Jurassic Park. But in London. And with dinosaurs that look like pillows.
The opening is very creepy. The Doctor and Sarah-Jane wander around an abandoned London and this leads us nicely into a novel set up – the disaster is already in progress and The Doctor has been nowhere to be seen for some time (gallivanting off in the middle ages of course). When he does turn up he is promptly arrested for a looter (“I only found these guv, I was going to return them…” is a line we still hear today).
So it turns out Dinosaurs have invaded London (Imaginative mind at work in the title creating department, there). But, in short, they’re just a distraction to get the place cleared while a Greenpeace militia develop a stark-raving mad plan to turn back time millions of years to when the earth was nice and green and start all over again. Wiping millions of people from time, of course, but you can’t make an omlette, etc..
Obviously there is corruption through the ranks of government who are all in on the plot. Captain Yates is a traitor, of course. I always knew the man was a git. Smarmy and unpleasant towards Benton, who is, of course, the hero of the piece.
Sarah-Jane continues to be a breath of fresh air. Always coming up with ideas. Even if they do get her in the crap. Repeatedly.
There is a great cliffhanger at the end of episode 3 that sort of turns the story into a new direction completely. Sadly this is the only great cliffhanger and all the others sort of rely on “Oh no, we’ve run into a dinosaur”…
Benton is awesome. He punches Yates and the smarmy prat of a general. Frankly, the Brigadier would do well to keep him onside. The man's a legend.
Bit of a clumsy moral at the end Greed vs Environmentalism. There may be a point there but it’s clumsily handled.
Okay, so the dinosaurs were a it unnecessary, per se, it could have been called “Invasion of the *Insert arbitrary creature here*” but I suspect they were a fun draw for kids at the time.
Look, the effects are a bit rubbish. The dinosaurs are awful and the sets genuinely wobble when a door is shut but you have to see past all that. This is an incredibly good story with a great script that was far too ambitious for the effects department of the time. If you imagine it with the quality of dinosaurs and scenery as were in the Matt Smith story last season I suspect no-one would bat an eyelid.
The mad scientists’ plans are a bit mental – but then that’s why we call them “mad” – but this is a great story and anyone who does it down simply because of the effects is, frankly, a pillock. It loses one point for a bit of padding in part 5 but other than that it is superb.
9/10.