The Invisible Enemy (1977) Review

Does it get any more sci-fi?

K-9!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Invisible Enemy is a wonderfully imaginative story that for once, did justice to Bob Baker and Dave Martin's vision.

PLOT

The Doctor and Leela respond to a distress signal from Saturn's moon Titan in the future and find the place invaded by the Nucleus, a viral lifeform that takes hold of the Doctor and forces Leela to use the TARDIS and take him to a nearby hospital where the eccentric professor Marius creates clones of the Doctor and Leela to go into the real Doctor's brain and defeat the Nucleus all whilst other infected crewmembers from Titan invade the hospital.

ANALYSIS

There's an enjoyable innocence about The Invisible Enemy, an almost childlike imagination. The Doctor is infected by a virus? Send in mini-Doctor and mini-Leela! Professor Marius needs a companion? A talking dog made of metal!

It doesn't aspire to give a message or to scare, it just aspires to entertain on the most basic level and in spite of some cheesiness(the "TARDIS trained" joke at the very end was particularly eye-rolling), it succeeds. It's just the sort of thing you'd put on when you don't want to think about anything, but it's not brainless either.

To be honest, the only things that really bothered me about this story was that it was so consistent as to be mostly forgettable and that the ending was a bit iffy. The Doctor just locks the Nucleus into a room and blows up the entire moon(surely destroying the facility would've sufficed!).

Also, one of the most crucial plot elements is that the Doctor removes a part of the TARDIS - the dimensional stabilizer and has Marius use it to diminish the clone versions of him and Leela. Yet this object is almost never referred to, meaning that by part 4, I was completely confused when they mentioned it.

CHARACTERS

Why does Leela have Force Sense? I get that she has some warrior's instinct thing, but in every story now, she keeps "sensing evil" even before the TARDIS lands. It's daft. She's also a lot more sarcastic than she used to be(must be Tom Baker's bad influence...)

But never mind that, K-9 IN DA HOUSE!!! I bloody love K-9... even if his motor was unexpectedly loud and annoying... and he has ticker tape sprouting from his face, making it look like the Nucleus-infected make-up got caught in it... but still. K-9. The most adorable companion ever. Ilovehimlovehimlovehim.

Frederick "Discount Jack Nicholson" Jaeger returns for one final go as the slightly crazy, but kindhearted professor Marius, head of the space hospital(I forget the name). Since dogs aren't allowed, he had to build himself a robot one. And that robot one is sooooo cute I can't even... *FOLLOWING TWENTY PARAGRAPHS EDITED OUT FOR REASONS OF SANITY*... although I'm not sure why K-9 would say he doesn't have emotions. He emotes all the time.

The infected are led by Lowe, played by Doctor Who stalwart Michael Sheard. He's actually really good as a villain, despite looking and sounding like everybody's favourite grandpa. There's a nice urgency and threat to him.

NOTES

*Very nice to be back in the original console room again. It's also been redecorated again, the roundels are glowing and there's the huge viewscreen from the secondary room. It's starting to shape up to the perfect 1980s console room we see in The Five Doctors(which, in case you didn't know, was the first classic Who story I saw, minus the TV movie. That's why I know what the console room will be like).

*I'd just like to re-iterate how silly the ticker tape is on K-9. It looks like he has a moustache drooping off.

*People seem to slag the pre-broken wall a lot and it is a pretty big error, but to be honest, I doubt most viewers would immediately focus on it. I didn't even notice it until I read reviews online.

*What happened in the third episode's cliffhanger? The Doctor and Leela reach the Nucleus, suddenly everything goes explodey and the clones have disintegrated, but the Doctor's voice is whispering "Tear ducts..." and then the Nucleus emerges? I get that the Nucleus got out via the tear ducts, but how did he know to do that? How was the clone Doctor able to whisper when he was disintegrated? And why did his and Leela's hair survive the disintegration? Or was that their clothes?

*Even if Leela knew the coordinates, I find it a bit difficult to believe she of all people can pilot the TARDIS. Maybe that was just the code for "TARDIS autopilot".

CONCLUSION

It was filler, but I don't mind it at all. I could watch this again any day.