The Invisible Enemy

Apologists for 'The Invisible Enemy' like to affectionately describe it as "grand folly". I like to define it as "utter cobblers". Saddled with a stupid plot, very cheap-looking production values, an extremely silly monster, and bad acting, it comes as a massive disappointment after 'Horror of Fang Rock' and has also aged very badly.

'The Invisible Enemy' suffers from arguably the worst script Bob Baker and Dave Martin ever contributed to the series, and they wrote 'The Three Doctors'. The plot is laden with unconvincing and silly technobabble, three points of which I shall address. The first is the Swarm; frequently described as a virus, the Swarm bears no resemblance to anything actually approaching a virus in real life. Viruses are small stretches of nucleic acid wrapped in a protein coat and sometimes a lipid envelope. The Swarm is a megalomaniac seafood platter with the ability to infect robots, survive outside of a host after having been increased in size by an enormous factor, and give its hosts big silver eyebrows. Slightly hypocritically, I probably wouldn't mind so much if some pseudoscientific description of a micro-dimensional organism had been provided, but by calling it a virus, the writers drive me to distraction throughout. The second item of unconvincing technobabble concerns the clones. It was apparently noted by a viewer at the time that if the clones in Episodes Two and Three were real clones, they would be stark-bollock naked. The process of cloning described bears about as much resemblance to any real basis of cloning as a haddock bears to Peru, with the process seemingly producing telepathic clones with a psychic connection to their originals, and also managing to clone knives and guns. Which is impressive. In fact, the "clones" are more akin to the transmat duplicates described in 'Down', 'The Slow Empire', Barry Letts' execrable Blake's 7 audio 'The SevenFold Crown', and (I am informed) Star Trek. Mention of the clones brings us to the third point of technobabble and by the far the most ludicrous: The Doctor's brain. The Doctor is not human; he is a Time Lord. This being the case, I can be convinced that his physiology is different to that of a human, but depicting the inside of his brain as a series of garish dry tunnels with foam rubber décor stretches credibility to new limits. Whereas in 'The Brain of Morbius' we had a Time Lord brain that looked more or less like a human's, here we see the Brain of Tawdriness, a farcical journey through one of the least convincing sets in the entire history of the series. The script of course is paying homage to Fantastic Voyage, but both that film and its thematic sequel Inner Space, sensibly showed the body to be full of fluid. Here, budgetary concerns could not possibly allow this, so instead of doing the humane thing and setting fire to the script, the production team create the interior of a brain out of some reddish paint and old drapes. 

'The Invisible Enemy' look awful throughout. The sets on the Titan base look, basically, like cheap studio sets, rather than a futuristic metal walled outpost. The costumes are immensely silly, especially the massive-headed spacesuits in Episode One, which look like they have been drawn for a Warner Bros cartoon, and the green PVC overalls and skull-caps worn by the personnel of the Bi-Al Foundation. The model shot of the shuttle crashing into the Bi-Al Foundation amusingly reminds me of the space battle from Monty Pythons' The Life of Brian, as the shuttle careers widely from side to side as it plummets towards its target. The worst aspect of the entire production is the Nucleus, looking, as it does, like a giant prawn. The scenes of its human slaves rolling it along corridors are unintentionally hilarious, and this makes the Doctor's concerned proclamation that the Swarm could overrun the solar system like a plague of giant locusts highly entertaining, since the things can barely move and the Nuclues does little except wobble menacingly. And on the subject of the Bi-Al Foundation, I don't care how advanced medical science and hygiene techniques have become by the year five thousand, the sight of a man about to perform surgery whilst wearing an old jacket will always be ludicrous. 

With dodgy script and dodgy production values, we might hope to look to good acting for solace, but sadly it is not to be. Everyone in the cast seems thoroughly bored, except for Frederick Jaeger, who seems to be taking the piss to keep himself amused. After his excellent performance as Jano in 'The Savages' and as Sorenson in 'Planet of Evil', his outrageous accent here comes as something of a shock. As do his facial hair and spectacles. Michael Sheard, normally so reliable, here seems slightly stunned by the paucity of the programme he's been tricked into making, and puts in a performance as Lowe that makes him look constipated. Tom Baker seems particularly bored and lacks all of the intensity he brought to 'Horror of Fang Rock'. Louise Jameson comes across the best, especially when her instincts are warning her of danger in Episode One, but the end of the story she too seems bored. Leela also gets to use her knife on people for the first time, which ends up looking very unconvincing due to the lack of blood, which the production team of course could not have got away with. 

Amidst all this rubbish however, there are two things I like about 'The Invisible Enemy'. The first, trivial though it is, is the "Finglish" used for the signs in the Titan base and the Bi-Al Foundation; as an attempt to show that languages evolve and change over time, it is a rather nice idea. The second is K9. For fans who bemoan the change in direction after Graham Williams took over from Phillip Hinchcliffe, K9 is probably an object of some hatred, clearly designed as he is to appeal to a younger audience and emphasizing the change away from more horror-orientated and arguably more adult stories. In addition, I hadn't noticed until now how badly he's aged; the white cleaning robot in the Fosters lager advert looks more state-of-the-art than K9 does, and the initial problems with the actual prop are in evidence here, with K9 making a considerable racket whenever he moves. Despite this however, I can't help but like him. There's something about the concept of the Doctor owning a robot dog that makes it seem perfectly at home in the series, and John Leeson's enthusiastic vocal performance helps to make K9 endearing. 'The Invisible Enemy' is hardly his best story, but he nevertheless manages to make an immediate impression. 

Overall, 'The Invisible Enemy' is televisual diarrhoea, and it is unfortunate that Graham Williams' first real chance to put his stamp on the programme after the Hinchcliffe-like 'Horror of Fang Rock' should go so badly wrong. It doesn't help that it is followed by a much more impressive story which, like 'Horror of Fang Rock', also feels like a leftover from the previous producer's era…