The Invisible Enemy
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DVD NTSC
Region 1
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DVD PAL
Region 2
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VHS Video
NTSC
PAL
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(Doctor Who Story No. 93, starring Tom Baker)
- written by Bob Baker & Dave Martin
- directed by Derrick Goodwin
- produced by Graham Williams
- music by Dudley Simpson
- 4 episodes @ 25 minutes each
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Story: A mysterious infection begins sweeping
across the pioneer colonies in the Solar System
around the year 5000, malevolently forcing its
victims to do its bidding. The Doctor and Leela
race to discover a cure before the Swarm take over
completely, aided by a robot dog named K9 and the
facilities and personnel of an asteroid hospital,
but the Doctor soon finds himself in the greatest
danger of all....
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DVD Extras include:
- Audio Commentary by actors
Louise Jameson (Leela),
John Leeson (Voices of K9 and the Nucleus),
co-writer Bob Baker,
and
Visual Effects Designer Mat Irvine.
- "Dreams and Fantasy" making-of featurette, with
director Derrick Goodwin,
visual effects designers Tony Harding and Mat Irvine,
K9 operator Nigel Brackley,
actors Louise Jameson and John Leeson, co-writer Bob Baker,
and journalist Gary Gillatt.
- "Visual Effect" featurette with miniature crew Ian Scoones
and Mat Irvine.
- Optional CGI Effects
- Raw studio footage (20 min.)
- K9 introductory guest spot on Blue Peter (4 min.)
- Pop-up Production Note Subtitles
- Photo Gallery
- bundled with
"K9 and Company: A Girl's Best Friend"
- the 50 minute season 19 spinoff pilot,
and all its extras....
In-Depth Analysis Review
by Martin Izsak
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WARNING: This review contains "SPOILERS", and is intended for
those who have already seen the program. To avoid the spoilers,
read the Buyers' Guide version instead.
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"Doctor Who" finally sheds a good deal of its horror trappings
and awakens to its science fiction potential with this story. Although
mental posession and cold murder are still unfortunate centre-pieces to
the story, the on-screen focus is solidly on exploration
of the macro- and micro-worlds on which it is taking place, how and
why it is happening, and how our heros can stop it (instead of dwelling
on the fear of it). It is also most
refreshing to see a production that is so visually ambitious. A great
deal of wonderful effects are successfully achieved, although lack of
time also took its toll on others that didn't get pulled off so well.
And though it may not realize it, it is also a wonderful complement
to the next story, with one of its major settings being on the
asteroid remains of
the fifth planet: Maldek.
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Design
"The Invisible Enemy" begins with a good deal of impressive model effects
work, as Ian Scoones works his magic and takes us to new worlds. Sometimes
you can spot some wobble in the shuttlecraft, eating away at the illusion
of scale, but the sequences are generally quite convincing and atmospheric.
Gerry Anderson, eat your heart out.
Barry Newbery, a veteran set designer since the second episode of
Doctor Who in its black-and-white inception and who was also responsible
for last year's dark secondary console room, returns to get it right
this time, and manages to create the most definitive console room in
Doctor Who's long existence, which with minor additions will last up
until seasons 25 and 26, and remain in frequent use up through season 22.
The white walls with yellow roundels
and swinging jagged-edge main doors at camera-left harken back to the
earliest days of the program, while the superior realization of the
scanner screen
from last year is updated to a white colour that fits in with the new
room, and shifted over to camera-right where it belongs. We also get
a perfect little door leading to the rest of the maze-like interior,
and the good old console is back, with its center column rising
and falling and three central red tubes of lights flashing within. This is
what it's all about, the classic interior. It is such a grand relief
to return to it.
"Invisible Enemy" deserved a larger slice of the
season's budget if for no other reason than to get this set right,
because all subsequent stories will benefit from it. The one noticeable
element that could be improved on is that only half of the corner-joins
between wall panels are properly hidden behind corrugated pillers, the
others have their bolted-on angle-brackets exposed to the cameras, making
it look a little too much like a set. Ah well, there's always room for
improvement; at least the basic design is on form from now on.
Philip Hinchcliffe sought so hard to get the Doctor away from UNIT and
into space; if only he'd made the effort to get this room right, he
could have been there much more successfully. Without UNIT HQ, the series
needs this room as its standing centrepiece set.
