she makes any attempt to perpetrate a pun by using the word "boring," she's sleeping on the sofa tonight.

Hannah: Very good. I like it when they get to stretch themselves beyond what they normally do. Not every story is the same, but it's nice when they do something completely outside the box. It's always fun, even when it's such a tense situation.
Me: And you get to see the end of the world.
Hannah: Well, we saw some lava rolling towards them, and then the Doctor was gone. I suppose it would have been a bit much if he'd watched the flesh burning off their bodies.
Me: What a charming image.
Hannah: It's well-written, obviously well-directed, and it's got TARDIS bits; I miss the TARDIS. It just needed a bit more action and a bit less of everyone ignoring the Doctor over and over again. It gets a tad repetitive.

9/10

We finally get around to watching the DVD extras, including Hadoke v Havoc in which Toby Hadoke reunites the eponymous stunt team. Hannah is excited to see the boys in action, and a quick glimpse of Lymington into the bargain (one of our favourite places to have a cream tea, the most recent being two weeks ago). She's particularly impressed by Roy Scammell who, in addition to falling off 70-foot storage tanks and hanging on to moving helicopters, also turns out to be a professional ice skater.

Hannah: He's just amazing at everything, isn't he, the bastard?

The Ambassadors of Death

Episode 1

We only get halfway through the title sequence before we're thrown straight into the story with a scene showing a recovery mission at the Space Centre. Then the title sequence abruptly picks up right where it left off. To my surprise, Hannah isn't even remotely fazed by this.

Hannah: Oooh, a little pre-title thingy. That's the first time they've done a pre-title insert. And I recognise the writer's name.
Me: This is David Whitaker's last script for the series, but he also wrote The Edge of Destruction, The Rescue, The Crusade, The Power of the Daleks, The Evil of the Daleks, The Enemy of the World and The Wheel in Space.
Hannah: Hmmm. Mixed bag.
Me: You gave two of them a perfect score.
Hannah: Well, we'll see.

The recovery mission is overseen by Professor Cornish.

Me: Do you recognise this actor?
Hannah: Yes. I recognise his eyes. (after a pause) He's one of the Dominators.
Me: Wow. I'm very impressed.
Hannah: He has a very distinctive face.

Incredible. She didn't recognise Geoffrey Palmer last week, but she can identify Ronald Allen based solely on the memory of one black-and-white story that we watched two months ago. Anyway, the aim of the recovery mission is to retrieve a probe with three astronauts on board, which disappeared en route to Mars several months earlier.

Me: The story was only filmed about six months after the Moon landing, so space travel was still very exciting and topical at this point.
Hannah: I've just finished listening to the audiobook of The Martian, and it's pretty much exactly this. I wonder if Andy Weir got inspiration from this story.

The Doctor and Liz are tinkering with the TARDIS console.

Hannah: Ew. Wow.
Me: What?
Hannah: His decor.
Me: This isn't the TARDIS.
Hannah: It's got a console in the middle.
Me: It's a UNIT laboratory. He's removed the console and taken it out of the TARDIS.
Hannah: Okay, but it's still "wow, look at that decor." If this is UNIT headquarters, why has it got that lurid stained-glass window? The wallpaper's alright, and the imitation gas-lamp things aren't too bad, but that window sticks out like a sore thumb. Also, how did he get the console through the TARDIS doors?
Me: I can only assume he took it apart and then reassembled it outside.
Hannah: I suppose he's got a lot of time on his hands; he can't be running around saving the world from alien invasions every single day. He must get a bit bored.

The Doctor is attempting to reactivate the time vector generator, but only succeeds in sending Liz a few seconds into the future.

Hannah: It's nice to see the TARDIS again, after not being mentioned for a whole story. Is that time-hop trick going to be relevant to the plot, or was it just to remind people who the Doctor is, in case we've forgotten that he's not just a clever human with interesting social skills?

As the recovery capsule begins docking with Mars Probe 7, Hannah turns her attention to the soundtrack.

Hannah: This music is very odd.
Me: I think they were taking inspiration from 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Hannah: I can imagine it playing in the background of a film where two people are walking down the streets of Paris, or something. Not trying to rescue an astronaut.
Me: Just be thankful there aren't any crumhorns or glockenspiels this week.

When the probe transmits a familiar signal to the Space Centre, the Doctor decides he'd better get down there. Luckily, it's not far.

Hannah: Oh, that's convenient.

It turns out the signal is being transmitted from London...

Hannah: Of course it's London.

...and the source of the transmission is only seven miles away.

Hannah: Oh, how convenient! How utterly convenient!

The Brigadier and his men arrive outside the location: an abandoned warehouse.

Hannah: Is this a famous building?
Me: No, but it is the same one that was used for the plastics factory in Spearhead from Space and Vaughn's factory in The Invasion.
Hannah: Ah, that's why I recognise it. This music is all over the place. Now it sounds like the theme tune for an exciting UNIT spin-off series.

It's not long before the situation escalates into an all-out gunfight.

Hannah: The Brig likes to shoot from the hip.
Me: You think this is a bad plan?
Hannah: No, I mean he's literally shooting from hip-level. It's a lot less accurate, and he's exposing the upper half of his body for no reason; he can't sight his gun or anything. If he's going to shoot so blindly, he might as well stay behind the crate and stick his hand over the top.

After a while, both sides leave their hiding places and the shootout turns into hand-to-hand combat.

Hannah: Why are they leaving their cover? They've all got guns, why are they having a slapping contest? This makes absolutely no sense at all.

