The Invisible Enemy

Ooh, very spacey.  

Space, the rock filled frontier! 

A fairy liquid bottle flies through pretty much the densest asteroid field ever in Who. 

There's a crew of only 3. Their white plasticky spacesuits look a bit cheap. 

Dame Frogalot @fuddlemark ·I love the way the BBC repurposes lounge chairs and office furniture to build a cockpit set.

50dw50 ‏@50dw50  i think "...look a bit cheap" is gong to be a constant refrain 

Production values sure plummeted for season 15. 

Though the model work is rather lovely, to be fair.  

There's something weird in space, a puff of smoke, something liquidy then space lightning. 

"Contact has been made."

Aboard the TARDIS, Leela is rearranging the furniture. 

Leela looks great in the Doctor's hat! 

Dame Frogalot @fuddlemark ·Leela looks sexy in the Doctor’s hat. 

The Doctor calls this the number 2 control room. BS, this is number 1 and he knows it. So good to be back. 

50dw50 ‏@50dw50  even the new TARDIS console room looks less substantial than the previous ones 

Certainly seems to have less floor space. Not as bigger on the inside as it used to be! Classic white all the way for me, though. 

Charming model work here, despite the naff production values elsewhere. 

Nice work from deadly Dudley on this one, too. 

The space crew have tacky orange reflective visors that help them crash the party on Titan base. 

The Titan base crew are on the champers, but the celebration is soon called off... 

Michael Bater @GreenLeftie Always thought they were extra's in a Pet Shop Boys

Those three spacemen are planning to breed and multiply. Good luck with that, chaps. 

Dame Frogalot @fuddlemark · “There’s nothing wrong here. This place is most suitable.” Brr!  

Yay, Michael Sheard! 

Michael Bater @GreenLeftie  Has he put anyone on detention yet? 

Love Brian Grellis' possessed voice as the infected Saffran. 

Dame Frogalot @fuddlemark · Another thing I love about Classic #DoctorWho is the way each actor chooses his own way to die, never mind the director.

Supervisor Lowe realizes something is up and scarpers before the virusmen can catch him. 

The supervisor's mayday reaches the TARDIS. 

"A parrot's a bird that repeats things. Move over." "Move over!" Love it when Leela's sarky. 

The TARDIS heads into the space cloud; shades of Matt Smith's first title sequence in the DVD's CGI option... 

Leela's spidey-sense is tingling. 

The Doctor is zapped through the console!  

"Contact has been made. The nucleus has found a host." 

The TARDIS needs a better firewall, that virus got through way too easily. 

Leela is zapped, but is curiously unaffected... 

Dame Frogalot @fuddlemark · For an invisible enemy, these guys sure seem pretty visible to me.  

The Doctor calls Leela "Lally" and garbles his words. Tom's come directly from the BBC bar... 

50dw50 ‏@50dw50  or had a premonition as to one of his future wives 

Michael Bater @GreenLeftie  In a BBC out takes reel, one scene all he says is drink, brick, feck! 

Leela senses evil. The Doctor goes anyway; there's a mayday and people need help. 

Michael Sheard tries to arrest the virus men so they decide to put him on ice. 

Michael Bater @GreenLeftie   Those pesky Grange Hill kids! All he wants to do is run a good disciplined school!

Not only are all the base signs in crazy phonetic spelling but the font is nuts too. 

The Doctor tries a duck call. Expecting Titan to be overrun with ducks?

Leela claims to "smell danger". 

Tom tells Leela to stay in the TARDIS. Like that's going to happen. 

The virus men zap Tom and he decides breeding can begin from his nucleus. 

Love Tom's creepy possessed voice. "There's nothing wrong with this place, it's most suitable." 

Dame Frogalot @fuddlemark · This is darkly hilarious and seriously disturbing. I’ve enjoyed it so far.

Lally helps Bronson thaw out. 

The virusmen send the Doctor to kill Leela; her immunity makes her a threat to them. 

Now that Leela's helped Lowe recover... 

...they take on a virusman, only for Lowe to become infected. 