Illiterate Flight
The police box exterior of the TARDIS also gets its due, making
several proper materializations and dematerializations thoughout the
story, while the relationship between interior and exterior is adequately
demonstrated as well. From a story point of view, however, one of the
TARDIS's most
interesting trips would be the one supposedly piloted by Leela when the
Doctor is incapacitated. I'm not prepared to believe it unless I see it,
and even then it would be a leap of character logic. As believably tense
as episode two's reprisal scenes on Titan are acted out, the Doctor's final
inward retreat should really
happen in the console room after he's set the controls, to avoid the
ridiculousness of having the temperamental machine piloted with such
outstanding accuracy by a character who is only just learning to write
her own name. That said, we need two more things for visual literacy
to be complete - a proper police box materialization effect on the
asteroid hospital (the footage for which is already in the can), and
enough of a close up of the Doctor on the stretcher that we recognize
him. As it stands, without seeing the attendants take him out of the
TARDIS, or much of the TARDIS or Leela or Lowe in the opening stretcher
sequence to begin with, I thought at first that the patient being wheeled
around and into a mysterious horizontal compartment was just some
unimportant establishing
activity for the hopsital before the arrival of our protagonists, until
Leela's exchange with the receptionist, at which point realization dawned
that I had missed something. This is one of the story's most confusing and
disappointing sequences.
Set design on the rest of the story is good on the whole. The white
of the hospital interior seems to use many elements similar to the TARDIS
interior, but remains recognizably different. The white is contrasted by
sets like those for the Titan base, which incorporate the orange-brown
of natural rock and many dark areas, not to mention much of the interior
of the Doctor's mind and the shuttle interior. The shuttle interior
is another set where the multi-level aspect seems gratuitous, not arranged
in a fashion that would help the crew relate to each other and see and do
everything their duty requires.
Writing
As in most good science fiction, the story and plot has got to hold
everything together, and Bob Baker and Dave Martin know their genre. A
simple line of logical character motivation keeps our protagonists active
as they go
from location to location, dealing with one sci-fi concept after another,
finding solutions to all their challenges. From exploring space to
laser fights and mental battles to robot dogs to pseudo-cloning to
"Fantastic Voyage" style surgery to medical research and immunology,
this story does justice to it all.
Dialogue is another matter, for
although Baker and Martin are capable of first-rate stuff, and have
a knack for giving the Doctor some of his best, most in-character lines,
they often resort to gimmicks as well. Last time, their catch-phrase crutch
was "Eldrad must live." This time it's "Contact has been made." This is
not too bad, actually, as it adds clarity to one of the story's unique
key processes, and doesn't become a source of additional bad jokes.
Dialogue concerning Leela's character is the script's weakest point,
from the constant referral to her as "the reject" to all the derogatory
comments on her intelligence. Think about it: although she comes from
a non-technological warrior culture, she is actually one of the sharpest
members of her tribe. She questioned her own traditions, and eagerly
soaks up new knowledge and ideas. Travel is broadening her mind even
further. She just has quite a ways to go yet before piloting the TARDIS
becomes something the Doctor would believably attempt to teach her.
Her morals and manners may still be lacking, but I don't think
there's any dysfunction at all in her intelligence, particularly on a
biological level capable of bothering the swarm. Her immunity is an
important contribution to the story, but explaining it away as a lack of
intelligence reflects more on the perceptions of the writers than on Leela
herself.
Fantastic Homage
Episode Three gives us something never seen before or since in any
Doctor Who story. Drawing inspiration from the feature film
"Fantastic Voyage", its concept is taken a step further as the Doctor
takes a trip inside himself, proving that this show can and will take
its viewers anywhere. Wonderful stuff. A lot of marvelous effects are
pulled off to achieve this environment, and the lining up of CSO
backgrounds with the actors' feet is particularly top notch. This is
one aspect of the finished story that the production team can be
particularly proud of. Later biological visuals appearing on the
equipment in Marius's lab are equally impressive, and do their fair
share of helping the story along visually.
Guest characters for this story don't require too much of an acting
stretch, as it is much more an action oriented piece, but the production
is still blessed by the returning presences of Michael Sheard and
Frederick Jaeger, who both give solid, enjoyable performances. Jaeger's
Professor Marius is notably memorable.
K9
It is K9 who steals the show, however, adding his much welcome
and inimitable presence to the program. He is still a bit rough around
the edges, as the production team learns how to operate him and get him
to do all his tricks properly before the camera. John Leeson,
who also voices the Nucleus during this production, gets K9's voice
spot on from the beginning and does a marvelous job of him.
