Who fans might have to get out and push a little bit here, but a solid story proves worth the not-so-special effects...

Think of dinosaurs these days, and the first franchise that springs to mind is, of course, Jurassic Park. The trilogy of films was hot property at the time, with eye-popping visual effects and camera work. I must confess though, that the first film aside, the other two kind of left me cold. I saw the second one again the other day and I realised that for all its flashy budget, it amounted to very little. Richard Attenborough’s character loses his brain. Jeff Goldblum scowls a lot. Some baldy Pete Waterman lookalike character blunders around uselessly and then screams like a girl at the end when a dinosaur decides to eat him for tea. But hey, good effects, right?

Back in Doctor Who-land, Invasion Of The Dinosaurs works on the reverse principle. Its dinosaurs look rubbish. They look like an amateur’s prototype attempt at making a dinosaur mini-film of the sort that Michael Rodd used to showcase on Screen Test. As a result, some fans will tell you that Invasion Of The Dinosaurs is not worth bothering with. A quick flick through my dog-eared 'third Doctor' Handbook found that the reviewers only gave it two out of ten each. However, the tide has slowly started to turn, with some fans looking beyond the bad effects and actually looking closer at the clever, detailed script.

Yup, it could only be Malcolm Hulke – back to pen his last story for Doctor Who. As ever, it contains all of his signature hallmarks. Moral dilemmas. Baddies who aren’t necessarily bad. And monsters which are being used to further the cause of the baddies’ scheme. In this case, dinosaurs are being used by so-called genius Professor Whitaker in a dastardly plan to roll back time before everything got too complicated. The Golden Age, as it's called, is supposed to represent a world that’s purer, cleaner, less corrupt.

"The Doctor Who team were way ahead of their time with a plot that looked at how greed was the cause of humanity’s problems"

Now that, to my mind, actually sounds like quite a nice idea. Hippy that I am, I sometimes can’t help but feel that things these days have got too complicated. More technology. More TV channels. More mortgages and loans. More red tape. More problems. Some days, I wonder how people coped in the past without having the latest gizmo at their fingertips, whether it’s a mobile or iPod or laptop – especially since we’re being told that living without the latest fad is wrong. And so again, the Doctor Who team were way ahead of their time with a plot that looked at how greed was the cause of humanity’s problems (as seen in The Doctor’s last speech).

The irony is though, that the people rebelling against the greed are painted as the bad guys. It’s an interesting turnaround from The Green Death, when Professor Jones and the Nuthutch team also wanted to find an alternative lifestyle to the “petrol-stinking, plastic rat trap”. The difference is that the Golden Age lot are prepared to resort to mass murder in order to achieve their aims. They want to use Whitaker’s Time Scoop to roll back time, meaning that billions of lives will never have existed. It’s quite a scary concept, but because Malcolm Hulke’s in charge, the baddies are a bit more than your one-dimensional lunatic.

The Golden Age lot are fanatics, and what’s more it seems that everyone in Invasion Of The Dinosaurs is tied up with this new mob. OK, we have Whitaker, a reclusive nerd with delusions of grandeur and a grudge against anyone who doesn’t believe in his apparent brilliance. We have Butler, his lackey, who doesn’t really do much apart from standing around grinning smugly. General Finch is kind of a given, since he’s portrayed as a complete bastard from the moment that we first see him, all oily sneering and close-mindedness. Even that apparently genial MP, Charles Grover (and his amazing tea set), is a big player in Golden Age. This is one of the neatest twists, especially since he’s initially welcoming to Sarah, and welcomed (for once) by The Doctor. However, given that he’s a bit too interested in saving the planet, the warning signs start to flash.

The biggest shocker is, of course, that Mike Yates is also involved in Golden Age. Up until now, Mike’s been a cheery if rather fey second banana to The Brig, but evidently, after the events of The Green Death, things have started to unravel. Not only was his brain used as a table tennis ball between BOSS and The Doctor’s crystal from Metebelis Three, his beloved Jo chose to marry some scraggy old hippy. Cue an extended break with presumably a lot of sobbing into his lemon tea – and a long read over a Golden Age pamphlet.

"The sight of Mike Yates pulling a gun on The Brig is a jarring one, and just shows that far from being cosy, unchallenging teatime fluff, Doctor Who was still more than capable of producing gripping, thought-provoking drama"

You can tell from his enigmatic chat with Sarah in part two that something’s up with Mike. He confesses that he prefers the quiet London rather than the hustle and bustle (which Sarah prefers). That eerie look in his eye tells you all you need to know, and sure enough, it’s confirmed when he later shows up at Whitaker’s bunker. It’s a hell of a scene, but what makes it all the more effective is that it’s so understated. We never see him enter – Butler announces that a visitor has arrived, and to the strains of Dudley Simpson’s ever-brilliant music, Whitaker turns to see Yates standing awkwardly in the doorway.

It’s a very brave move on the production team’s part to have a familiar figure turn traitor. The sight of Yates pulling a gun on The Brig is a jarring one, and just shows that far from being cosy, unchallenging teatime fluff, Doctor Who was still more than capable of producing gripping, thought-provoking drama. The performances, too, from the UNIT team are worthy of note. Richard Franklin gives his best performance, portraying a good man who’s torn between his conscience and his new-found beliefs. Yates’ idealistic nature, which we’ve seen in past adventures, has proven to be his own Achilles Heel. His vision of a purer earth has blinded him to reality and has robbed him of both his career and his friends.