The episode ends with Dr Taltalian unexpectedly pulling a gun on the Doctor and Liz.

Hannah: Oh! Who's a naughty professor scientist man?
Me: You've just missed something very important.

I rewind the cliffhanger to see if she notices.

Hannah: What is it?
Me: You know that sound effect over the cliffhanger? The musical sting when it transitions into the credits?
Hannah: The "sheeeeeeeeeooooowwwwwwww"?
Me: That's the one.
Hannah: It's at the end of every modern episode, isn't it? I recognised it, but I thought it was just Doctor Who music. Is this the first time it ever happens?
Me: Yes, it's supposed to make the cliffhangers more dramatic and exciting.
Hannah: It certainly works.

Speaking of firsts, there's another new addition to the credits.

Hannah: "Action by Havoc"?
Me: Havoc are the new stunt team, they were doing all the stunts in the warehouse shootout. One of them, Derek Martin, went on to become a regular in EastEnders.
Hannah: I was going to mention that the hand-to-hand combat is a lot better than it's been before. Except for the two guys who just slapped each other in the face.

Episode 2

Thanks to some simple "transmigration", the Doctor manages to make an entire reel of tape disappear.

Hannah: That's very handy. Why can't he do that trick at any other time?

As the recovery capsule returns to Earth, Professor Cornish tries to keep the mission running smoothly.

Hannah: He is a good actor.
Me: This story is doing him a lot more favours than The Dominators did. Not that it was a tough act to follow.
Hannah: I like the character, too; he's an authority figure who's level-headed and hard-working, which makes a nice change. He also looks awesome without giant shoulders.

The capsule re-enters Earth's atmosphere in a protracted sequence that makes Stanley Kubrick look like Michael Bay.

Hannah: There's a lot of procedural filler here. I know it's for suspense, but...
Me: It's less than a year since the Moon landing, remember? The current trend in films and TV is to make space travel look authentic and realistic.
Hannah: I know, but it's a bit boring if you're expecting an action-packed sci-fi show.

The capsule is retrieved and brought back to the Space Centre, but the police escort is attacked by men with alien weapons (or hairdryers, if you're Hannah). The Doctor manages to trap two of them by activating Bessie's "anti-theft" device and they stick to the car like insects on flypaper.

Hannah: How has he made it sticky?! That's very strange. Surely the anti-theft device should drive thieves away, not keep them holding onto it.

When the capsule is returned to the Space Centre, something is clearly very wrong and the Doctor demands that they cut the capsule open.

Hannah: So much intrigue! So many questions.

Episode 3

Professor Cornish doesn't waste any time sticking his head inside the newly-opened capsule.

Hannah: It's still hot! Don't touch metal that's literally just been cut with a blowtorch!

The craft is empty, and we learn that General Carrington has secretly detained the three astronauts. General Carrington, of course, is played by John Abineri, who has since become more well-known as the butler from the Ferrero Rocher advert.

Hannah: (after a pause) No, I wouldn't have recognised him if you hadn't told me. And I still don't recognise him! I don't even remember what the butler looked like in that advert, and you only showed it to me yesterday.
Me: He's been in Doctor Who before, but it's mildly amusing because the advert takes place at an ambassador's reception and now he's in The Ambassadors of Death. It's just a shame the chocolates are so nasty.
Hannah: My grandma loved them. She always remembered them, even when she couldn't remember most other things.

Carrington tells his scientist Heldorf that the astronauts have become dependent on radiation in order to survive, but Hannah doesn't seem to agree with this analysis, judging from the way she keeps muttering "Bollocks" under her breath. The astronauts are abducted by a criminal called Reegan, a ruthless bastard who indirectly kills his henchmen in the process and buries their bodies in a gravel pit.

Hannah: I like this music. It doesn't fit with the baddies escaping with the astronauts, but it's nice.

Oh, and he has a magic van that can conveniently change its appearance.

Hannah: That's clever, I like that.

Reegan lures Liz down to Hertfordshire with a false message from the Brigadier. This means she gets to drive Bessie for once, but it makes her an easy target in the car chase that follows.

Hannah: It's such a distinctive car. Why would anyone ever think that they could travel undercover in it? And why did she get out when they overtook and stopped in front of her? She could bung it in reverse, or drive off the other way. Is she going to jump in a weir?

Liz tries to escape over a bridge, but topples over the railing towards the water below.

Me: That was actually one of the Havoc stunt team again.
Hannah: Well, yes, obviously. A lady stunter.
Me: There aren't any ladies in Havoc; that was Roy Scammell.
Hannah: What? You mean that was a man in a skirt?

She rewinds the DVD in disbelief and watches it again.

Hannah: Very muscular legs, but it's hard to tell.

Episode 4

The Doctor volunteers to pilot the capsule back into space, but Professor Cornish insists that he takes all the necessary tests first.

Hannah: Are we going to see the Doctor trying not to throw up on the Vomit Comet?

Reegan gives Taltalian an exploding briefcase to finish off the Doctor, but alters the timer so that the bomb goes off in Taltalian's face instead.

Hannah: That's just mean.
Me: Mean? He's been blown up!
Hannah: Well, he was trusting Reegan! He thought that briefcase would end all his troubles. I suppose it did, but in a different way.

Remarkably, the computer equipment in the same room appears to be completely unscathed. In fact, the bomb hasn't even managed to collapse the table it was sitting on.

Hannah: The Doctor was only a couple of feet away and still survived, even though the ceiling has fallen in and the walls have gone wonky. How has he gotten away with just a scratch on his face?

