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Doctor Who: The Invasion: Episode 1 starts as the TARDIS appears on the dark side of the moon where it is fired upon by an unknown force, in a panic the Doctor (Patrick Troughton) lands the TARDIS in a field near London in the Summer of 1969. The Doctor along with his companions Zoe (Wendy Padbury) & Jamie (Fazer Hines) leave the TARDIS which has become invisible because of a faulty circuit & the Doctor decides to visit his old friend Professor Travers for help in repairing the circuit. Once in London they find out where Travers lives through a phone directory but when they get there it seems he is away in America & his house is being rented by fashion photographer Isobel Watkins (Sally Faulkner) & her scientist uncle who works for the biggest electronics company in the world, International Electromatics & has gone missing after working on an important invention for them. The Doctor decides to investigate & meets the managing director of International Electromatics, the sinister Tobias Vaughn (Kevin Stoney) who the Doctor is convinced isn't human...

Episode 11 from season 6 this Doctor Who adventure originally aired here in the UK during November 1968 & was Patrick Troughton's third story from his third & last season playing the Doctor, directed by Douglas Camfield The Invasion was a gargantuan eight part story that sadly has two episode missing with Episode 1 being one of the two & Episode 4 the other. Luckily for us this has been released on a wonderful 2 disc DVD special edition that uses animation & original off-air soundtrack recordings to reconstruct Episodes 1 & 4 as well as presenting the existing episodes so probably for the first time since it was originally broadcast we can know enjoy The Invasion as the eight part story that it was meant to be. Anyway back to the actual story itself, the script by Derrick Sherwin from a story by Kit Pedler which was apparently called 'Return of the Cybermen' was originally going to be a four part adventure but problems & the eventual dumping of the following Doctor Who story meant it was increased to eight parts & to be fair it has started off really well although I worry that it won't be able to sustain itself over another 7 episodes. The Ivasion has moved along at a nice pace & has been all about set up really which has turned out to be quite effective with the mysterious missing scientist, the spooky Tobias Vaughn, the sinister International Electromatics which has created some sort of colony which coincidently is never mentioned beyond this opening episode apart from a few brief lines from Lethbridge Stewart later on & it just seems odd that after setting it up nothing is made of it, the word padding springs to mind... Overall I liked how this episode went in terms of script, how it actually ended up on live action film we'll never know...

Very few visual references from this episode exist & no off-air tele-snaps according the DVD commentary track so the animators had a certain amount of artistic license although I would imagine the filmed version wouldn't be a million miles from this. The animation is brilliant & I loved it, I thought it was a fantastic way to represent a lost episode, the character design is great especially Patrick Troughton. Obviously black and white isn't literally black and white it's shades of grey & that's what's used here & it looks terrific & really stylish. I might upset a few die hard Doctor Who fans here but I actually much prefer the animated episodes to the existing live action ones! In fact I wish the entire story was animated! The end of this animated episode has Vaughn press a switch on a panel & it looks great, at the beginning of episode 2 which exists still it is repeated & as the real life Vaughn presses the real switch the real panel actually wobbles & I just sat there & thought bring back the animation! It's not perfect though, on the commentary track they admit Zoe's costume is wrong, it should have been her silver catsuit before she changed into the clothes given to her by Isobel & in fact she changes back in a later episode into her catsuit so that's a continuity problem right there. They also cut the scene down where the truck driver is shot, originally the two guy's on motorbikes walked around his truck & searched it but that was cut & they just shot him. Personally I loved the grey colour scheme, the photographic backgrounds & the style of the animation & I'm actually a bit sad the next two episodes are live action. Having just watched The Invasion: Episode 2 I've spotted another continuity mistake, the two circuit boards which the Doctor hand Vaughn in this animated episode look nothing like the one Vaughn gives his man in Episode 2.

The Invasion: Episode 1 no longer exists so no-one can judge on what it originally looked like, what we can comment on is the story, script & the animated version all of which I enjoyed a lot. Again, if your interested in Doctor Who & want to see this story then the British 2 disc DVD is a must which also contains several excellent & very worthwhile extra's.

