Doctor Who: Invasion of the Dinosaurs (1974)

Returning from her first adventure with the doctor in the TARDIS, "Sarah Jane" (Elisabeth Sladen) gets a bit more of the action as she and the "Doctor" (Jon Pertwee) discover a London that's been evacuated after a spate of dinosaur attacks. After an altercation with the army over a fur coat, they reunite with "UNIT" and work to help the "Brigadier" (Nicholas Courtney) get to the bottom of things. What puzzles them is that these great beasties appear, fleetingly, then disappear - they don't seem to do much damage, just frighten folks. With the military and the politicians involved and nobody sure whom to trust, it becomes clear that there's quite a conspiracy going on - but who's leading it and why? "Dr. Who" worked better for me when they were in outer space facing all manner of nasty enemies. The adventures never worked quite so well when they were based in the UK. They could get away with just about anything on a far-flung planet but somehow the scenario here just seemed a bit thin and faintly ridiculous as it plodded along over six episodes. Director Paddy Russell clearly wanted to give Sladen a bigger slice of the action to establish her in her new role, but Pertwee actually features too sparingly and it suffered from that a bit. The visual effects are a bit cheap and cheerful which might also explain why there aren't actually very many monsters here, and by the end it was sort of predictably recycling itself a little too often. Not my favourite, this one.