The Time Invasion

This story is quite a disturbing one in terms of Tom Bakers Doctor. Without explanation we already see him being arrogant, full of himself and not quite right, pretty much the early version of 6th Doctor. But here, it is quite obvious that he is the villian (not like Meglos, where a villian took on the Doctors form) so it's already quite intruiging from the start. You have to feel for Leela though as he now almost despises her. Doctor agrees some kind of treaty with a group of aliens on their ship, but we do not know of who the hell these aliens are except they're called Vardans. All of a sudden, Doctor wants to go to Gallifrey and take his rightful spot to the Presidency of the High Council of Time Lords. As he successfully does so, he tries to banish Leela to the "outside world" of Gallifrey. Soon we finally see the Vardans (who are basically floating silver jackets looking like they're doing something rude underneath) and becomes obvious that they're telepathic and controls people, including Doctor.

All this on introduction alone is very odd, all the comedic style has been lost and we're left worrying about the Doctor and Leela. In a strange way, I like it. It makes a nice change from your usual Who stories, especially with the fact that the Doctor is not a goodie in this so far. What is nice is when Leela escapes to the "outside world" with a female staff of Gallifreyan space traffic named Rodan, she meets a tribe, not unlike hers back on Earth. It is also quite amusing how they easily get along together. What I absolutely love is the melodrama from Rodan, who has never been "outside". When asked about supplies she needs to live on, she presents the tribe a plastic box with neatly organised Smarties, maybe they look a lot more convincing then but guarantees a laugh in todays world.

After a few muddles with Leela's newfound tribe and Doctor beating off the telepathy, the Vardan's are beaten after the risk strategy in weakening Gallifrey's force field. However, yet another enemy arrived, the Sontarans. This would've been a huge surprise if they weren't on the DVD cover. I have to say they aren't the best Sontaran version DW has come out with, the helmets are clearly made out of paper mache and their faces seems like they're gonna cry any moment now. While they're only in for the last two episodes of the story, their mark hasn't been properly set. However, in my opinion, the last two episodes are the best.

We get to see more of the TARDIS interior beyond the control room (as the goodies get chased by Sontarans) such as a swimming pool (which they call a bathroom, taking the biscuit I suspect) a garden room with a gigantic flytrap etc...but some rooms are difficult to convince as they were blatantly in an old hospital and one which is obviously a wood workshop classroom with windows covered by black binbags. There is a scene of a Sontaran tripping over a sunbed (and breaking it) and kept trying to carry on, which I found hilarious, as it really does look like an accident. Despite the few negatives on the settings, it all starts feeling a bit magical again with the usual quirky theme. The ending is very good, Leela decides to remain on Gallifrey after falling in love with a guard. I can't see it working out, an Earth human with a life expectancy of say, about 90years and the guard has 12 regenerations in him, bit of an age-gap challenge there. K9 also decided to stay behind to look after Leela, they worry of Doctor being lonely but Doctor leaves in his TARDIS anyway. The last scene is brilliant, he simply gets a cardboard box out titled "K9 MII" looks into the camera close-up and shows us his teethy smile.
Any Who fan would feel at least a little bit joyous after that.

8/10