'The Enemy Of The World' is usually regarded as 'Dr.Who's' sole excursion into the world of James Bond, but I think 'The Invasion' can lay a greater claim to that title. It has a missing Professor, a kooky blonde, a paramilitary organisation set up to combat threats to the world, a super villain bent on world conquest, brainwashing, secret underground lairs, gadgetry, nick-of-time escapes, helicopters, and most importantly, a climactic battle between opposing forces.

Kevin Stoney plays 'Vaughn' with as much icy demeanour as Joseph Wiseman in 'Dr.No'.

Complaints that the first episode reveals little of the villain's master plan are bizarre - this is only the first part of an eight-part story!

Part One picks up where 'The Mind Robber' ended. No sooner has the TARDIS reformed than it is fired on by an unknown spaceship somewhere on the dark side of the Moon.

The action then moves to late 20th century Earth ( said to be 1975 by 'The Radio Times' but never confirmed on screen ). The Tardis has materialised on land belonging to International Electromatics, owned by Tobias Vaughn. As the Tardis is now invisible, the Doctor and his companions set off for London to find their old friend Professor Travers. A lorry driver gives them a lift. Moments after dropping them off, security guards shoot him dead.

It will be interesting to see if Cosgrove Hall's animated reconstruction does full justice to this fine episode.

UPDATE: I was lucky enough to see 'The Invasion' in 1968, and can say with some authority that the animations are superb. Cosgrove Hall have gone to a good deal of trouble to evoke the spirit of the original. The only mistake they made was getting Zoe's costume wrong in Part One. A minor quibble. At least here we actually got to see the enemy spaceship!

From the sixth series of the original Doctor Who comes this tale, set on Earth, of a corrupt electronics company and an imminent invasion from - who else? - our old friends the Cybermen. Always, in my opinion, a stronger force for evil than the Daleks, these emotionless creatures may just have found their match in a machine which allows them to feel fear and other human frailties, causing their nervous systems to collapse.

Into this dangerous world of intrigue and suspense comes the second Doctor, Patrick Troughton, aided by companions Jamie and Zoe, and looking for help with a Tardis broken circuit. In a big coat and bow tie he strikes a strange figure, but he is as devious and resourceful as ever, while being ever so British and constantly eccentric. (Incidentally I feel the recent regenerations under the new BBC series have been nowhere near as successful as the original ones).

This is the swinging Sixties so there's a fashionista who likes to take photographs, and who becomes a pal for Zoe ... a nice touch. And an elegant and icy human foe in Vaughn, the leader of the electronics firm which is not all it seems.

Two parts of this eight part story have been lost to the BBC's programme of wiping recordings - the first and the fourth. Although this is a shame, Cosgrove Hall's animation and the original soundtracks and recordings have pieced together nicely the form and story enough to move things along. The animation may not be startling or that original, but it works well, and the two episodes do not sit awkwardly with those as actually filmed.

The Doctor, Jamie and Zoe return to Earth and meet up with an old friend, former Colonel and now Brigadier, Lethbridge-Stewart - now in charge of the newly formed UNIT who are investigating electronics manufacturer International Electromatics. IE's managing director, Tobias Vaughn, is working with the Cybermen. He is planning to transmit a hypnotic signal through IE's products, leaving the Earth paralysed and allowing the Cybermen to emerge from the London sewers and take over...

It was a SOLID STORY AFTER ALL! I love the Brigadier and everything about this. It's such a shame that only two episodes are missing but, despite the animation being horrible but you get used to it as time passes. Zoe shines up more of her favorable character and, I like her now. She has good chemistry with that female photographer. I gotta say. It was fun watching those two.

The general music theme is brilliant throughout the eight episodes. It never gets boring at all. It adds to the mystery of what's going on in the first episode. Vaughn makes a memorable villain. I would like to thank Kevin Stoney for doing an excellent job at performing as Vaughn. He has no embarrassing moments at all. It becomes funny whenever he said: "Packer!" all the time, lol. Awesome reveal of the Cyber-Director at the end of the first episode. As the man said: "Sadistic, an ego-maniac, and insane!" if I remember correctly. One of his defining moments was when he was getting fired at then he laughs. It was so creepy but, I enjoyed it. He was born to play a very well-done fabulous villain.

As for the Cybermen, they were pretty unsettling in the middle of the story. I love it. That's what they should be. Once again, with the women making tea/coffee for the men as we mentioned them in my review of The Tenth Planet and The Moonbase. But hey! It was how society treated women back then. We even get introduced to Benton whose will later be important in the later stories.

