WATCH ALONG | CLASSIC DOCTOR WHO | 13x16 | The Android Invasion: Part 4

So you know how I've said season 13 is great and I may have even mentioned it being my second favourite season of classic Who? Well, this story is the exception and the one weak link. Really not a fan of this one, which is a shame because the first episode built up a really good and intriguing mystery but the rest of the story failed to do anything interesting with it and the pace slowed down to a crawl. It just turned into a typical Earth invasion story that we've seen many times before at this point, just executed in the blandest, most unengaging way possible. In fact, the whole making android copies of humans idea feels like a pale imitation of what the Zygons were doing just three stories ago. This story just feels very cliched, most of the plot twists can be spotted a mile off. It's a shame because Terror of the Zygons was a perfect sendoff for the UNIT era, but this story makes one final attempt at that type of story and totally bungles it by failing to develop any of its ideas satisfyingly and trivialising most of the characters. Benton and Harry are brought back, but what do they even do? What narrative purpose did they serve aside from being emotionless androids for the first three episodes and then being tied up and thrown on a spaceship as prisoners for most of the final episode? The Kraals' plan also feels very unnecessarily convoluted. If their plan is to kill all the humans using a deadly virus and occupy the Earth in their place, why go through the trouble of creating androids to takeover key government positions and recreate an Earth village to test all them out? Wouldn't it save the Kraals a lot of time and effort to just fire rockets loaded with the virus that would explode on impact and start killing all the humans? Also, nothing to do with Crayford makes any kind of sense. Somehow the Kraals convinced him that they were not hostile and that no humans were going to die, despite them making him play a giant hoax: CRAYFORD: Oh no, Doctor. No, shortly I shall leave for Earth. The Kraals will project me through the space time warp and my ship will make a normal re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere. DOCTOR: A normal re-entry? Crayford, you've been gone two years, assumed dead. CRAYFORD: Ah, yes, Doctor, but I have recently re-established radio contact with Earth. They know about the stabiliser failure that sent me into orbit around Jupiter. They know how I've rationed my provisions, particularly drinking water. My recycling experiments. Already, every telescope on Earth is trained on that little patch of sky where my XK-5 will reappear. DOCTOR: A gigantic hoax. Why does Crayford not question any of this and why does he believe that the Kraals mean no harm if they're making him trick the humans? Also, if Crayford had gone missing in deep space and has been presumed dead for TWO YEARS, why does no one get suspicious and wonder how he has survived for so long and why and perhaps more importantly, how he has made contact with Earth after so long? It just strikes me as very oddly convenient that no one on Earth has the slightest inkling that something weird might be going on. Also, the reveal that Crayford has had his real eye all along is stupid beyond compare, does he never take off the eyepatch? The Doctor using his android replica to trick Styggron at the end also doesn't make sense because the Doctor made Grierson lower the Space Defense Station's radar dish because it would jam "every radio and electronic equipment for miles", meaning all the Kraals' android replicas would cease to function. Well then how does the Doctor's android replica still work? Finally, the way this story wraps up is very messy because Terry Nation (he wrote this story) seems to forget that Styggron dying doesn't end the threat, that there's still an invasion fleet awaiting his signal. Sooner than later they will start to wonder why Styggron hasn't made contact yet and they may attack. The Android Invasion is the only misfire in what is otherwise an excellent season and it sticks out like a sore thumb because of that. The jump down in quality from Pyramids of Mars to this is alarming, and then the jump back up in quality from this to The Brain of Morbius is just as striking. Can't wait for that one!

Azmat Mahmood