Then we get a very eerie and unsettling sequence with an unstoppable alien astronaut (one of the eponymous Ambassadors of Death) entering a military base, killing anyone who gets in its way.

Hannah: This would be a good time to run.
Me: If I'd seen this episode as a child, I would have been absolutely terrified.
Hannah: It's the lens flare that makes it so creepy. Dark silhouettes of death coming up against the sun. It's very dark and mysterious.

The aliens can kill with a touch, thanks to their natural radioactivity.

Hannah: You know what they remind me of?
Me: Astronauts?
Hannah: Vashta Nerada. Just because they were infecting people who were wearing spacesuits. I found them terrifying, because you literally can't stop them; if you touch a shadow that's infected, you're dead, there's no way out. This is a similar thing, except these ones are unstoppable radiation things; one touch and you're dead, and you can't shoot them. It's terrifying.

The episode ends with one of the deadly aliens approaching the Doctor from behind.

Hannah: What a lively embassy they're from.

Episode 5

Hannah: It's a very good alien design; mysterious and creepy. Faceless creatures are much scarier than big green bug-eyed monsters.
Me: Incidentally, you might be interested to know that the Apollo 13 incident happened during this story. They've blown their oxygen tank since the last episode was broadcast.
Hannah: That's quite a big coincidence. What else do you expect me to say? It's interesting, but a coincidence.
Me: Well, yes, I wasn't suggesting that Barry Letts had organised it as a publicity stunt.

General Carrington's scientist Lennox turns himself in and asks UNIT to put him into protective custody, politely declining Sergeant Benton's offer of a cup of tea.

Hannah: (disgusted) Why would you turn down a cup of tea?
Me: Look!
Hannah: (annoyed) What?
Me: It's Corporal Benton, from The Invasion. He's been promoted now.
Hannah: I don't recognise him at all. All I remember is that you asked me to guess who would carry on being a recurring member of UNIT, and I had no idea.

Reegan infiltrates the Space Centre and makes his way to the fuel tanks at the launch site, kicking people off the gantries as he goes.

Hannah: Another stunt man doing flips.
Me: Yep, more action by Havoc.
Hannah: It's all very quiet. It feels like there's supposed to be music over it, but there isn't.
Me: I thought you'd be grateful for a bit of silence after the last story.

Inevitably, a radioactive isotope somehow finds its way onto Lennox's dinner plate while he's locked up in his cell.

Hannah: Oh, that's a horrible way to die!
Me: Yes, that's why the cup of tea wouldn't have been a good idea.

Despite Reegan's sabotage, the Doctor eventually manages to take off and we get our first glimpse of the rocket.

Hannah: Wow. Oh dear. It's such a rubbish little rocket! It's obviously being held up by something. That's why it's going so far past the top of the screen; you can't see the nose cone because something's holding it. And the Doctor's face is all blue and weird. I suppose it's realistic, considering he's being pummelled in the face by g-force, but what a face to pull.
Me: Now that you mention it, he looks a lot like Arnold Schwarzenegger as Mr Freeze in Batman & Robin. It's also very convenient that Recovery 7 was ready to go back up into space again so soon. Now the special effects department don't need to build another model.
Hannah: Well, they would have just used the same one and painted an eight on it. Obviously.

The Doctor's reaction to the saboteur: "They're very persistent, aren't they?"

Hannah: That's just a polite way of saying "bloody bastards".

Episode 6

The Doctor's capsule is swallowed by an alien spaceship and he finds himself in the middle of a swirly red abstract tunnel.

Hannah: This looks like a beautiful painting. Is he on a giant green screen?
Me: Barry Letts was one of the early pioneers of CSO. You'd better get used to it, that's the next five years you're looking at.

The Doctor finds the missing astronauts avidly watching a blank screen, apparently under the impression that it's showing a football match.

Hannah: So they must have been locked up in there for at least a couple of days, right?
Me: It must be one hell of a penalty shootout.
Hannah: What are they being fed? Do they eat or drink the same things as the aliens? That doesn't seem very likely.

And then we get our first proper look at the aliens, and it's safe to say that it comes as a bit of a shock.

Hannah: Eurgh! Eurgh! Eurgh!

Reegan returns to the Space Centre to cause more mischief.

Hannah: He's got a blueprint map with him this time. How did he get hold of that?
Me: If they can smuggle radioactive material onto a prisoner's dinner tray, I'm sure they can steal some documents. The real question is why the isotope didn't roll around and make a noise under the cloche when Benton brought it in.
Hannah: They could have at least propped it up with some mashed potatoes or something, to muffle the sound. "Mash Muffle: radioactive isotope served on a bed of mash."

If you're reading this, Heston Blumenthal, feel free to use that one.

General Carrington is finally outed as the villain of the piece, and the episode concludes with him preparing to do his "moral duty" by shooting the Doctor in the head.

Hannah: Are we ever going to see the ambassadors properly? All we've had so far is a face.
Me: Yes, and even that was too much for you.
Hannah: Because it looked like a blue peeling human. Anyway, if these aliens are intelligent beings, why are they just standing around waiting for orders and then doing whatever they're told?

Episode 7

The Doctor sends an SOS signal to UNIT, where it's picked up by Private Johnson.

