Invasion of the Dinosaurs

The Third Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith arrive in a deserted London, where they discover that dinosaurs are inexplicably appearing all over the city, causing havoc, but no one can account for their sudden appearances and disappearances.

The Doctor suspects that someone is deliberately tampering with time and with the help of his colleagues at UNIT, he starts to formulate a plan. They are introduced to Sir Charles Grover MP, and General Finch. In a hidden laboratory, Professor Whitaker is operating secret Timescoop technology. The dinosaurs are being used to compel the authorities to evacuate the city. It turns out that Whitaker is being aided by a disillusioned Captain Yates.

Sarah conducts her own investigations, but is captured by Grover, who is in league with Whitaker. She awakens and is astounded to find herself on a vast spaceship. The crew explain that they are en route to a distant Earth-like planet, explaining that Mankind can begin again on "New Earth", closer to nature and without the overpopulation and pollution of Earth. When Sarah tries to explain that they're still on Earth, they condemn Sarah to be re-educated into thinking the way they do.

Operation Golden Age is revealed to be a broad conspiracy including Mike Yates of UNIT, with Whitaker, Grover and Finch as its coordinators. They have emptied London, so that the chosen people on the "spacecraft" (a dummy ship hidden in a bunker under London) will be the only people within range of the Timescoop when it's activated. Whitaker has discovered how to reverse time, so that only the chosen elite will ever have existed.

Meanwhile, Sarah escapes from the bunker, but is apprehended by Finch. Her escape alerts some of the passengers to the deception. Yates reveals their plans to the Doctor, Benton and the Brigadier. Yates is overpowered, and when Finch tries to stop the Doctor and the Brigadier's efforts, Benton incapacitates him in a struggle.

The Doctor and the Brigadier confront Grover and Whitaker, just as the duped environmentalists from the fake ship arrive and demand an explanation. The Timescoop is activated, but, as the Doctor is a Time Lord, the machine's effect on him is limited, allowing him to switch the device off. Finch is arrested and court martialled, and Grover tries to use it again, but, as the Doctor has reversed the machine's polarity, it sends only itself, Whitaker and Grover into the past.

Working titles for this story included Bridgehead from Space and Timescoop.[1] The story title of the first episode was contracted to Invasion in the opening title sequence, in an attempt to conceal the central plot device of dinosaurs. However, this was undermined by the BBC listings magazine Radio Times, which carried a picture of a dinosaur in the listing for episode one.[2]

Malcolm Hulke protested against the use of the title Invasion of the Dinosaurs, preferring the original working title of Timescoop,[3] and felt the contraction for the first episode was silly, especially because the Radio Times gave the game away. In a response letter after transmission, script editor Terrance Dicks pointed out that all the titles used for the project had originated in the Doctor Who production office. He agreed that the contraction to Invasion was a decision he now regretted but noted that "Radio Times are a law unto themselves".[2]

In the novelisation, adapted by Malcolm Hulke from his own scripts, no reference is made to the "Whomobile" (which was a prop contributed to the production at a late stage by actor Jon Pertwee). In the novel, the Doctor uses a military motorbike with electronic scanning equipment attached, as in the original scripts.

Locations used in London included: Moorgate Underground Station, Smithfield Market, Westminster Bridge, Whitehall, Trafalgar Square, Haymarket, Covent Garden, Southall and Wimbledon Common.[4] Location filming took place in September 1973, with studio recording commencing in October and November.[2]

The producer of the series, Barry Letts, was very disappointed with the realisation of the dinosaurs and stated in an interview in 2004 that this was the story he would most like to remake with modern technology.[5]

After the episodes were broadcast, many younger viewers of the show complained that the Tyrannosaurus rex was actually an Allosaurus.[15]

The story was repeated in 1999 on BBC Choice as part of a series of programmes themed around dinosaurs. [16]

In The Discontinuity Guide (1998), Paul Cornell, Martin Day, and Keith Topping noted that "the special effects are woeful" and there was some padding, but the story "has many redeeming features, most notably the sombre location footage in the first episode".[17] David J. Howe and Stephen James Walker in their analysis in Doctor Who: The Television Companion, felt that unfortunately the "awfulness of the dinosaur scenes tends to overshadow the excellence of Paddy Russell's direction of the rest of the story and the high quality of the performances by the assembled cast". Though they were favourable towards the plot, they noted that "the story is poorly paced and contains a tremendous amount of padding".[18]

In 2010, Mark Braxton of Radio Times awarded it three stars out of five, describing it as "a roaringly good script" and he also praised the casting, but he criticised the dinosaurs as "dire" and questioned the "grand plan" which "raises all sorts of questions about how the new, jump-suited generation of mankind was smuggled aboard the fake spaceship, or how a big, nuclear-generator-powered underground base could be built unnoticed".[2] DVD Talk's John Sinnott gave the story four out of five stars. Aside from the dinosaurs, he felt that the rest was "very good" with "a good amount of suspense, some nice twists", and also highlighted how the villains were "people who basically had the right ideas but that they took it way too far".[19] SFX reviewer Ian Berriman wrote that the serial was "crammed with unlikely plot turns ... but that just makes it all the more entertaining". He noted that it was problematic to have several cliffhangers rely on the appearance of the dinosaurs due to their poor realisation, but praised Sarah's competence and involvement with the plot.[20]

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• Invasion of the Dinosaurs at BBC Online