DOCTOR WHO - The Invasion 2014 ??? - Warped Factor - Words in the Key of Geek.

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DOCTOR WHO - The Invasion 2014 ???

Spoilers in abundance as Christopher Morley takes a look at the Doctor Who series 8 filming taking place in Cardiff this week, and draws some comparisons with a classic Cyber adventure.


Excitement might just have reached fever pitch for Doctor Who Series Eight with the revelation that UNIT & the Cybermen look to be making appearances in the finale ( working title Death In Heaven, if you believe the 'leaked script' currently setting forums ablaze). You might also have seen a Cyber-head belonging to a The Invasion- era member of the Cyber-legions! 




Which could mean we're about to see a sequel to Episode Three of Season Six of Classic Who.


Think about it. Modern setting? ( 20th century London). Check. Cybermen? Check. UNIT? Check- after all, this is their maiden outing. Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart's even now got himself a promotion to Brigadier!

And who's leading the present day UNIT? Why, its the Brig's daughter Kate ( The Power Of Three, Day Of The Doctor). Osgood appears to be making a return, too. Could it be that not all the men from Mondas were destroyed at the climax of The Invasion? There might still be more hidden in those sewers...



It could be that the ' new' Cybermen return seeking to activate them to bolster their ranks. Or somehow merge with them to create an even deadlier hybrid of old & new? Either way, it could prove very interesting indeed!

Of course, the Doctor's been there & done it all before. He was in his Second incarnation back then- he, Jamie McCrimmon & Zoe Heriot having escaped the Land of Fiction ( The Mind Robber) & quickly finding themselves in the reaches of space over the dark side of the Moon. While that may prove invaluable in the musical stakes- Two possibly keen to add a little Pink Floyd to his recorder studies- he has little time to devote to finally nailing the likes of Money. Before he can settle down & place the instrument to his lips, 'Sexy' comes under fire from a dirty great missile. Who could possibly want to down the TARDIS? Go on, guess.

Understandably keen to avoid his beloved Type 40 getting blown to bits, the Doctor effects an emergency rematerialisation well out of the path of the oncoming weapon. Yet ironically the possible means by which he could have pulled it off isn't introduced until The Krotons, the next story in the run...


We refer of course to the Hostile Action Displacement System or HADS, by which means 'Sexy' can automatically redirect herself out of harm's way. Somewhat haphazardly the man with the Paul McCartney hairdo will subsequently forget all about it until his Eleventh incarnation ( Cold War also marking the return of the Ice Warriors).

But where does the earliest use of a similar process land he, Jamie & Zoe? By now they're just outside London- but there's a problem. The visual stabiliser circuit's damaged- which means the old police box will be invisible. You might recall such happening once more in The Impossible Astronaut, even if it is a massive drain on power!

Professor Travers might be able to help get it fixed, though. Hitching a lift into our nation's fair capital, the Doctor's attention is drawn to International Electromatics. They've basically bought out the entire city...something's wrong in old Londinium, & no mistake. After finally making it to the Professor's abode ( another lift needed after their previous driver's killed), they find he's in America & has left his gaff in the capable hands of his colleague Professor Watkins & Watkins's niece Isobel.


Shadily the more professorial of the two members of the Watkins clan has gone missing after working with IE- the Doctor now keen to investigate the mystery. After being gassed unconscious he & Jamie finally get their appointment with the managing director, Tobias Vaughn, after making their way to the company's head office.

Sending them on their way with a story of how the Professor is on site but engaged in important work, the shady industrialist opens a secret panel in his office walls to reveal something which is most certainly not human technology...its all going a bit James Bond, is it not?


The air of espionage is helped along by UNIT's abduction of the Doctor & Jamie to brief them on their investigations into Vaughn's dealings. Zoe & Isobel are concerned, though. Their pals haven't been back for hours, so they take it upon themselves to go & look into the matter. Proving herself a real smartypants, Ms Heriot quickly renders the computerised receptionist useless with an impossible equation, but Vaughn is watching. Only now do we learn who he's working with/for- the Cybermen!

And they want the Doctor stopped. To rescue their friends, after finding a note upon their return telling Two & Jamie that the girls have made the fundamental mistake of going back to IE, they must make a quick return.

And so the Man with the Golden Recorder, or 002, & his top operative McCrimmon, must get to the bottom of the mystery. The name's Doctor. The Doctor! If he wanted to exude the air of a super spy, though, he quickly fluffs it as he & Jamie are captured & taken to Vaughan once more.


Who rather disappointingly isn't stroking a cat. His masters have been expecting the Doctor, though. Instead of a simple fall through a trapdoor in the floor, or some other Bondish plot piece, the two captives are invited on a sort of guided tour of the company during which they finally meet Professor Watkins ( cooperating in the knowledge that Isobel's been kidnapped & hoping to secure her release).

He's been working for Vaughn on a device with which it's hoped the Cybermen can be double-crossed! The ' cerebration mentor' is a sort of electronic hypnosis machine which can either remove or manipulate emotion, by which Tobias intends to control the Cybermen. He also notes that the TARDIS might allow him to make a quick getaway should all go pear-shaped.

The whole thing could be interpreted as a test spin for the Third Doctor's 'Earth exile' following the events of The War Games. Indeed, Terrance Dicks has implied that this was the case- The Invasion being his first time in the script editor's chair.

But how could Death In Heaven play out? The ' classic' Cybermen could quite possibly be re-activated by their current forebears to add to the ranks as outlined above. Equally their reawakening could be a big mistake on the part of the new boys! What's to stop two factions of Cybermen waging war with London as a battleground?


And what role does the Gatekeeper of the Nethersphere have in all this? We just might be about to witness the arrival of a new Time Lady. Whether she arrives simply to warn Twelve that there's going to be a humdinger of a battle & he's the only man who can stop it, or is she a sort of recurring companion, Twelve's Romana if you will, with this being the first of many on/off appearances herein.


The lack of Jenna Coleman in images and the above fan-shot footage of Monday's filming initially led many to believe that Clara may be kidnapped by the Cybermen, but as filming continued through the week it now looks like it's new boy Danny Pink who has undergone Cyber conversion, with Clara attempting to save him.


But back to the 'Gatekeeper', its not stretching boundaries to suggest that she might fill a similar function to the bowler hat-clad Time Lord who arrives to warn the Third Doctor that the Master has escaped from Gallifrey to Earth, is it? Setting up the return of the renegade Time Lord once known as Koschei.

On the other hand she could prove herself a villain of some sort. Maybe it's she who gets involved with the Cybermen somehow. Either way, the warm-up for Series Eight starts here!

Picture Source: BBC.co.uk/Doctor Who

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