Having gone through periods of obsession with both Orson Welles and 40s noir and detective media, this story has a lot in it that should work for me. Unfortunately, this leads me to being more critical of it, perhaps unfairly. I also have a bit of a soft spot for Mark Gatiss having grown up with League of Gentleman and him being a genre nut like me, shown by the excellent horror documentary he made for the BBC about 15 years ago, and his breakdown of genres on the now defunct Film Program radio show. However, this is where we get into what disappoints me the most about Invaders from Mars: that in trying to incorporate so many genres into one story it ends up being a jack-of-all-trades, master of none. We have gumshoe noir, 30s sci-fi, gangster flicks and espionage thriller, and while Gatiss knows his stuff he’s not as deft at bringing all these elements together.

It doesn’t help matters that most the story takes place in my least favourite of those afore mentioned genres, the gangster story (I’m much more a police procedural guy). I don’t find these types of people particularly engaging, which isn’t helped by Gatiss’ habit of making characters seem like caricatures or pastiches. This is fine for comedy but not as effective in drama, even light-hearted drama, and Who especially can live or die on the strength of its supporting characters.

The much mythologized ‘War of the World’ broadcast doesn’t play as much a part in the overall plot as I’d have liked as it is such a rich source for historical Doctor Who shenanigans, and feels, like everything else, yet another element thrown into a broth. As far as I’m aware this was the first Who story Gatiss wrote, so I understand the urge to throw all your ideas and things you love from the era into one story, and it does keep the pace up, but personally I prefer fewer ideas and elements and allowing them space to breathe.

This perhaps makes it sound like I think it’s a bad story, but I don’t. There’s fun to be had and its rarely boring. I would probably have given it a 6 if my interest in the playground it’s taking place in didn’t raise my expectations.

Typical features of a Gatiss script, however, this falls as a weaker one. The setting while unique, and capitalising on interesting historical moments, doesn't realise its potential, and hampered by some awful American accent performances, which make this quite painful to work through. Ultimately, this took much of the focus away, and I have finished the audio struggling to recall much of the features of the plot.

a fairly decent story, though i forgot just how long it takes to actually get going. man, mark gatiss should just stick to acting

Biiig yawn for this one.

As other reviews say, good ideas here (using the War of the Worlds broadcast to pretend there's already an alien force invading Earth, the Doctor and Charley pretending to be PIs, NYC gangsters in general), but the execution was lackluster. I started writing an outline of the plot here and just deleted it because so many threads just go nowhere and it's confusing, and the end is unsatisfying. Charley is kidnapped and questioned with a truth serum, and just doesn't get to do much else. The Doctor unwittingly helps a Russian spy, and then comes up with the second fake broadcast*, which doesn't quite work. The random Russian scientist guy who we thought died in part 2 saves the day with a... homemade atomic bomb? Alright.

I did like the performances for Welles and Devine. That's pretty much all I can say.

*read with Pippin's intonation of "second breakfast"

Charming, but I wish I could dig it much more. From other Gatiss entries this one places a bit higher, as always Gatiss gets a pretty cool idea, but the execution feels a bit lackluster. Our leads still have so much chemistry that I can’t really say it’s bad, just kinda lackluster.