DOCTOR WHO-INVASION OF TIME part 5

 

DOCTOR WHO-INVASION OF TIME part 5

 

DOCTOR: Take the others back to the Tardis.

LEELA: Oh no, I'm not leaving you again.

DOCTOR: Please.

LEELA: No. Every time I do, you get into trouble.

DOCTOR: That's right. Trust me, please.

LEELA: All right. Come on. I said, come on.

 

LOVE IT! Again, almost the entire thing has Tom-isms but also Tom as his most serious as he threatens Borusa’s life…holding a gun on the man in order to get him to deliver the Great Key to him. We’re not yet told what the Key will do. I also love Rodan and ABOUT TIME…or one of the writers of it, feels she’s annoying. She’s not. I love her fixing the TARDIS up to the induction barrier. Apparently there are TWO defenses, the transduction barrier is the first, then the quantum force shield. Although K9 offers back up at least once, we never see him stun or kill a Sontaran. I imagine his ray might not do a thing to them? In any case two of the Outsiders…and two high ranking ones that Leela trusted, the leader and Jasko are killed by the Sontarans but I believe at least the leader Abliff or something like that, gets a Sontaran in the vent probe, too. Leela also gets a prodigious throw. She and Tom’s Doctor have an easy going, gentle, yet almost contentious rapport that’s refreshing and always has been. Here, it reaches new heights as the Doctor gives her the Great Key (“You can’t give an alien the great key!”) and he tells a protesting Borusa he trusts her fully. Leela’s smile says it all. Leela shows command quality as he yells at the others to follow her.

 

So much of the dialog here, and, in fact, or rather my opinion, the entire story, is quotable (“And you can keep your president elect, too!”) and I love Borusa’s use of the loud chimes to distract the Sontarans. I love Leela’s, “Shall I kill him now, Doctor?” and Tom’s accidental hit of his hand on her knife and then his rubbing of his hand. I love the tension between the Doctor and Borusa as well as their quick rapport when they escape his office for the TARDIS, the Doc thinking the Key is protecting him but it’s actually Borusa’s personal force field medallion. All of it.

 

The Doc’s been running around with a group of people and Rodan among them but he only asks her name in TARDIS and for some reason spells it out. As a Romana prototype, she works rather well with Tom and we care about her as she hits her head when the TARDIS shakes in the cliffhanger, which has Kelner throwing the TARDIS into a black hole. Kelner, for his part, has been thrown by the Sontaran leader no more than three times so far and yet he still helps them, for fear of his life. He’s one of the better Time Lord villains who hasn’t much power but does what he can with what he has.

 

The danger and death, the tension, the humor all add up to a good story. One thing: the Doctor talks about people dying out there. Is there some mischief the Sontarans were up to that we didn’t see? Okay they kill two of the Outsiders, too well known ones (at least to us) but we don’t really see them kill any Time Lords that I can remember or guards but the Doctor tells Borusa that HIS people are dying out there. Can we conjecture that there are things we haven’t seen that went on here?

 

Another great episode that purists might not like and fans of the new series might find not that exciting but I think it’s pure DW and exciting DW to boot. Tom carries the entire thing, of course, but with a such a wide array of allies in this story and the huge scope of the idea, it ALL works for me, ABOUT TIME be hanged!