Production Code: WWW
First Transmitted
1 - 12/01/1974 17:30
2 - 19/01/1974 17:30
3 - 26/01/1974 17:30
4 - 02/02/1974 17:30
5 - 09/02/1974 17:30
6 - 16/02/1974 17:30
Plot
The Doctor and Sarah return to 20th Century London to find it deserted. Initially arrested as looters, they are soon back with UNIT. The Brigadier explains that central London has been evacuated due to the unexplained and random appearance of prehistoric monsters. The Doctor and Sarah discover that the monsters are being brought through time by two scientists, Whitaker and his henchman Butler, as part of a conspiracy to clear London of people.
The Doctor's investigations are deliberately hindered first by Captain Yates and then by the Army's General Finch, both of whom are involved in the conspiracy. Sarah visits Sir Charles Grover, the Government Minister in charge during the emergency, but discovers that he too is involved.
Captured and hypnotised, she revives to find herself apparently on board a spaceship en route to colonise another world. She soon realises that the ship is just a mock-up and those on board, led by a number of elders, have been duped.
The conspirators in fact intend to use a time machine to return London to a 'Golden Age' before the Earth became polluted, so that they and the would-be colonists can start civilisation afresh.
The Doctor and the Brigadier mount a raid on their underground headquarters. Grover makes a last-ditch attempt to operate the time machine, but the Doctor has changed the settings and he succeeds only in sending himself and Whitaker back to the era of the dinosaurs. The Brigadier arranges for the misguided Yates to be given a chance to resign quietly from UNIT.
Episode Endings
The Doctor and Sarah are being taken to a detention centre in a Land Rover. The vehicle suddenly screeches to a halt and the Doctor looks out of the back to see a tyrannosaurus rex looming over them.
The Doctor goes to capture a brontosaurus using a gun he has built for the purpose. Yates, under instruction from Whitaker, has disabled the gun and it does not work. The brontosaurus vanishes and, as the Doctor turns, a tyrannosaurus rex appears. UNIT troops start firing at it.
Sarah goes to see Sir Charles Grover in the hope that he may help her to discover the location of Whitaker's base. Grover takes her captive and she is placed in a room where she is sent to sleep with flashing lights. When she wakes she is told that she is on board a spaceship heading for 'New Earth'.
Whitaker telephones the Doctor and asks the Time Lord to meet him. When the Doctor arrives at the rendezvous, there is no sign of Whitaker, but suddenly a stegosaurus appears. General Finch bursts in with the Brigadier and accuses the Doctor of being responsible for the dinosaur invasion.
Trying to make his way back to Whitaker's London base, the Doctor finds himself facing a final wave of dinosaurs. He is suddenly confronted by a tyrannosaurus rex.
The Doctor tries to persuade Sarah to take another trip in the TARDIS, this time to the planet Florana.
Roots
The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms.
Day of the Triffids.
The Avengers ('The Morning After').
Dialogue Triumphs
The Doctor : "Look, I understand your ideals. In many ways I sympathise with them. But this is not the way to go about it, you know. You've got no right to take away the existence of generations of people."
Captain Yates : "There's no alternative."
The Doctor : "Yes there is. Take the world that you've got and try and make something of it. It's not too late."
Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart : "We've got company."
The Doctor : [In the process of planting a bomb in the lift leading to the conspirators' base.] "Good grief, it's a triceratops! Look Brigadier, try and keep it occupied while I'm finishing this off, will you?"
The Doctor : "It's not the oil and the filth and the poisonous chemicals that are the real cause of pollution, Brigadier. It's simply greed."
Dialogue Disasters
The Doctor : [The Doctor's hilarious cockney] "You're the nark, aren't you? It was you wot grassed on us."
Continuity
The Doctor takes at least four sugars in his coffee. He says that the Blinovitch Limitation Effect (see Day of the Daleks) tends to hold back research into time travel. The Doctor is largely immune to the effects of Whitaker's machine because he is a Time Lord. (The Doctor also seemed unaffected by the time disturbance in The Time Monster. See also City of Death.) He offers to take Sarah to Florana, 'probably one of the most beautiful planets in the universe' (see Death to the Daleks).
QV
Location
London, [c. October 1972, as much as a month or two after Sarah's departure in The Time Warrior].
Future History
At some point in the future a Chinese scientist, Chung Sen, experiments with time travel. (See The Ark, Planet of the Spiders, The Talons of Weng Chiang and City of Death for some possibilities).
Links
Yates has just got back from leave after the events of The Green Death.
From the Doctor and Sarah's point of view, this story continues directly from The Time Warrior.
Untelevised
The Doctor says that the Vandals were 'quite decent chaps'.
Trivia
Well-known actor Martin Jarvis plays Butler. Jarvis had previously portrayed Hilio in the season two story The Web Planet, and went on to make one further Doctor Who appearance, as the Governor in the season twenty-two story Vengeance on Varos.
There is the first appearance of the Doctor's futuristic new car, named the Alien by its makers but referred to generally (although never on-screen) as the Whomobile. It had still to be fully completed by the time the filming for this story took place, and so is seen with no roof and only a makeshift windscreen.
Myth
Robert Holmes, who on this story made his uncredited debut as a script editor, accepted the post only reluctantly and after some persuasion. (He actually telephoned the production office to put himself forward as a candidate for the post, and was delighted to find that he was already under consideration for it.)
The master tape of the first episode of this story was mistakenly wiped when it was confused with season six's The Invasion. (There is no evidence to suggest that this is why the tape was wiped; all the tapes for The Invasion were wiped in 1972, more than two years before Invasion of the Dinosaurs was transmitted.)
Goofs
The Tyrannosaurus Rex has too many fingers on each hand (cf Doctor Who and the Silurians), but is clearly named as such.
It doesn't roar, but says 'roar!'
Most of the dinosaurs seem to float when CSOed onto film sequences.
In episode two, Yates' disabling disk appears on the Doctor's gun lying in the Jeep before he has placed it there.
Martin Jarvis appears to bang his head getting into the lift at the tube station.
In episode four there's a very wobbly zoom towards the security camera.
The metal shutters coming down in the underground base make the walls wobble.
The scenes with Sarah on the 'ship' are intercut with Earth scenes, thus giving the game away that she hasn't been there for several weeks.
Fashion Victim
Mark plans to colonise a new planet wearing flares.
Cast & Crew
Cast
The Doctor - Jon Pertwee
Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart - Nicholas Courtney
Captain Mike Yates - Richard Franklin
Sarah Jane Smith - Elisabeth Sladen
Sergeant Benton - John Levene
Adam - Brian Badcoe
Butler - Martin Jarvis
Charles Grover M.P. - Noel Johnson
Corporal Norton - Martin Taylor
General Finch - John Bennett
Lieutenant Shears - Ben Aris
Lodge - Trevor Lawrence
Mark - Terence Wilton
Peasant - James Marcus
Phillips - Gordon Reid
Private Bryson - Colin Bell
Private Ogden - George Bryson
Professor Whitaker - Peter Miles
R/T Soldier - John Caesar
Robinson - Timothy Craven
Ruth - Carmen Silvera
Sergeant Duffy - Dave Carter
UNIT Corporal - Pat Gorman
Warehouse Looter - Terry Walsh
Crew
Director - Paddy Russell
Invasion of the Dinosaurs