Lasers?
The list of effects for this story also includes a lot of ambitious
superimposed beams and flashes. The most well done of these are the flashes
of "lightning" that accompany each transfer of infection, which are almost
always perfectly lined up, adding a
credibility to each of the actors who gets taken over. Many one-off flashes
like the one accompanying the Doctor's impromptu connection of two
ganglia within his own brain are also superbly done. K9's laser
blasts are not yet up to standard, in look or in sound, but he does at
least get a half-decent visual red beam and a sound effect that matches
the visuals fairly well. His very first shot embarrassingly seems to
hit his assailant in the groin, until the man in pain grabs his knee
instead. Ooops.
Perhaps the most disappointing beam effect is the one most used in
the story - that of regular hand weapon fire. In theory, the red diamond
flashing on the beams' targets beats many of the simplistic blobs of the
late Jon Pertwee era and early
Hinchcliffe era, without outdoing the outstanding white-star effects of
"The Deadly Assassin" (story no. 88).
But directors
of those past stories were usually much better at getting literately
clear footage to go behind the effect. In this story, there are too many
beam effects shots needed, and not enough time for the director and his
crew to line them all up properly. The corridor battles are the worst
for this, in large part because they were the last segments taped for the
story and suffered from the fact that time had run right out on the
production schedule. The camera script went out the window, as a mad dash
ensued to rush through and get some version of all the remaining required
scenes into the can. Very disorganized, and it shows, but better than
not completeing the story, as
"Shada" (story no. 109) will attest to
some two years later.
Anyway, one is left to look at red diamonds flashing all over the place
in these sequences, having little to do with the lines of fire they were
intended to represent, while the cast shake their flat-nosed handguns
at each other clumsily with appallingly uncareful aim. As much of a
superimposition advocate as I am, I'm prepared to say that flash-charge
props à la
"The Monster of Peladon" (story no. 73) or
"Planet of Evil" (story no. 81),
sans red diamonds,
would probably have provided a more effective result, but who knew in
advance how desperately far behind schedule things would get?
Things fare a bit better as the action moves to the hospital reception
area and back to Titan base for the conclusion, as these sequences were
taped earlier when the crew still had time to do things right. The K9
prop is perhaps a little more out of control during this phase, but with
a little tow from the Doctor's scarf, which doesn't seem too much a strain
on credulity, he does all right in the end.
It seems a bit silly for Leela and K9 to run out of ammunition
so soon after landing on Titan, but then again, K9 was designed as
a medical research aid, not a soldier, something easily forgotten
in view of his role in later Doctor Who adventures.
Contact Has Been Gargled
This is not a story where the villain shines strongly. The Nucleus
is at its best in the first three episodes, and works very well as
a disembodied voice. But in the final episode, it
is scripted with unreasonable impatience and the kind of insults and threats
that make so many Doctor Who villains boring on the page. While the Nucleus
looks dark and mysterious and effective inside the Doctor's mind, and even
manages to have a nice philosophical exchange with the Doctor's clone,
he really does suffer in the final episode, looking rather helpless and
sounding worse and worse. The processed gargling and breathing noises
he adds to the final climactic moments leave a bad after-taste on the
story's action, as does the Doctor's inability to cure Lowe and Safran,
rescue them from the violent pyrotechnics of the climax, and return them
safely to the asteroid hopsital. Luckily, the story ends on a happier
note, with a nicely done scene of K9 joining the TARDIS crew, reminding
viewers of the Doctor's success at completely curing Marius. At least he
helped some of the people some of the time in this one. This helps create
a better lasting impression of the story as it ends.
"The Invisible Enemy" marks a sometimes shaky innovative leap for the
program's production and direction, while also being a solid sci-fi narrative
and introducing a unique new popular companion to the program as well.
Although sadly rough around the edges, in the end this is definitely one
of the season's better offerings.
This story is now on DVD and VHS video.
Click on the Amazon symbol for the location nearest you
for pricing and availability:
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DVD NTSC Region 1
for the North American market:
in the U.S.
in Canada
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DVD PAL Region 2
for the U.K.
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VHS Video
NTSC
for North America
PAL
for the U.K.
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VHS NTSC
part of the
End of the Universe Collection
for the North American region
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