Written by Bob Baker and Dave Martin
Directed by Derrick Goodwin

Doctor Who is a British science fiction television series which has been around off and on since 1963. The main character is just known as “The Doctor” and is a Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey. This means he travels through time to various places. One of his favorite places to visit is Earth. Typically, he has a companion traveling with him, usually female, sometimes male, sometimes one of each. He travels in a time machine known as a “TARDIS,” which is disguised as a British Police booth.

A Time Lord can regenerate if fatally wounded, which has accounted for all the different actors who have played The Doctor throughout the years.  In this story-arc, the Doctor is portrayed by Tom Baker.  Louise Jameson is Leela, a descendant of the survivors of a crashed space expedition by humans in the future.  The Invisible Enemy marks the first appearance of the robotic dog, K-9.

The Doctor and Leela are traveling in the TARDIS when he picks up a distress signal from an exploration ship.  Leela tells the Doctor that the voice canceling the distress call wasn’t human. However, the damage has been done.  What the Doctor wrote off as some static electricity in the circuits of the TARDIS was actually an infestation of the same organisms that have affected the crew of the exploration vessel.  The Doctor is now infected with what they have; only the organism inside him is known as the nucleus of the swarm, their leader.

They manage to get to a medical centre in space, where the staff is baffled as to how to combat the organism infesting the Doctor.  Unbeknownst to them, the sole survivor the Doctor and Leela brought with them, Lowe (portrayed by Michael Sheard) is also infected and is infecting the other inhabitants of the medical centre.

To combat this, clones of the Doctor and Leela are created, which are then shrunk down and inserted into him.

This is one of those stories that has garnered a good deal of negativity among Doctor Who fans, and it’s easy to understand why.  Just reading a recap of the storyline and thinking about the usual budget constraints the series was under, I could predict how bad it was going to be.  Still, there is a lot of good going for The Invisible Enemy.  The Doctor and Leela were my favorite combination when I was younger.  She was truly a friend of his, and there was less romantic tension between them than there was with other companions.  Watching them together was fun, and it is here too.  The acting by Tom Baker and Louise Jameson is great, as their ability to make the audience believe them is what keeps this story-arc from faltering altogether.

K-9’s introduction is also a source of consternation for many, but it was designed to create another companion without all of the baggage that would go along with another human in the TARDIS, as well as appealing to the younger audience (it’s said that Leela’s skimpy leather outfits were for the fathers in the audience).

The effects in The Invisible Enemy, though, are particularly bad.  Much of that has to do with the subject matter.  When the Doctor and Leela are inside the Doctor’s body, it’s nearly laughable.  The worst, though, has to be when K-9 shoots apart a wall to use as a barrier, and it’s quite obvious that the cut was there all along.  Most of the time I am willing to forgive the poor effects and just enjoy the story, but they are particularly bad here.

Still, the story is a decent one.  Frederick Jaeger is great as K-9’s creator, Professor Marius, as is the rest of the guest cast.  There are issues here, as this was in the days before CGI, and places that are supposed to be well-populated just don’t seem that way since there aren’t enough extras to fill in, nor any way to do it with computers.  The cast that is here, though, does the best they can, and they have decent material to work with.

The DVD is loaded with the usual extras that the BBC has been giving Doctor Who fans.  I just wish other studios would take a page from them and do the same instead of just slapping the episodes on a disc and calling it good.  Although Tom Baker doesn’t appear in the commentary, Jameson does, and coupled with John Leeson (voice of K-9) it’s a lot of fun to listen to. There is an option to view it with some CGI effects, and this was interesting, if a bit of a distraction.  It doesn’t flow quite as seamlessly as it should.

The Invisible Enemy might not be the best Doctor Who story-arc, but in some ways it is unfairly maligned.  It was a product of its time and its budget, and the result is nearly the best possible with all that working against it.  It’s definitely worth a look for those watching the series, although I wouldn’t choose this as a place to rope someone into the older series. There are better story-arcs for that.


SPECIAL FEATURES:

• Commentary with Louise Jameson, John Leeson, Bob Baker, Matt Irvin
· Information Text
· Dreams and Fantasy
· Studio Sweepings 
· Visual Effect
· Blue Peter
· CGI Effects
· Trailers and Continuity
· Photo Gallery
• Radio Times Listings