Me: That's Geoffrey Beevers; he was married to Caroline John.
Hannah: The actress?
Me: Yes.
Hannah: Wait. Which one's Caroline John?
Me: The one who plays Liz.
Hannah: Oh, yeah. I was thinking of Caroline Quentin.
Me: No, she was married to Paul Merton.
Hannah: Well, they're both female-first-name and male-last-name.
Me: In that case, I suppose I should just be thankful that you didn't confuse her with Caroline Lucas.
Hannah: I still didn't hear what the General said.
Me: Something about moral duty, I expect. You could play a drinking game in this episode.

As all hell breaks loose and General Carrington takes over the Space Centre, the Brigadier and UNIT need transport but there's only one car available. No prizes for guessing which one.

Hannah: Ah, fully-armed men in a yellow jalopy, sticking their rifles out of the window. Not that there's a window, there aren't really any sides to the car. Isn't there any way of making it water-tight? It's a very pretty car, but it's not very practical.

At the Space Centre, Carrington is preparing to deliver a live television broadcast with the aim of provoking an international war that will destroy the aliens.

Me: I just want to point out that this is another story that's not about alien invasion. That's two in a row so far.
Hannah: Yes, it's about an alien kidnap.
Me: It's about good aliens! At this point in Doctor Who you're expecting every alien to be hostile, but they're actually peaceful aliens for a change.
Hannah: Peaceful aliens who accidentally kill people. I still think it's odd how suggestible the aliens are; they're just doing what they're told. Why did this guy want to steal them, anyway? I still don't really understand. He bumped into them on Mars, found out that they were going to send some ambassadors down to Earth, and then managed to intercept them just to do some bank robberies?
Me: No, it's Reegan that wants to rob banks. Carrington just wants to wipe them out.
Hannah: But why? Just because they killed his friend by accident? If he thinks they're dangerous, why didn't he just tell someone?

The Brigadier arrests Carrington, and the Doctor releases the captive aliens.

Hannah: The camera's still rolling.
Me: You really think the cameraman would turn it off now? The viewing figures must be through the roof!

Professor Cornish still needs the Doctor's help to exchange the aliens for their own missing astronauts, but the Doctor doesn't seem too concerned. Instead, he leaves Liz to tie up all the loose ends...

Hannah: Why does the Doctor want to leave?

...says goodbye to the aliens...

Hannah: Why is he talking to them? He knows they can't understand him!

...then he swans off back to his laboratory, and the story just more or less ends.

Hannah: That's a rubbish ending! Why is the Doctor... could they not afford to do another rocket sequence, and just gave up? Absolute bollocks. "Goodbye everyone, it's all sorted." No, things could still go wrong! We just have to assume that the exchange goes well; the aliens have taken their ambassadors back and decided not to go back to Earth - "It's far too dangerous there, they're all bastards" - and the guys who were in space have no idea what's going on because they think they've been in decontamination and watching the same football match for three days. Surely the Doctor likes aliens and stuff, so why would he just leave? Is he really that uninterested in anything that's beneath him? "I've done the hard bit, the rest of you can clean up the mess; I'm going to put my feet up."
Me: Well, I suppose he's got a lot of work to do in his own laboratory...
Hannah: No, he doesn't! He has nothing to do!
Me: He's still trying to get the TARDIS console working.
Hannah: Maybe he knows that this particular alien race are never going to contact Earth again, and everything's fine. I don't suppose their findings were very encouraging. "Let's see what the Earth people do. Oh, they seem to kill each other and go places that they're not supposed to." They don't even have a name. And we only see them briefly, as something with a slightly blue head.
Me: To be fair, it's probably more effective that way.
Hannah: Yes. And cheaper.

The Score

Hannah: It was very engaging, and I like the fact that it's not a threatening alien species, but I still find it hard to believe that they can just tell these aliens what to do; I really don't see why they were going along with any of it. What did Liz do in this story?
Me: She fell off a weir.
Hannah: She got captured and then she had to do some science, but I don't think she brought much to the table. It's an interesting mix of political subterfuge, running around a bit, and a weird mysterious alien race that we don't learn much about; it's full of potential, and yet I find it a bit dissatisfying, especially that ending. They could have just shown a scene of... I don't know, anything. Certainly not the Doctor just saying goodbye to everyone and leaving Liz to tidy up the mess. And there's also that scene at the very beginning, where he's just about got the TARDIS working well enough to do little time hops and we find out he can still manipulate those effects when he's nowhere near the TARDIS, like when he made the tape disappear...
Me: No, that was a separate thing. It's just a random trick he can do.
Hannah: And he never does it again?
Me: Maybe he doesn't want to show off.
Hannah: It's weird that they have both of those things at the beginning of the same story, and then they're never mentioned again. The scene with the TARDIS console is interesting, but they had to build the entire set just for that and it's got no relevance to the story. I'm hoping we see some more of that set with the lurid glass window in the next one, otherwise they built it for no reason.
Me: So, to sum up?
Hannah: Again, it was middling. It was enjoyable, and I did like the music, but some parts were too slow or repetitive. At least there was some action.

7/10

Hannah: I've noticed that I keep using the word "interesting". I wish I had a better word for it.
Me: Fascinating?
Hannah: No, it wasn't that good.

The Invasion

Episode 1

Hannah: Isn't there already one called The Invasion?
Me: No.
Hannah: Yes, there is. The Dalek Invasion of Earth.
Me: Are you insane?
Hannah: It sounds like the same story.
Me: Anyway, this is Dr Kit Pedler's last story, if you're interested.
Hannah: So are there Cybermen in it?
Me: Er... you'll have to wait and see.

Episodes one and four are missing from this eight-part adventure, but once again (and for the very last time) the DVD release has plugged the holes for us.

