The Invasion of Time (TV story)

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Synopsis

The Doctor returns to Gallifrey but is arrested after bringing the Vardans to the planet, this breaks out into a bit of a battle until the Sontaran invasion force arrives and attempts to take over Gallifrey.

Plot

After a meeting in space with a group of unseen aliens the Doctor returns to Gallifrey and claims the presidency of the Time Lords. Leela meanwhile tries to work out why he is behaving out of character. At his induction, the Doctor is 'crowned' with a device giving him access to the Matrix. He then arranges for the transduction barriers around Gallifrey to be put out of action by K9. When this is done, his alien 'friends' materialise. They are telepathic invaders called Vardans.

The Doctor links K9 to the Matrix in order to determine their point of origin. His plan is to place a time loop around their home planet, but he must avoid arousing their suspicions - hence his erratic behaviour. He banishes Leela to the wastelands of outer Gallifrey for fear that she might unintentionally jeopardise his plans. There she meets a group of Gallifreyan outsiders, and together they organise an attack on the Capitol to fight off the invaders.

The Doctor finally springs his trap and the Vardans are banished. Then, however, Gallifrey is invaded by Sontarans who, unknown to the Doctor, were using the Vardans to enable them to conquer the Time Lords. The Doctor uses knowledge extracted from the Matrix by K9 to construct a forbidden de-mat gun, activated by the Great Key of Rassilon. He then uses this to kill the Sontarans, although his memory of recent events is wiped in the process.

Leela announces that she wishes to stay behind with Andred, one of the Chancellery guards, with whom she has fallen in love. K9 elects to remain with her. Inside the TARDIS, The Doctor constructs another robot dog-K9 II/ The Doctor smiles as the adventure ends.

Cast

Crew

References

Story Notes

  • Leela remains on Gallifrey in the conclusion of this story. This was Louise Jameson's final ongoing onscreen appearance; she reprised the role in Dimensions in Time and later in the Big Finish productions Gallifrey series of audio dramas.
  • Leela's romance with Andred is undeveloped in the story. Jameson was invited to continue her role. She was unsure whether she would stay until the end of recording, so a plot device had to be ready to allow her to stay on Gallifrey.
  • The Sontarans return in this story making it their third appearance on TV.
  • This story had a working title of The Invaders of Time.
  • Rodan is the first female Gallifreyan to appear on screen since Susan Foreman more than a decade earlier.
  • The Doctor Breaks the 4th wall at the end of Part 6, By looking directly at the Camera and Smiling to the audience

Ratings

  • Part 1 - 11.2 million viewers
  • Part 2 - 11.4 million viewers
  • Part 3 - 9.5 million viewers
  • Part 4 - 10.9 million viewers
  • Part 5 - 10.3 million viewers
  • Part 6 - 9.8 million viewers

Myths and rumours

  • Rodan was the prototype for Romana. Related rumours include actress Hilary Ryan being unavailable for the following season, which resulted in Romana being created as a replacement for Rodan.

Filming Locations

  • Beachfields Quarry, Cormongers Lane, Redhill, Surrey
  • St Anne's Hospital, Redstone Hill, Redhill, Surrey
  • British Oxygen, Blacks Road, Hammersmith
  • Bray Studios, Slough
  • BBC Television Centre (TC8), Shepherd's Bush, London