Vaughn does have an excellent plan that he has planned for five years and is smart enough that he is aware that the Cybermen and the Cyber-Director will betray him, so he created a weapon that weakens the Cybermen with emotions. I was on the edge of my seat when the Cybermen were invading London, one of the most iconic scenes in Who History.

I bet this story's budget was really expensive for the show back then as they filmed iconic locations, I just realized how the title was intended to keep the appearance of the Cyberman a secret as the producers successfully did in Earthshock.

10/10, I love this story so much!

Refers to all eight episodes though only six exist

Materalising inside the Moon's orbit the Tardis comes under instant attack and dematerializes to the Earh's surface just outside London in the near future inside an industrial compound . Given a life by a nervous driver The Doctor finds that a corporate company International Electromatics has a monopoly on the world's electronic technology market . Dropping the Doctor and his companions off the driver is followed by IE guards who shoot him dead

This is one of the most iconic and important stories of the 1960s . It reintroduces both the Cybermen and the character of Lethbridge Stewart first introduced the previous season in The Web of Fear who has now been promoted to Brigadier and is charge of a paramilitary organization called UNIT which would a few months later be as important to the show's development as the Tardis was to the 1960s programme where by the new Doctor played by Jon Pertwee found himself confined to Earth by the Timelords and unable to leave meaning that all the action of the early Pertwee era was Earthbound and the early shows especially in Pertwee's debut ran along similar lines to Nigel Kneale's QUATERMASS serials . Indeed the writer of The Invasion Derrick Sherwin was so inspired by QUATERMASS that when he took over the show and set up the new format for season seven he took on Nigel Kneale wholesale and the influences start here

The problem is that the more this episode tries to emulate QUATERMASS the more you're aware that it's not really QUATERMASS . If you thought the 1979 serial starring John Mills as Bernard Quatermass was somewhat contrived then you haven't seen anything yet . Conveniently materializing inside a compound that just happens to be owned by International Electromatics the Doctor and his companions escape and find the address through the telephone directory of his old associate Professor Travis who has conveniently sold his house to another Professor called Watkins who later becomes very important to the plot . Visiting the IE headquarters the Doctor and Jamie are conveniently spotted by an undercover UNIT patrol and ... well you can see where all this might be heading . Everything and everyone is a bit too contrived to be entirely plausible even in a fantasy scenario like DOCTOR WHO . Take for example IE itself . Is it entirely credible that it has its own wing of armed fascist security guards ? I know corporate capitalism isn't the most compassionate thing ever invented but would the scenario seen here exist in a democracy even if Iain Duncan Smith and Daily Mail readers were running the country ? At least the near future scenario of Pertwee's debut season did have its own air of reality

That said the imagery this story contains does make the plot mechanics and other flaws totally redundant who can forget the impact of seeing just still photographs of Cybermen and being hypnotized by such a stark and chilling image and the cliffhanger to episode six as the Cybermen stalk the streets of a paralysed London are one of the great moments of British television . It also contains a few " behind the sofa moments , pride of place going to the sequence where characters explore the sewers only to find them infiltrated by Cybermen . Directed by Douglas Camfield considered to be the best director the classic series ever had these sewer sequences are totally chilling

One point - and it's divisive one - is that the Cybermen don't feature heavily and don't make an appearance till the episode four cliffhanger and one criticism that can be leveled is that they're rather generic robots rather than the cybernetic men of previous tales . Instead it's left to human villain Tobias Vaughn to carry much of the story . Played by Kevin Stoney who played Mavic Chen in The Dalek Msterplan epic in 1966 the character could have fallen in to James Bond type megalomaniac villain but Stoney's performance as an arrogant , cold aloof megalomaniac is more convincing than he might first appear on paper , though it should be pointed out his death is a little bit too sudden

The Invasion is one of those stories that is called a classic but then you stop to examine it it does quickly fall apart being a very uneasy high concept hybrid of QUATERMASS meets James Bond . That said it does earn its classic status not just down to the concepts it introduces such as UNIT and by the sheer poetic , nightmarish imagery of robotic aliens in everyday settings which no doubt gave a generation of children nightmares . You've got to love this show and love is never saying sorry for nightmares