John Caesar | Through the Shattered Lens

Fresh from defeating an attempt by a Sontaran to disrupt British history, the Third Doctor (Jon Pertwee) and his newest companion, reporter Sarah Jane Smith (Elisabeth Sladen), return to present-day London and discover that it has been transformed into a ghost town. Dinosaurs are roaming the streets. The Doctor teams up with UNIT to try to figure out who has been monkeying with time but what he doesn’t know is that the trusted Captain Yates (Richard Franklin) is working with the people responsible for the dinosaur invasion.

Invasion of the Dinosaurs was the second serial of the 11th season. Like The Sea Devils, this was another case where I read the novelization long before I got a chance to see the actual serial. Well-written by Malcolm Hulke, the novelization really got me excited to watch Invasion of the Dinosaurs. It did not prepare me for how fake the dinosaurs would look.

It was to be expected, though. Classic Doctor Who was never known for its wonderful special effects. Instead, it was known for rubber monsters, torn costumes, and alien landscapes that were often made out of cardboard. For many of us, that was a part of its charm. The dinosaurs in this serial look like toys that have been unleashed on a still photo of London. I’ve read that the serial was criticized for its bad dinosaur effects when it originally aired 1974 and that was long before Jurassic Park made everyone take the idea of seeing a realistic dinosaur for granted.

Despite the very fake dinosaurs, Invasion of the Dinosaurs still has one of the better scripts of the Pertwee era. The villains aren’t the typical evildoers who usually showed up on Doctor Who. Instead, they are people who have convinced themselves that the only way to save humanity is to dial back time to what they consider to be the “Golden Age,” before technology and industry blighted what they believe to be the ideal landscape. Of course, they plan to take only the very best among the population to their golden age with them. The villains are elitist environmentalists, convinced that they and only they know what is best. This may be the first episode of Doctor Who where the main antagonist, Sir Charles Grover (Noel Johnson), is a member of Parliament.

Captain Yates’s betrayal of UNIT and the Doctor adds some emotional depth to this story. While Yates was never as important a character as the Brigadier or Sgt. Benton, he was still present for almost all of the Third Doctor’s adventures and the small scenes where he would flirt with Jo Grant were some of the most awkward moments of the Pertwee era. Captain Yates was a loyal member of the Third Doctor’s entourage and his betrayal was motivated not by greed or resentment but instead by a desire to make the world a better place. The novelization made it clear that it was actually the terrible things that Yates saw as a member of UNIT that convinced him that time needed to be turned back.

This was the final Jon Pertwee story to be set entirely on Earth and, though Yates and the Brigadier would return for Pertwee’s final serial, it was the last true UNIT story of the Pertwee years. Jon Pertwee had already decided that the 11th season would be his last. The 12 season would feature a new Doctor. And while the BBC considered actors like Graham Crowden, Bernard Cribbins, and Jim Dale for the role, the Fourth Doctor was ultimately be played by Tom Baker, an actor who was working as a construction worker when Invasion of the Dinosaurs first aired.

Doctor Who would never the same.

Having been captured by UNIT at the end of The Daemons, the Master (Roger Delgado) is now a imprisoned on a small island in the English channel. He claims that he is reformed and he now spends most of his days watching the BBC. (Has he not been punished enough?)

When the Doctor (Jon Pertwee) and Jo Grant (Katy Manning) visit the Master to try to learn the location of his TARDIS, they come up empty. They do, however, learn that several ships have gone missing and, understandably, they suspect that the Master is involved.

They’re correct. The Master has duped his warden, Trenchard (Clive Morton), into helping him steal electrical equipment so that he can contact The Sea Devils, a race of bipedal reptiles the live under the sea. The Sea Devils, much like their cousins, the Silurians, were the original inhabitants of Earth. They’ve now woken from hibernation to discover that mankind — who they last knew to be a collection of barely evolved monkeys — have taken over the planet. And they’re not happy about it.

The Silurians and the Sea Devils appeared in three serials during the original run of Doctor Who and all of them followed the same basic plot. The Silurians or the Sea Devils woke up from their hibernation. The Doctor tried to broker a peace with humanity. Humanity reacted by blowing them up. The Sea Devils were usually more reluctant to make peace than the Silurians. In The Sea Devils, the Doctor himself is forced to sabotage their base to keep them from attacking humanity but that’s nothing compared to the atomic bomb that the British government wanted to drop on them. Whenever a Silurian or a Sea Devil shows up, it means that the Doctor is going to disappointed in humanity once again.

The Sea Devils is a serial of which I have fond memories because Malcolm Hulke’s novelization was the first Doctor Who book that I ever read. (Malcolm Hulke also wrote the serial itself.) I read the book before I even saw the show. The novelization was my introduction to the Doctor, UNIT, and especially the Master. Hulke was one of the best writers of the Doctor Who novelizations, taking the time to add depth to the characters. This was especially true of Trenchard, who is portrayed far more sympathetically in the novel than he was on the show.

The Sea Devils also features one of Roger Delgado’s finest turns as the Master. This was the Master’s first appearance during the ninth season of Doctor Who and Delgado shows that, even when imprisoned, the Master never stops manipulating and scheming. This episode shows why Delgado’s Master was such a classic villain and truly a worthy opponent of the Doctor. Delgado does such a good job in the scenes where The Master pretends to be reformed that it’s easy to understand how he managed to trick Trenchard. At the end of the serial, The Master makes another escape, again by fooling the humans around him. Delgado made The Master into a magnetic and compelling villain.

Roger Delgado appeared twice more as the Master before his untimely death in an auto accident. Jon Pertwee later said that Delgado’s death was one of the reasons that he decided to step away from the role of the Doctor. The Master would eventually return and he would be played by several different actors. For me, the true Master will always be Roger Delgado.