John Levene and Nicholas Courtney, too, are also at their best. The Brig, a couple of clunky comic scenes aside, is back to his no-nonsense, shrewd character after the misfire of The Three Doctors. It’s just a shame that his character would undergo an off-screen lobotomy between now and Planet Of The Spiders. John Levene’s nicely understated performance as Benton always cements the UNIT stories – whenever the chips are down, Benton’s very much the human side of the taskforce. He’s evidently upset by Yates’ betrayal and refuses to believe that The Doctor could sell out. Two great Benton scenes in this story – the one where he nervously allows The Doctor to knock him out with Venusian Akido and the one where he joyously beams about his punch-up with Finch. Fans of UNIT should make the most of the taskforce, though, since their days are slowly but surely numbered…

"Pertwee is as strong as ever, whether he’s larking around for prisoner mug shots, spooning worryingly high amounts of sugar into his tea, or gently reasoning with Mike"

The third Doctor too, is nearing the end of his days, but you wouldn’t think so, given Jon Pertwee’s performance. Despite rumours of his boredom on set and reading lines off cue cards, oddly this never shows in the end product. Pertwee is as strong as ever, whether he’s larking around for prisoner mug shots, spooning worryingly high amounts of sugar into his tea, or gently reasoning with Mike. Elisabeth Sladen also gives one of her best performances, and Invasion gives Sarah a lot to do. She frequently uses her initiative to investigate the mystery, even if she frequently bites off more than she can chew. Not only is she nearly eaten by an angry dinosaur during an ill-advised photography session, she also finds herself far out in deep space with only the chosen few of Earth’s repopulation project for company.

That’s one of the best elements in the story – the spaceship subplot has been criticised for being a bit too far-fetched – but I think it successfully steers the story in a new direction. It’s an intriguing idea – various successful people are hoodwinked or kidnapped and put aboard a fake spaceship with brand new identities. The Golden Age lot of course, don’t regard this as cruel – duping the space ship inhabitants into thinking that they’re setting up home on a new planet. In their eyes, it’s a slightly more preferable alternative to just fading out of existence. However, as soon as Sarah has joined, she’s causing dissention in the ranks, with Edith from ‘Allo ‘Allo refusing to open her mind to the true facts and capturing her and new-found buddy Mark. Good performances here too, from Carmen Silvera, Terence Wilton and Brian Badcoe, who are all totally believable.

Overall, there’s a lot to like about Invasion Of The Dinosaurs. Admittedly, it could easily pass for a four-parter, since a lot of parts four and five are just padding. Part four is taken up by The Doctor wandering around the underground bunker, while in part five, we get a prolonged car chase. While it’s executed very well, and the score from Dudley Simpson adds to the drama, it adds absolutely nothing to the plot. Talking of wheels, The Doctor also gets to parade his new vehicle, the rather risible Whomobile. Resembling an overgrown mobile dinner plate, the Whomobile looks as if it has all the speed of a punctured milk float. Ah well, it’s fun while it lasts.

"That’s the problem with calling your story Invasion Of The Dinosaurs. If the titular threat doesn’t stand up, then things get tricky"

And OK, the dinosaurs don’t convince in a million years. It’s a shame that a lot of the cliffhangers feature close-ups of the toy creatures. It’s hard to take a plastic toy seriously, especially when there’s a badly dubbed “Grrrrrr!!!” over the action. They’re rather clunky and immobile, moving like a pained OAP with back trouble. The scene in which the dinosaur wakes to threaten Sarah in the hangar is actually quite well done, but moments like this are few and far between. Luckily, Dudley Simpson’s music goes some way to add drama – in particular, the eerie theme for the flying pterodactyl attacks in parts one and four is excellent. And altogether, it’s a great, great score, which thankfully uses more brass and woodwind rather than clunky synthesisers.

Paddy Russell’s moody direction also helps matters. In particular, her work on the creepy first part is outstanding. The scenes of the deserted London are very well handled and neatly set the scene well. There’s also that brutal shot of the looter’s blood-soaked body after he’s been killed trying to drive away in his car. And even if the aforementioned padding scenes add nothing, they’re still very well directed by Russell. The filmography for the chase is particularly striking, with both hand-held camera work and big-budget helicopter pursuits.

That’s the problem with calling your story Invasion Of The Dinosaurs. If the titular threat doesn’t stand up, then things get tricky. Maybe that’s why The Talons Of The Giant Rat never saw the light of day – or Terror Of The Sock Puppet Loch Ness Monster for that matter. Both stories generally get an excellent press, even if the budgetary limitations are acknowledged for the rat and the Skarasen. Thankfully, Invasion Of The Dinosaurs is starting to gain a bit more credibility, thanks to Malcolm Hulke’s intelligent, well-crafted script, fine direction, and excellent performances from the regulars and the guests (John Bennett and Noel Johnson are especially good). Maybe the eventual DVD release (hopefully with a colour part one) will use swanky CGI effects to replace the shoddy 1973 ones, but to be honest, to me, it wouldn’t matter. At the end of the day, a good, solid plot and intelligent writing win out over state-of-the-art effects every time.

John Bensalhia limbered up for this mammoth task with a full four-series review of Blake's 7, and writes professionally and recreationally all over the web. Check out his portfolio of work at Wordprofectors.

Check out John's previous Doctor Who review, The Time Warrior