Discontinuity, Plot Holes, Errors

  • It is painfully obvious that the Vardans in their dematerialised form are sheets of cellophane. Even in their materialised form they are unimpressive and almost comical. A version was produced which substituted CGI human-like images.
  • There are gaps around the collar of Stor's armour.
  • Stor also has a cockney accent. If, as the Ninth Doctor says, "lots of planets have a north" then it's quite conceivable that many planets, including the home of the Sontarans, can have different accents.
  • The Doctor forgets his induction, though in later Gallifrey stories such as Arc of Infinity and The Five Doctors, he seems to remember the events very well. He was faking forgetfullness to get out of it. Alternatively, Leela, Andred, or K-9 could have explained what happened between the scene in which the Doctor returns to the warehouse after having stopped Stor and the scene in which the Doctor prepares to leave.
  • What happens to the Sontarans waiting to invade Gallifrey? They are trapped outside Gallifrey when the transduction barrier goes back up.
  • Why don't the Sontaran ships just come in one at a time? The first one got through alright. The Transduction Barrier went back up.
  • And why are there only four Sontarans in a single ship? Perhaps the rest of the ship's crew were off capturing other parts of the Citadel, or they could have come down in a shuttle because the Time Lords seemingly have no way of resisting.
  • After taking ages wandering round the TARDIS, they find their way out rather quickly. The Sontarans probably have a good directional sense, but they didn't know where to go on their way in, because they'd never been there before.
  • Just after the Doctor takes something similar to fit when the Crown of Rassilon is placed on his head Borusa said "This is unearthly" Even though they are Gallifreyan unearthly could be a phrase in many cultures, or it could be the TARDIS translation circuit. He may also have said "This is unheard of."
  • If the Doctor has lost all memory of becoming President after he uses the disintegrator, why does he return to Leela and the others who are waiting for him in the TARDIS workshop? He might have lost all memory of the presidential part but kept some remaining memories so that he could remember what he was doing
  • Why did the Doctor contacted the Vardans in the first place? He felt they were so dangerous that they needed to be preemptively stopped; thus, he used the pretext of serving them to identify their homeworld and trap it. This, of course, raises a host of moral issues the story fails to deal with.
  • The final two episodes of this story are blatantly 'tacked-on' to the end to make it up to a six-parter. Why would aliens as powerful as the Vardans require to ally themselves to the Sontarans? I think the implication is that they aren't as powerful as they think, and the Sontarans, just as The Doctor did, used their inflated sense of their own power to manipulate the Vardans into "helping them".
  • What is so very special about the D-Mat gun that Rassilon felt it necessary to go to such lengths to safeguard Gallifrey from it's use? We only see a fraction of its potential in this story. Used to full effect, it would be capable of disintegrating any object or person, located in any place or time throughout the cosmos.
  • The Doctor tells Borusa that the Vardans have 'more power than you could possibly imagine'. If so, why do they want the Great Key? Again, The Doctor ma'y just be using the Vardans' inflated egos to manipulate them, and for it to work, he may need the others to believe the Vardans are as powerful as they themselves believe.
  • It is not explained why the Matrix attacked the Doctor.

Continuity

Timeline

DVD, Video and Other Releases

DVD releases

PAL -
PAL -
NTSC -

Bonus features:

    • Commentary:Louise Jameson, John Leeson, Anthony Read and Mat Irvine
    • Out of Time: the making of this story.
    • CGI effects: new CGI effects to accompany this story.
    • The elusive David Agnew: a feature on the writer (who is, in fact, a house pseudonym used by several Doctor Who writers)
    • The Rise and fall of Gallifrey: a feature on the planet of the Time Lords.
    • Deleted Scenes: scenes removed from this story.
    • Continuity Compilation: continuity announcements from the BBC.
    • Radio Times billings: artwork and articles for this story from the Radio Times.
    • Photo Gallery: a selection of rare production photos from this story.
    • Coming Soon: a preview of the K-9 Tales Box set.

Notes:

Boxset release This story was released in the Bred for War DVD boxset on the 5th May alongside all the classic series Sontaran stories. The DVD is the same as the one sold seperately. Released 8th July in Australia.

Video Releases

Released as Doctor Who: The Invasion of Time

Released:

Novelisation

Invasion of Time novel.jpg
Main article: Doctor Who and the Invasion of Time

Novelised as Doctor Who and the Invasion of Time by Terrance Dicks in 1980.

See also

Concerning Gallifrey being invaded or destroyed

External Links

Template:Season 15

v • e
Sontaran stories
For the purposes of this list, a "Sontaran story" is one in which one living, authentic Sontaran plays a part within the confines of the story, outside of flashbacks to previous stories and cliffhangers that lead into the following story. For this reason, stories such as The Halloween Apocalypse and Survivors of the Flux are not counted due to the Sontarans' appearance being defined by their importance to following stories. Stories like The End of Time and The Time of the Doctor are also not included due to the Sontarans' appearance being no consequence to the plot of the story. Stories featuring Strax of the Paternoster Gang are only included on the Paternoster Gang story template.
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