The Doctor struggles against the virus' control... 

...as it orders the death of "the reject" Leela! 

50dw50 ‏@50dw50  well its known that they did not get on at the time.

Michael Bater @GreenLeftie  She much prefered John Nettels!

I've often thought this story boring till they get to the hospital, but that part flew by.

So bizarre to see the usually invulnerable, constantly reliable Doctor, taken over. Leela is shifted center stage. 

Dame Frogalot @fuddlemark ·
 Making the Doctor a threat is a great but terrifying way to let the new companion shine. 

The Doctor struggles against "the purpose" to save Leela, but collapses with the strain.

50dw50 ‏@50dw50  he hates dolphins as well 

*argh!* Lol. Never trust a dolphin. What are they always so happy about, eh? 

Bek Hobbes ‏@Greebobek  Sings "So long and thanks for all the fish..." 

Tom decides to "do a Pertwee" and put himself into a coma for a bit, but gives Lally the co-ordinates to get him to the local hozzy.

50dw50 ‏@50dw50  and she can fly the TARDIS now!!!!! she has been well educated recently when you consider Adric and Nyssa never mastered it

She doesn't overthink it, and just "parrots" what the Doctor does, I guess!

Oh dear, Mr. Bronson's got the lurgy now. 

Leela has some mysterious immunity; they need to find out why. 

The possessed supervisor hides his infection with one of those awful orange visors... 

...and tricks Leela into letting him tag along... 

...as they take the Doctor in the TARDIS to the Bi-Al medical foundation. 

"Gallifrey"
"Ireland?"

"I expect so." 

Now a running joke, following the Hand of Fear. 

Michael Bater @GreenLeftie   It need's to be recycled 

Got a nod in Human Nature, didn't it?

This Professor's a bit batty, but I quite like his robot dog. 

K9's voice is deeper than we're used to first time out. 

"I can't stay mindless for eternity!" Simon Cowell prays the reverse is true of the British TV viewing public. 

Tom cosies up to K9. 

Mr. Bronson goes on a recruitment drive. 

K9 is proper bolshy. "I am K9 and I'm warning you! I have offensive capabilities!" 

Bronson & the virus men (another great band name) run riot in the hospital, having decided it's ideal for spreading viruses. Bloody MRSA. 

Dame Frogalot @fuddlemark · The camera cuts away just before we realise that all four actors won’t fit in the space they’re climbing into. 

A shuttle crashes into the base. 

Tom just crawls back into bed. Know the feeling. 

Steve Powner ‏@StevePowner  Just how I feel this morning love this story great fun 

Michael Bater @GreenLeftie   Hang over most likely

The green PVC suits for the hospital staff are awful. 

The Doctor picks K9's brain on the subject of cloning... Two Toms are better than one, it seems! Not sure Lalla Ward would agree. 

50dw50 ‏@50dw50  even my DVD of this is mucked up, one of the cliffhangers has its scenes the wrong way around... 

You must have one from the original pressing - they all had that error and you had to send them back to the beeb for a replacement! I got sent a free copy of the Hand of Fear with it as a 'sorry' gesture too! I already had it, but it's the thought that counts.  

James Cooray Smith@thejimsmith  You could send off for a replacement disc on release. They also sent you a copy of The Hand of Fear as an apology.  

50dw50 ‏@50dw50  that explains the glut of Hand of Fears on ebay! 

Gave mine to my bro. He's now got almost the complete range. Another victim claimed! :-D 

We actually had ours replaced by a Dalek! (@Samanthacarey84 took it to the post room in the old BBC Manchester for sending off to be replaced and there was a Dalek in the post room!) 

Michael Bater @GreenLeftie  Not sure what I would of done if it was a free copy of 'Fear Her,' with a sorry note on it! 

"Can you explain simply?"

"Negative." 

The Doctor and Leela are cloned... 

...and then shrunk down... 

...and injected into the hungover Tom's neck. 

They swirl down the plughole! 

Dame Frogalot @fuddlemark · Really this whole “clone” subplot is another attempt by Tom Baker to prove he doesn’t need a companion. 

