Episode #71 : Invasion of the Dinosaurs

"Look, I understand your ideals. In many ways I sympathise with them. But this is not the way to go about it, you know. You've got no right to take away the existence of generations of people."

Episode 71:     Invasion of the Dinosaurs.
Companions:   3rd Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith.
Air Date:         Six episodes. 12th January to 16th February 1974.

The Third Doctor and Sarah arrive in 1970s London to find it has been evacuated because dinosaurs have appeared mysteriously. It turns out the dinosaurs are being brought to London via a time machine to further a plan to revert London to a pre-technological level.

Invasion starts with some wonderfully creepy scenes of a deserted London. It seems that our time travellers took a few months to get back from medieval England, and now dinosaurs have started to appear. All of it part of a plot to do away with the the modern world and return to a more primitive Earth, one without technology and pollution. If the entire population of mankind has to never have existed, well, the reward is worth it. Or is it?

We have here a really nicely thought out premise that involves time travel, dinosaurs (about time!) and some wonderful pseudo-science. Shame that the dinosaur models are just down right atrocious, as you can see from the picture above. If the models had been even half way decent this would have been just fantastic.

An odd addition is the surprise that Mike Yates, long time member of UNIT, has become disillusioned and is now a traitor. Maybe it is just me but it seems a bit far fetched considering everything he has seen and done in recent years. Another addition is the introduction to the Whomobile, the Doctor's new UFO looking car. This was a personal vehicle of Jon Pertwee, commissioned by him. Why it was used in the show rather than Bessie, I don't know.

I also feel that there is a lack of continuity in this tale. When using their time scoop technology to pluck dinosaurs out of the past, why do they not see Silurians? After all, they ruled the Earth back then and presumably had great cities. Doesn't help the story I suppose but some reference would have been nice.

In this story we get more of an impression that there is more to a Time Lord than just time travel. Similarly to events in The Time Monster, the Doctor seems able to see/sense time distortions and even be less effected by them.

If you can look past the awful dinosaurs, then this is a really good story.