Me: These two episodes are going to be our last animated reconstructions.
Hannah: Ever?
Me: Yes. Ironically they were also the first ones to be animated, so we're actually finishing them at the beginning. It's all a bit River Song.
Hannah: This is yet another different style of animation, isn't it?
Me: These ones are animated by Cosgrove Hall, the animation studio that made Danger Mouse. You know that Doctor Who animated web series from 2003, starring Richard E. Grant?
Hannah: No.
Me: We'll get there one day. Anyway, that one was animated by Cosgrove Hall three years earlier; there was a sequel planned, but the TV series was revived shortly afterwards so it was abandoned and the unused money from that project was assigned to this instead.

The TARDIS is on the blink again; this time it's a fault with the visual stabiliser, so when it lands in the middle of a field on Earth it's completely transparent.

Hannah: Oh, has he actually made it invisible? How are you supposed to find it again? Why don't they always use the camouflage bit?
Me: It's just a broken circuit. It already has a built-in camouflage device, remember?
Hannah: Does that mean he's never going to bother fixing this one, either?

The Doctor and his companions flag down a car and hitch a lift.

Hannah: They haven't animated the face of the driver. It's either completely irrelevant, or very important.
Me: Or the animators just wanted to save a bit of money.

The Doctor decides to track down his old friend Professor Travers to help repair the circuit, but Travers is in America and the house has been leased to Professor Watkins and his niece Isobel.

Hannah: Why couldn't they have used Professor Travers instead?
Me: It was originally going to be Travers and his daughter Anne from The Web of Fear, but the creators of those characters refused to grant the rights after they fell out with the BBC over the whole Quark debacle in The Dominators.
Hannah: Just because you have a falling-out, surely you should still acknowledge the writer's vision and accept that someone has written a story and wants to honour you by using your characters. It's just spite. I don't understand people like that.

Isobel writes everything down on the wall instead of a piece of paper, reasoning that "you can't lose a wall."

Hannah: Yes, you can. They just lost all the walls of the TARDIS in the last story.
Me: It's not an everyday occurrence.
Hannah: No, but it happened.
Me: I don't think it's going to happen in Shepherd's Bush.

The Doctor and Jamie take a trip to International Electromatics in search of the missing Professor Watkins, but managing director Tobias Vaughn only gives them a freebie disposable transistor radio for their trouble.

Hannah: "Disposable"? You're supposed to dispose of a transistor radio? You just throw it away after using it?
Me: Well, "Little Arrows" by Leapy Lee was in the charts at the time, so it's hardly surprising people wanted to throw their radios away.
Hannah: It's clearly a tracking device, or a listening device, or a bomb or something.

After recognising his wife Sheila Dunn's name in the closing credits (she was the voice of the Quarks in The Dominators), Hannah also spots her favourite director.

Hannah: Oh, it's a Camfield! I can't wait to see a proper one.

Episode 2

Hannah: Oh, this is a bit jerky. They didn't do much restoration here.
Me: This is what it looked like.
Hannah: Yeah, but we watched that documentary about how they made another story smoother by filling in extra frames and things.
Me: But this is what the original was like; you can't "restore" it to something it wasn't in the first place. That's not restoration, that's George Lucasing it.

Tobias Vaughn is easily one of the most impressive and charismatic villains the series has ever had.

Hannah: I like him.
Me: Do you recognise the actor? He's been in the show before.
Hannah: No, of course I don't. I don't usually recognise anyone.
Me: His name is Kevin Stoney, and it was a very big role.
Hannah: No. Give me a clue.
Me: He was a major villain.
Hannah: No...?
Me: The Daleks' Master Plan?
Hannah: No...?
Me: It's Mavic Chen.
Hannah: It looks nothing like him.
Me: It's the same actor!
Hannah: It still looks nothing like him. He didn't have that squint last time.

While Zoe and Isobel drink coffee and listen to "The Teddy Bears' Picnic" on the gramophone, the Doctor and Jamie are abducted by two men ("Jamie likes touching the Doctor") and escorted to a military base on a plane where they meet their old friend Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart, now promoted to Brigadier.

Hannah: That's a nice surprise; I didn't even consider that the Brigadier would be in this, even though the Doctor was looking for Travers. I have been wondering how soon he would be back, though. I'm glad he's been re-introduced so quickly. I like his rapport with the Doctor.

The Brigadier is now in charge of UNIT, the newly-formed "United Nations Intelligence Taskforce". (At least until 2008, when it becomes "Unified Intelligence Taskforce" because the actual United Nations suddenly decided it was a problem after 40 years.)

Hannah: Odd that the UN saw the Yeti threat as such a major event that they've created a task force for these occasions, when other stories like The War Machines and The Faceless Ones didn't provoke the same kind of reaction. A couple of Yeti and some kind of fungus in the London Underground triggered the creation of a military task force, but not the disappearance of hundreds of young people or an army of sentient tanks in the streets?

Zoe and Isobel go looking for the Doctor at IE but only find a computer in the reception area. Zoe apparently shares the Doctor's hatred of computers ("Surely his TARDIS is a giant computer?") and cheerfully blows it up with an unsolvable equation, laughing in delight at her act of vandalism.

Hannah: She's a little bit evil. She's taking too much pleasure in destroying things.

Vaughn has a complex piece of machinery in his cupboard for chatting with his alien allies. When his allies recognise the Doctor from a previous encounter on another planet, they order his destruction and Vaughn captures Zoe and Isobel as bait.

