Sunday 11 January 2015

Day 415: The Android Invasion Part 2


The iconic moment that defines this story is the cliff-hanger to Part 2. The Doctor quickly deduces that the TARDIS has not taken them to Earth and that they have instead landed on a replica of Earth, then he deduces that the Sarah Jane that has been with him for the past few moments is also a replica. He throws her to the ground, at which point her face falls off revealing a robotic underside. It's a good scene, partially due to the direction from Barry Letts but mostly due to the design of the android face from either Len Hutton (Visual Effects) or Barbara Lane (costumes) which provides an unsettling visages and one that is guaranteed to stick in the nightmares of children.

That's not to say that there aren't problems though. The scene is simple enough to work out from what precedes it, as we have already seen the fact that android duplicates have been produced and that Sarah Jane is acting oddly, thus we can surmise that she is an android duplicate. But it still remains iconic due to the nature of the cliffhanger, something which has to be designed to stick in the viewer's mind for an entire week. There will be a massive post about cliffhangers at some point in the future, but for now let's just accept the fact that of all cliffhangers, this is one of the better ones.

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