He'd have loved a mini-me in his pocket to whip out to explain the plot every now and again.

50dw50 ‏@50dw50  the sound in the background is Louise Jameson weeping

The CSO on the clones in the Doctor's brain is vastly superior to the work in Underworld. 

You can see why Williams would have been persuaded it would work for Underworld. 

There's a Leela, loose, aboot this hoose-pital! 

50dw50 ‏@50dw50  i suppose it was easier for part of an episode than an entire story, it helps that its supposed to be surreal environment 

"What do you know about brains anyway?" 

Leela is attacked by the Doctor's Rovers. 

"I think I told them my liver was disintegrating..." 

The (biological) virus makes contact with (computerised) K9. Er, how? 

Mark Walker ‏@Mark_Walker  you can't worry about the hows in #DoctorWho 

True. Far more important to worry about the WTFs!  

Bronson sets K9 onto Leela so she plays dead. 

Bronson and the virusmen crash the lab and menace Marius into sending a Lowe clone into the Doctor's body... 

K9 has managed to erase the virus whilst on his recharge setting. Good old K9. 

They're headed into the dark side of Tom Baker's mind. Abandon hope all ye who enter here! 

Marius succumbs... 

Doctor Clone and Leela Clone are pursued by Bronson Clone.  

We seem to be treading water a bit here, with the scenes in the hospital & the Doctor in his own brain. Plod, plod, plod. 

But now here's the villain of the piece, the nucleus of the swarm, who's a blob with a pincer! 

"What do you mean carriers, I'm not a porter!" 

Bronson's in the Doctor's brain but clone Leela soon sacrifices him to the Doctor's booze cells. 

Virus-y Prof plans to restore the clones to full size & interrogate them, but instead he's unleashed the nucleus! Idiot. 

Love this swelling organ riff from deadly Dudley as the nucleus grows. 

Leela's immunity passed to the Doctor when her clone dissolved, so now they know the cure.

The nucleus has ideas above its station now it's made it to the macro world. The Age of the Virus has begun! 

The nucleus is like Alpha Centauri's spikier, even uglier, evil cousin. 

Great villain voice from John Leeson, by the way.

Leela takes time out to dress in a PVC nurse's uniform. That's actually what happens. 

It works, too - she's able to sneak past the others... 

...and get the Doctor back to the TARDIS. 

K9 zaps Marius, who had run out of turtle shells to throw at him. 

The virusmen depart for the Titan base, to allow the nucleus to incubate and multiply there. It is most suitable, after all.

The Doctor and Leela cure Marius. 

Are we there yet? 

Leela goes all Brigadier: "Why don't we just blow up Titan?" 

Sheard and the virusmen prepare Titan base to incubate the nucleus' eggs. 

"Shall we try using our intelligence?"
"Well, if you think that's a good idea..." 

Marius insists they take K9 to Titan. Can't wait to be rid of him, can he? 

The virusmen are expecting them, though! 

Dame Frogalot @fuddlemark · “Your futile attempt has failed, as we knew it would!” Yes. Because it was futile. That’s how you can tell.  

Leela and K9 pick off the virus men... 

Eggs! 

Bronson kicks off, so K9 lays him out. 

Tom goes all Bobby DeNiro.
"Is that you Time Lord?"

"There's no one else here so it must be me." 

The Doctor nearly does a runner without Leela! Oops! 

Tom blows up the incubation banks and then has a good chuckle about it in the TARDIS. 

Professor Marius palms K9 off on them. 

"I only hope he's TARDIS trained." 

Oof. Terrible gag.  

Dame Frogalot @fuddlemark · That was actually pretty good. Why isn’t #TheInvisibleEnemy up there in the pantheon of great episodes? Far worse get idolised.

Its production values do it no favours, I think. Maybe the plot's a bit too simple for some? Dunno. It's quite enjoyable! 

50dw50 ‏@50dw50  i think people find it hard to see past the production problems. Has to be said for all its many problems its never dull 

 

TTFN! K.

Coming Soon... Castrovalva