Doctor Who: The Android Invasion (1975)

Date(s) of Broadcast: 22 November 1975 - 13 December 1975
Number of Episodes: 4
Average Episode Running Times: 25 mins
Format: colour
Sound: mono

PRODUCTION
Production Company: BBC
Production: Philip Hinchcliffe
Production Unit Manager: Janet Radenkovic

SCRIPT
Script: Terry Nation
Story Editors: Robert Holmes

DIRECTION
Director: Barry Letts

PHOTOGRAPHY
Studio Lighting: Duncan Brown
Film Camera: Ken Newson

EDITING AND POST-PRODUCTION
Film Editor: Mike Stoffer

MUSIC
Title Music: Ron Grainer and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop
Title Music Arranger: Delia Derbyshire
Incidental Music: Dudley Simpson

SOUND
Studio Sound: Alan Machin
Special Sound: Dick Mills

MAKE UP AND COSTUMES
Make Up: Sylvia Thornton
Vostumes: Barbara Lane

VISUAL EFFECTS
Visual Effects: Len Hutton
Title Sequence: Bernard Lodge

DESIGN AND SET CONSTRUCTION
Designer: Philip Lindley

MISCELLANEOUS
Production Assistant: Marion McDougall
Assistant Floor Manager: Felicity Trew

STUNTS
Fight Arranger: Terry Walsh

CAST
Tom Baker (The Doctor)
Elisabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith)
Milton Johns (Guy Crayford)
Martin Friend (Styggron)
Max Faulkner (Corporal Adams)
Peter Welch (Morgan)
Ian Marter (Harry Sullivan)
John Levene (RSM Benton)
Roy Skelton (Marshal Chedaki)
Stuart Fell (Kraal)
Patrick Newell (Colonel Faraday)
Hugh Lund (Matthews)
Dave Carter (Grierson)
Heather Emmanuel (Tessa)
Derek Hunt, Roy Pearce (Android mechanics - uncredited)
Walter Goodman (Farmer - uncredited)
Simon Christie (young farmhand - uncredited)
Margaret McKechnie (barmaid - uncredited)
Freddie White (tweedy Doctor - uncredited)
Martine Holland, Mark Holmes (students - uncredited)
Terry Walsh (double for the Doctor - uncredited)
Peter Brace (stuntman / soldier - uncredited)
Keith Ashley, Barbara Bermel, Martine Holland, Cy Town (villagers - uncredited)
Mark Allington, Alan Clements, Alf Coster, Derek Hunt, Richard King, Pat Milner, Roy Pearce, Christopher Woods (soldiers - uncredited)
Lewis Alexander, Keith Ashley, George Ballantine, Simon Christie, Ian Elliott, Alan Jennings, Henry Lindsay, Sue Manners, Clinton Morris, Terry Walsh, Betsy White, Joan Woodgate (walk-ons - uncredited)

PLOT SUMMARY

The quaint village of Devesham is not all that it seems. The Doctor breaches its space research centre and learns he isn't in England at all and the alien Kralls are planning an invasion

A basis in Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) and a heavy dose of the last series of The Avengers (1961 - 1969) (of which Nation was briefly script editor) make this unlike the rest of the season in construct. Nation was instructed to come up with a non-Dalek story. Considered the least of this, perhaps the most consistantly brilliant Doctor Who season ever, it is perhaps undervalued because of the great stories around it. Having no great single villain doesn't help. The last regular UNIT cast story but The Brigadier missing because Nicholas Courtney was unavailable, which rather diminishes their worth.

UK
Television Distributor: BBC
Video Distributor: BBC Video

1975
November
22: UK - Part One television broadcast (on BBC1)
29: UK - Part Two television broadcast (on BBC1)

December
6: UK - Part Three television broadcast (on BBC1)
13: UK - Part Four television broadcast (on BBC1)

The Kraals - working title

BOOKS

Doctor Who: The Television Companion pp.294-297
credits, synopsis, review (by David J. Howe and Stephen James Walker)

KEYWORDS

aliens, time travel

Last Updated: 1 January, 2009