Hannah: Why is it always the girls getting captured?

The episode ends with the Doctor and Jamie cornered by Vaughn's sadistic security chief, Packer.

Hannah: I love the pacing of this; that's probably why I haven't been talking much, because I'm actually engrossed in it. There's enough happening for it to be interesting, but nothing feels clumsy or wasted. And obviously the direction's good, because it's Camfield. So, yes, very nicely paced.
Me: It needs to be, there's another six episodes to go yet.
Hannah: It might change; it might get tedious. But for now, it's thrilling.

Episode 3

The Doctor and Jamie are ushered into Vaughn's private car; the Brigadier tells Sergeant Walters to keep an eye on them.

Hannah: Does that sergeant stick around? There's always one with puppy-dog eyes who does everything.
Me: Actually, one member of UNIT does stick around for future stories.
Hannah: It's the Brig!
Me: Apart from him.
Hannah: Is it Captain Jimmy?
Me: You've got until the end of the story to give me your final answer.

They're taken to the IE factory (which looks suspiciously like the UK Guinness brewery) and into Vaughn's office, which turns out to be identical to his London office. It's a blatant budget-saving device, but Vaughn passes it off as business efficiency.

Hannah: Yeah, "business efficiency", but he's got loads of wasted space in his office. His little video communications device has three separate screens that always show the same image. That's not very efficient, is it?

Much like Mavic Chen, Vaughn is calm and suave but also dangerously sinister at the same time.

Hannah: He does play a good villain.

When the Doctor and Jamie make their escape by sabotaging the lift, Packer uses his wrist-communicator to send guards after them.

Hannah: That communication watch is really awkward, because he's got to speak into it and then hold it up to his ear, and then when he's moving between those two positions he's got to make sure he's not missing what they're saying. You'd think an electronics corporation could come up with something more effective than that.

But it only takes a couple of minutes for the engineers to get the lift operational again.

Hannah: What?! It takes hours for them to fix the lifts at work!

Vaughn completely loses his temper, and it's far more terrifying than any Dalek.

Hannah: Not so calm anymore, is he? That's what stupid people do to your patience.

Jamie takes refuge by hiding in a storage container on the IE train, but finds something stirring in there with him.

Hannah: Dramatic, but it's probably just one of the girls. They opened up the containers to look for the girls, and saw there was something inside, but for some reason they didn't think to look under the blankets for them.

Episode 4

Ever since we watched the first episode I've been trying to hide the identity of Vaughn's alien allies from Hannah, but it looks like the game is up when Vaughn tells Packer that he's planning to use emotion to destroy them.

Hannah: It is them, isn't it? They don't have any emotions. So he's just like Mavic Chen, using another race of evil villains to get what he wants and hoping to one-up them later, even though they're obviously going to be the ones betraying him.

Vaughn tries to drive the Doctor out of hiding by threatening Zoe over the compound's tannoy system.

Hannah: So all these security guards and other people are working for this electronics company. Don't any of them hear him threatening to hurt a young girl, and think that maybe they're working for the bad guys?
Me: Maybe they're bad guys themselves. There's probably a recruitment agency for villains who need a workforce to build a Death Star, or a secret base in an active volcano.

Zoe thinks this is a bit of an overreaction to her destroying a computer.

Hannah: It's not all about you.

Vaughn calls his inside man at the Ministry of Defence and orders him to obstruct UNIT's investigation. For a major general, his composure under pressure leaves a lot to be desired.

Hannah: What a wet wipe.

Speaking of IE's professional ethics, Packer has no qualms with his job description.

Hannah: Sometimes the top baddie isn't the one you hate the most; it's often their henchmen who are the truly sadistic ones that deal out the pain, and they've got him spot-on as well. He's the one that you actually despise, the one that really relishes hurting people, and it makes him a much more horrible person than Vaughn. I mean, obviously an invasion of the Earth isn't a nice thing to be organising...
Me: That's one way of putting it.
Hannah: But when you've got someone threatening to torture you, and you know they're going to enjoy it, it's a much more horrible concept because it's a more immediate threat. The end of the world is such a distant problem compared to someone sticking a gun in your back.

The technicians revive one of Vaughn's allies by attaching electrodes to its cocoon...

Hannah: They look like nipple clamps. Don't put that in the blog.
Me: Don't worry, I won't.

...and, to the surprise of absolutely nobody, it turns out to be a Cyberman.

Hannah: Did they have irons on the side of their head before?
Me: What?
Hannah: I don't remember them having quite such a big headdress.
Me: You mean the handlebars?
Hannah: No, they had handlebars, but they look like they've got their head in a vice.
Me: They've been redesigned a bit, but I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.
Hannah: I don't remember them having such big slabs on either side of their head.
Me: Are you happy to see them again?
Hannah: Yeah, why not. I was expecting it the whole time, though, because it was Pedler. You shouldn't teach me to recognise things if you want them to be a surprise.

But she seems to be enjoying it anyway.

Hannah: I don't think I've found anything particularly wrong with this story yet. Still, there's another four episodes to go, so there's always a chance it could still go badly wrong.
Me: Yeah, that's the spirit.

Episode 5

Hannah: Why do these evil plots always take place in England? What is it about this country that attracts so many aliens and villains?
Me: We can discuss it after the Jon Pertwee era.
Hannah: It's so weird; they're like robots, but they're bursting out of a womb or a cocoon. It's very natural-looking, but synthetic at the same time. But where are these powered-down Cybermen coming from? They've been sent down here from the spaceship, a few at a time, and only to London? It doesn't sound like a large army for an invasion force, and if they need to be revived before they're ready, it makes them heavily reliant on humans. Why can't they be awake while they're being shipped in? Are they running out of power or something?
Me: What do you think of the new design?
Hannah: They look like scuba suits.

