#steve maher

The first official Doctor Who animated reconstruction of a partly-missing story, The Invasion by Cosgrove Hall has always held a place in my fandom heart. One small detail many people and even the information text (found on the DVD itself) love to point out is that there’s a costume error in the first episode. 

Specifically, Episode One supposedly follows on directly from the previous story, The Mind Robber, in which companion Zoe Hariot wore a high collared glittery catsuit costume. Despite this, the animated episode depicts Zoe wearing the costume she adopts midway through The Invasion’s first episode. No big deal right, probably just a mistake on the part of the animators? 

Well, I think the original intention might have been to include the catsuit costume. Looking at the Character Design special feature included on the DVD, Steve Maher appears to have been aware of the costume continuity and included what appears to be the collar of the aforementioned catsuit in the concept art for Zoe’s character design headshots.

So why not include this costume in the actual animated version of the episode? I initially suspected this was an earlier example of what occurred on the similarly animated reconstruction of missing story The Macra Terror. In that instance, the time constraints of producing the animation meant that shortcuts had to be taken. Namely, costume changes (and hair style changes) that occurred for the main cast in that story’s first episode were cut in order to streamline the production, avoiding producing entire character model kits with the different costumes that would only be briefly seen.

That said, on the commentary for The Invasion Episode One animation executive producer James Goss said of the incorrect costume ‘It’s all my fault. It’s completely wrong, we didn’t notice. Because the first stuff we saw was the TARDIS stuff and when it came in we were just so busy going “it’s Doctor Who! Look at Patrick Troughton, look at Patrick Troughton talking! At no point did we ever actually think “Oooo is it the right costume?” But for people who are really upset, Zoe just came back from The Land of Fiction dressed as Alice in Wonderland’