The Invisible Enemy

Sometimes my brilliance astonishes even me.

The Fourth Doctor

Synopsis

Through a quirk of fate, the Doctor ends up being infected by the Nucleus of the Swarm, who want to take over the universe through spreading a virus.

With new friends Professor Marius and K9, Leela must find a way to save the Doctor before it’s too late!

Review

The Invisible Enemy is one of those stories that has a reputation for not being among the best Doctor Who stories. In the decent Doctor Who Magazine poll, it came 34th out of the 41 televised Fourth Doctor stories, which certainly doesn’t reflect my experience of it. I am not going to try and argue that it should be spoken about in the same breath as the best Tom Baker stories, but I did enjoy this one a lot.

The Invisible Enemy feels like a usual Bob Baker and Dave Martin script, bristling with ideas and perhaps not enough time to execute them properly. Personally, I would have been intrigued with sticking with the idea that we are first presented with, having the Doctor corrupted by a sinister alien force and his companion having to stay away from them. In the case of Leela, this plays perfectly into her skill set and would allow her to truly shine as she evades the Doctor at every turn. However, Baker and Martin almost hit a soft reset at the beginning of every part, introducing a new concept or new idea to be focussed on. Sometimes that works, but when it gets to the end, it almost feels like they’ve thrown everything at the wall and at least half of it is lying on the floor, and some of the ideas that have stuck are looking as though they could end up there very soon. There are a lot of ideas that wouldn’t feel out of place in a B-Movie, such as the Doctor and Leela going into the Doctor’s mind

A classic example of Baker and Martin’s ideas are that they like thinking about the evolution of language and how it would change in the future, which is something that has cropped up in a number of their stories, and this is no exception. Where some parts are thought through, others fall by the wayside. When the Nucleus is on the shuttle to advance to the base on Titan where the story started, we are told that the shuttle is travelling at maximum speed, however, the Nucleus insists it can go faster, and suddenly, as if by magic, it can. My wife walked in at that moment and couldn’t believe how ridiculous this moment was.

Ultimately, the story lives and breathes on how effective it’s central villain is, and unfortunately, I don’t think anyone watching The Invisible Enemy will not be taken out of it by the ridiculous final appearance as a gigantic prawn. The ultimate reveal of this appearance really stops you taking the creature at all seriously, which is a shame as John Leeson does do a good job in the first few moment os making the Nucleus sound threatening.

I will admit to having a massive soft spot for K9. Even before I knew what Doctor Who was, there was always something about the idea of a robot dog that appealed to me, even though I’m much more of a cat person. I recall buying one of my older brothers a K9 keyring one Christmas, just because I thought that it such an interesting idea. I know that he does have his detractors, even within the production teams that worked on the show at the time, but he’s just good clean fun. Whilst John Leeson’s voice work isn’t quite where it would go moving forwards, he has recognised where he is going with the character and there is room to improve. Professor Marius is a good and likable member of the guest cast, but this is perhaps because Frederick Jaeger is given more to do than the rest of the guest cast. The fact that the rest of the cast feel like they spend a lot of time standing around getting increasingly covered in fur, and then consider that Michael Sheard is in the cast and isn’t terribly memorable, then you realise that there aren’t perhaps many decent roles in this story.

I think throughout the story, you can tell that Tom Baker is relishing playing an evil version of the Doctor. It does at least give him a little bit of variety after three years of playing the hero, even if that means that he essentially has to play his Doctor monotonously. As mentioned above, I like the first part most of this story and wish that the story followed this story thread rather than spinning off in another direction. Having the Doctor in an antagonistic role means that Leela takes the lead, something which Louise Jameson is more than capable of and I almost wished that this part lasted longer. Unfortunately, the more the story goes on, you can almost feel Tom Baker’s interest wane and the story does suffer as a result.

Verdict: The Invisible Enemy has a lot of good ideas, but does struggle with the weight of the ideas in the authors’ minds. 6/10

Cast: Tom Baker (The Doctor), Louise Jameson (Leela), John Leeson (Voice of K9 and Voice of Nucleus), Michael Sheard (Lowe), Brian Grellis (Safran), Edmund Pegge (Meeker), Jay Neill (Silvey), Anthony Rowlands (Crewman), John Scott Martin (Nucleus), Frederick Jaeger (Professor Marius), Roy Herrick (Parsons), Roderick Smith (Cruikshank), Elizabeth Norman (Marius’ Nurse), Neil Curran (Reception Nurse), Jim McManus (Ophthalmologist), Kenneth Waller (Hedges) & Pat Gorman (Medic).

Writer: Dave Martin and Bob Baker

Director: Derrick Goodwin

Producer: Graham Williams

Composer: Dudley Simpson

Parts: 4

Original Broadcast Dates: 1st October – 22nd October 1977

Behind the Scenes

• Working titles included [The] Invisible Invader, The Invader Within and The Enemy Within.
• This story marks the return of the original, albeit revamped control room. The wooden control room used in the previous series had warped whilst in storage and repairs were too expensive.
• K-9 makes his debut in this story and kicks off a run of almost seven years featuring at least one non-human companion which lasted until the departure of Turlough and destruction of Kamelion in Planet of Fire.
• Due to the cost of K9 and the model sequence, there was little to no money for the Nucleus costume, which was unpopular with the cast and crew. Tom Baker in particular found it difficult to act opposite and John Scott Martin found it very uncomfortable.

Cast Notes

• John Leeson has continued in the role of K9 to date, with the exception of Season 17, where the role was played by David Brierley. Leeson was tempted back to the role by John Nathan-Turner, who promised that he would kill the character off within that season. Leeson also played Dugeen in The Power of Kroll.
• Michael Sheard had previously appeared in The Ark, The Mind of Evil and Pyramids of Mars. He would go on to appear in Castrovalva and Remembrance of the Daleks, as well as playing Orsino in the Big Finish play The Stones of Venice.
• Brian Grellis previously played Sheprah in Revenge of the Cybermen and would go on to appear in Snakedance, playing Megaphone Man.
• Jay Neill had previously appeared in uncredited roles in The Enemy of the World, Doctor Who and the Silurians and Colony in Space. He had credited roles in The Masque of Mandragora and Underworld.
• John Scott Martin is best known for being a Dalek operator, performing in all Dalek appearances in the Classic era, save for Destiny of the Daleks.
• Frederick Jaeger had previously played Jano in The Savages and Sorenson in Planet of Evil.
• Roy Herrick previously played Jean in The Reign of Terror and one of the voices of Xoanon in The Face of Evil.
• Pat Gorman made 73 appearances in serials, earning him position 7 in terms of appearing in the most serials.

Best Moment

I really like the cliffhanger to Part One, which sees the Doctor seemingly about to kill Leela. It is one of those moments that sends shivers up your spine and makes you intrigued to see more. Unfortunately, the story doesn’t stick with the idea of the possessed Doctor for too long.

Best Quote

Hahahaha! That was a good idea of mine, K-9, to blow it up!

Affirmative!

What do you mean, it was a good idea of yours? It was my idea!

What was?

To blow it up!

Then you should be feeling very happy.

The Fourth Doctor, K9 and Leela

Previous Fourth Doctor review: Horror of Fang Rock

For more Fourth Doctor reviews, click here.