72.13%

This is one of those stories which is quite enjoyable, however, it is also one of those stories that tends to be lauded as an absolute classic when it is anything but. Once again, we come to a story which moves along fairly well. It isn't a bad story, but by means is it a brilliant story. That it is a pivotal story cannot be denied: the introduction of UNIT; the return of a guest character from a previous season who would then go on to become one the series' most popular guest characters, namely the Brigadier; and the set-up for the next season of Doctor Who. These are selling points which should not be allowed to obscure the facts: its an overlong story; the main villain is not that convincing (all too often he hangs back from certain actions); the main foes are underused - and I'm not just talking about the fact they don't appear until halfway through the story; and the iconic moment of this story is nothing more than a moment. Its one of my bugbears, if anyone takes note of my other reviews, that people focus on a single moment and use that to elevate an otherwise average or poor story to "best ever" status.

The Invasion is good and is certainly one of the better invasion-of-present-day-Earth stories especially since it takes the step of rendering all but a few of the Earth's population out cold for the duration of the invasion. That is a good idea but for obvious reasons it can't be used in every other, similar story (which then leads to trying to equate an Earth invaded by various aliens with everyone getting on with life as if nothing had happened...unless you cop out and have time reverse or something silly like that).

Nicholas Courtney is brilliant as the Brigadier and is the better guest star of this story. Kevin Stoney does turn in a reasonable performance with just the odd hint of ham, otherwise Vaughan would be among the best protagonists the Doctor has had to deal with. As it is, he would be among the B-list protagonists (which isn't bad...since there are quite a few z-listers who will remain nameless, in this review at least). Sally Faulker is slightly irritating as Isobel, she's not bad and works well enough but had I seen this story on original broadcast I would have been dreading the thought that she might join the TARDIS crew!

On a final note, the animated re-created missing two episodes work well - and this certainly puts the DVD release way above the video edition from the 1990s which had nothing to help the less ardent fan in the way of knowing what happened in episodes 1 and 4. Those "links" are on the DVD as an extra so if anyone hasn't seen the video release links and would like to know how the missing episodes were dealt with in the 1990s, the chance is there - be warned, you are missing nothing.