We see some Cybermen delicately climbing down a manhole into the sewer.

Hannah: Oh look, the Cybermen are helping each other!
Me: That's quite sweet.
Hannah: Yeah. But obviously they're doing it because it's logical, not out of compassion.

Like a child with a new toy, Vaughn tests out his new emotion-inducing machine and transmits fear into one of the Cybermen, which promptly goes berserk and begins running amok.

Hannah: It's sad, because there are people inside there. A screaming Cyberman is horrifying. That's why they're such good aliens; they're a terrifying concept, and it's especially terrifying to become one.

When the Brigadier dares to suggest that dealing with an army of alien monsters is a job for trained soldiers instead of a dolly-bird photographer, Isobel lays out her feminist credentials: "You... man!"

Hannah: I like her. Is she the next companion? I know changeovers can happen in big stories, and she's already caught up in this adventure. She's a fun character, but it might be too soon to have another young girl like her again.

Isobel takes Jamie and Zoe down into the sewer for a Cyberman photo shoot (as one does) to gather evidence of the invasion. A policeman follows them down the manhole, with predictable results.

Hannah: Oh yeah, that's going to be an excellent shot of a policeman getting murdered by a cyborg. Good one, guys.

Nobody seems too worried about being responsible for the poor man's death; they're far more concerned about being trapped by Cybermen on all sides. Jamie helpfully explains to us that "they're coming at us from both directions."

Hannah: Well done, Jamie. It might be time to take you back to the Highlands.

Episode 6

One of the advancing Cybermen happens to be Vaughn's demented test subject.

Hannah: Aw, they're going to blow up the poorly one.

UNIT comes to the rescue, but when the Brigadier tells Isobel that her photos are too blurry to be any use, she retorts "I don't know why I bothered."

Hannah: No, nobody does. It was a terrible idea.

Vaughn gives Professor Watkins a gun and offers himself as a target, but the gunfire just ricochets off his cybernetically-augmented chest.

Hannah: That's so cruel. He's very good at playing mind games.
Me: And that's why Vaughn is the real villain of this story, not the Cybermen.
Hannah: He's still very lucky he didn't get shot in the head.

UNIT plans a full-scale assault to rescue Professor Watkins. It all sounds very impressive, but we don't get to see any of the action; instead, we cut straight to the aftermath of the battle, with one of Vaughn's scientific researchers telling him what we would have seen. I ask Hannah for her thoughts.

Hannah: It's a little bit unsatisfying, but plenty of TV shows do that. It's a problem if you do it too often, but for this one time it's okay; there's already been enough action and shooting things and running around that you don't need to see that full-scale attack to make sure you keep the audience. I would say they're pretty much hooked, anyway. I don't feel cheated by not having it.
Me: There was supposed to be a filmed battle, but they ran out of time on the location shoot.
Hannah: It's a bit of a cheap move, cutting from the Brig's comment to a dishevelled survivor, but there's also a nice sense of comic timing in it.

Despite all the excitement, Jamie somehow manages to take a nap. Even the Doctor seems slightly peeved.

Hannah: Is the Doctor going to dump him now, for not being engaged enough?

IE's products contain an extra circuit that will produce cyber-hypnotic signals and send everyone in the world to sleep, but the Doctor reminds us of the anti-brainwashing devices he threw together during their last encounter in The Wheel in Space, something Hannah would rather forget.

Hannah: Ah, we're back to the silly science of depolarising and wearing a little thing on the back of the neck to jam signals. It was all going so well.

The episode ends with an iconic cliffhanger, as the Cybermen rise up out of the sewer and march past St Paul's Cathedral into the streets of London.

Hannah: They've still got Doc Martens and scuba suits, but they actually look impressive.
Me: That's partly because they're doing that same trick from The Dalek Invasion of Earth and marching around some well-known London landmarks.
Hannah: Yeah, it makes it feel closer to home. It feels different, seeing them in the real world instead of a moon base or a space station.

Episode 7

Hannah: I've just noticed, it looks like the Cybermen have got metal or latex nappies.
Me: This is definitely my favourite Cyberman design.
Hannah: When was The Tenth Planet set?
Me: 1986.
Hannah: So why do these Cybermen look a lot more advanced than the ones that arrive twenty years later? They've also become a lot less effective at organising an invasion by then, which is even more strange.

Vaughn's thugs attempt to recapture Professor Watkins, and Jamie is shot down in the process.

Hannah: Not surprised. It's been far too long since a main cast member had a proper injury; you need to show just how dangerous their adventures actually are. He's very lucky it was only a flesh wound, after being shot that close.

Hannah's observations on the similarities between the UNIT plane and the SHIELD Helicarrier are abruptly cut short when she's presented with a close-up of the Brigadier strapping on his gun-belt.

Hannah: Groin shot. I mean, Camfield's great, but... groin shot?
Me: Perhaps "artistic" is the word you're looking for?
Hannah: I love the way the camera shots work together, I like the zoom into people's faces when there's a particular expression that really needs showing, and I like the mix of detail and wide shots. I can see that's what they've tried to do with the Brig's belt, by showing a small, simple detail at the beginning of the scene and then pulling back to locate it in a greater context, but really, it's just a close-up of his crotch.

In his office, Vaughn tells the Doctor about his plan to betray the Cybermen. (Like we didn't know.)

Hannah: That alien computer-brain thing is only behind a door; it can still hear you.

But the UNIT boys have already managed to wipe out the incoming invasion fleet with the help of Zoe's calculations, so the remaining Cybermen take umbrage and deploy a megaton bomb instead.

Hannah: If they had let Vaughn carry on with his plan, then at least he'd have managed to kill off all the Cybermen with his special fear weapons, and then all they would need to do is defeat Vaughn. Whereas now, Vaughn is incapacitated and the Cybermen are still going to come, and now they're going to bring a bomb. Unless UNIT manages to shoot down the rest, but I think they're out of missiles.
Me: You think Vaughn would have beaten the Cybermen?
Hannah: Probably not, but you should always let your enemies fight each other.

Episode 8

Zoe and UNIT have destroyed the invasion fleet, but their victory celebrations are interrupted when UNIT hears about the bomb.

Hannah: I mean, it was nice to see them all celebrating, but when you're dealing with an alien invasion you shouldn't be so complacent about it. I was half-expecting everyone to be sitting there with a beer.

Packer is killed by a Cyberman ("He didn't suffer as much as he probably deserved"), so the Doctor takes Vaughn's machine and blasts it full of emotion.

Hannah: I wonder what setting they're using. Are they killing them all with fear? Or love?
Me: I like the idea of killing a Cyberman by making it feel love. Maybe they're killing it with kindness?
Hannah: Why doesn't the Doctor remember the emotion gun when he fights them later? I'm sure he could work out how to build one.
Me: He doesn't carry weapons; he might as well carry a revolver around with him otherwise. Besides, there's no point inventing a complicated machine when you can just spray their chest units with nail varnish remover.

Vaughn joins forces with the Doctor to take revenge against the Cybermen, but gets killed by his former allies in the process. Then, when UNIT arrives and the Brigadier sends the troops in, there's a wonderful bit of physical comedy from Patrick Troughton; Isobel starts photographing the Doctor, who protests at first but then starts to tidy himself up for the camera.

Hannah: (laughing) I love this story more and more.

There's just the small matter of having to wait for a Russian rocket to take out the mother-ship, and then it's all over.

Hannah: So there are loads of photographs of the Cybermen, and everyone was asleep for two days. Do people believe it actually happened? Or is it one of those things that never gets mentioned again?

I deftly side-step the question.

Me: Have you given any thought to which member of UNIT stays around for the later stories?
Hannah: I don't know. One of the Brigadier's lackeys.
Me: Which one?
Hannah: I don't know. Any of them.
Me: Your heart's not in this.
Hannah: The radio operator? I don't know, they all look the same to me. I couldn't tell you any of their names. There's one who seems to be on the radio all the time, and then there's a captain and a sergeant.
Me: Here are your options: it's either Captain Turner, Sergeant Walters, Corporal Benton or Corporal Tracy.
Hannah: Is it the captain? Does he get to stay?

The Ministry of Defence is acknowledged in the credits.

Hannah: Did they tell them the kind of things that they would say over the radio? Or was it just for the use of their footage?
Me: The British Army took part in the final battle scene, playing soldiers with flamethrowers and bazookas and things.
Hannah: That's impressive. But has everyone just glossed over the fact that lots of people would have died? The whole world got put into a trance for two days; diabetic people wouldn't have been able to take their insulin, planes would have crashed, submarines would probably have run out of air, people on the operating table would have died, and people who were in moving cars or trains at the time would have died. And at the end of all of this, we just get a glimpse of life going back to normal and we're told that Isobel has got a new job because she took some pictures of the Cybermen. Everything else carries on as normal.
Me: You'd rather they finished an eight-episode story by taking a poll of the dead while the camera pans over a mass grave?
Hannah: I just want it to be addressed somehow. I'm not asking them to show someone regaining consciousness and realising that their baby has starved to death next to them, or anything like that.
Me: Maybe their metabolism slows down when they're under the influence. Anyway, people die off-screen in the show all the time.
Hannah: I know, but the scale of the devastation must have been massive, and there's no acknowledgement of it at all.

The Score

Hannah: That was excellent. It kept my attention throughout and there was nothing I particularly disliked or disbelieved, except for a few little flaky bits of science.
Me: It's Doctor Who, you can't hold that against it. Within reason, anyway.
Hannah: I have. Repeatedly.
Me: Yeah, but you have to accept that the science in any long-running science fiction series is occasionally going to be a little shaky.
Hannah: The direction was superb.
Me: Well, that's Camfield for you.
Hannah: He just knows how to make it work; he knows exactly what kind of shots he needs to create a particular kind of emotion or interest in the story. It fully held my attention throughout the entire eight episodes; the pacing was perfect, the story was perfect, the acting was almost perfect, and the villain was amazing.

10/10

Me: So what do you think of this new format? The Doctor working together with UNIT, backed up by their military connections?
Hannah: It's an easy way for the Doctor to kill people without having to do it himself.
Me: But do you like the setup?
Hannah: It's more like modern Who in that respect, so it feels more familiar to me, although obviously this is where it comes from. I don't think it makes Doctor Who better, it just makes it different.
Me: So you'd be happy to see more of that?
Hannah: Yes, as long as there's also the usual "having a jolly around the universe" stuff; if it just became the "Doctor Who on Earth" show, that would be boring. I liked this one very much, but I wouldn't want every episode to be like this.