The Invisible Enemy
Encyclopedia
The Invisible Enemy is a serial in the British
science fiction television series Doctor Who
, which was first broadcast in four weekly parts from 1 October to 22 October 1977. The serial introduced the Doctor's newest companion
, the robot dog K-9
, voiced by John Leeson
.
, a shuttle crew on their way to Titan
encounters a cloud in space that infects them with an intelligent virus. When the Doctor
answers the distress call, he is infected as well. As the virus spreads, the only way to stop it is to enter the Doctor's body and fight the nucleus directly.
The TARDIS is travelling through the same region, and is infected by the virus. The infection passes to the Doctor, but he is unaffected for the moment. He and Leela hear the distress call and go to investigate. While there, the Doctor is overcome by repeated infections and is chosen, due to his incredible powers as a Time Lord, to be the host of the Nucleus of the Swarm. Leela is unable to be infected.
The Nucleus declares her a reject and orders that she be killed. The Doctor manages to break free of his infection and tells Leela how to get the TARDIS to the nearest medical centre. Accompanying them is Lowe, who has been infected, although the Doctor and Leela don't know this.
At the medical station, the Doctor's doctor, Professor Marius, introduces the group to K-9, a robotic dog he made to replace the real dog he had to leave on Earth. Professor Marius is baffled as to how to treat the Doctor's strange infection. Meanwhile, Lowe has been infecting the staff of the hospital.
Leela and the Doctor decide on a last-ditch strategy. They create clones of themselves, which can only survive for ten minutes due to problems with the technique. The clones will then be shrunk and inserted into the Doctor. There they will destroy the Nucleus and escape through a tear duct. In the meantime, Leela and K-9 fight off the infected staff of the hospital.
After a hazardous voyage through his mind, the Doctor's clone and Leela's clone are separated, and the Doctor's clone reaches the Nucleus. He has no weapons with which to destroy it, and it learns the intended escape route of the Doctor's clone, since the Doctor thought of it. Prof. Marius faithfully retrieves something from the tear duct and expands it to human size. It turns out to be the Nucleus. The Doctor is cured of his infection.
The Nucleus and the infected staff leave for Titan Base so the Nucleus can spawn. The Doctor realizes he is cured since Leela's clone introduced into his blood stream her immunity factor. He replicates it and gives it to Prof. Marius. The Doctor, Leela, and K-9 proceed to Titan Base in the TARDIS.
They just barely manage to fight off the infected humans, but are again without sufficient weaponry to destroy the Nucleus, or its many children, which are about to hatch as "macro-sized" beings, like the newly macro-sized Nucleus. The Doctor manages to jam the door they are behind and rigs a gun to fire into a cloud of Oxygen gas he is releasing and escapes. As intended, when the Swarm finally forces open the door, the blaster fires, igniting the Oxygen in Titan's methane
atmosphere and destroying the Swarm and the base.
When they return to the hospital, they thank Prof. Marius for the use of K-9, who has ably assisted them. Prof. Marius offers K-9 to the Doctor, as he is due to return to Earth, and the Doctor and Leela leave with their new companion in the TARDIS.
s of Leela and the Doctor journey inside the Doctor's brain was partially inspired by the 1966 film Fantastic Voyage
.
newspaper on the Monday following the second episode's transmission, critic Stanley Reynolds gave the story a generally negative reception. He also pointed out that in ITV
regions where the series was competing with Man from Atlantis, it was now losing the ratings war.
"In the current story, The Invisible Enemy, now halfway through its four-week run, a malignant virus has struck a space station," wrote Reynolds. "Some evil force is attempting to take the station, and undoubtedly the universe, over. When one is being 'taken over' those sort of lightning flashes like the advert for learning how to hypnotize, travel from the eyes of the villain to the one having the fluence put upon him. One then gets rather furry of face and hand, but the appeal of Dr Who has always been the monster and this time out the BBC seems to have lost its touch with monsters... Maybe the leggy Leela is there for the dad and more earthy 14-year-olds, rather like those appalling rhythmic girls who practise dancing each week on Top of the Pops
. Of course the return of the Dalek
s is all Dr Who needs; what the Top of the Pops girls need is something else, but that is neither here nor there."
, was published by Target Books
in March 1979.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
science fiction television series Doctor Who
Doctor Who
Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...
, which was first broadcast in four weekly parts from 1 October to 22 October 1977. The serial introduced the Doctor's newest companion
Companion (Doctor Who)
In the long-running BBC television science fiction programme Doctor Who and related works, the term "companion" refers to a character who travels with, and shares the adventures of the Doctor. In most Doctor Who stories, the primary companion acts as both deuteragonist and audience surrogate...
, the robot dog K-9
K-9 (Doctor Who)
K-9, or K9, is the name of several fictional robotic canines in the long-running British science fiction television series, Doctor Who, first appearing in 1977...
, voiced by John Leeson
John Leeson
John Leeson is a British actor who is best known for voicing K-9 on the television series Doctor Who from 1977 to 1979, and again in the 1980–1981 season. He was called back to do the voice of K-9 again for the 2006 episode "School Reunion" and again for the 2008 Doctor Who episode "Journey's End"...
.
Synopsis
In the year 5000, when man is spreading himself across the solar systemSolar System
The Solar System consists of the Sun and the astronomical objects gravitationally bound in orbit around it, all of which formed from the collapse of a giant molecular cloud approximately 4.6 billion years ago. The vast majority of the system's mass is in the Sun...
, a shuttle crew on their way to Titan
Titan (moon)
Titan , or Saturn VI, is the largest moon of Saturn, the only natural satellite known to have a dense atmosphere, and the only object other than Earth for which clear evidence of stable bodies of surface liquid has been found....
encounters a cloud in space that infects them with an intelligent virus. When the Doctor
Doctor (Doctor Who)
The Doctor is the central character in the long-running BBC television science-fiction series Doctor Who, and has also featured in two cinema feature films, a vast range of spin-off novels, audio dramas and comic strips connected to the series....
answers the distress call, he is infected as well. As the virus spreads, the only way to stop it is to enter the Doctor's body and fight the nucleus directly.
Plot
Mankind is colonizing space at a fantastic rate. Some human space travellers are cruising near the outer planets of the solar system with their ship on autopilot. The ship's computer, and soon the human crew, is possessed by a strange virus. Reaching their destination, Titan Base, they proceed to take over the base as a breeding ground. The station manager, Lowe is able to send out a distress call.The TARDIS is travelling through the same region, and is infected by the virus. The infection passes to the Doctor, but he is unaffected for the moment. He and Leela hear the distress call and go to investigate. While there, the Doctor is overcome by repeated infections and is chosen, due to his incredible powers as a Time Lord, to be the host of the Nucleus of the Swarm. Leela is unable to be infected.
The Nucleus declares her a reject and orders that she be killed. The Doctor manages to break free of his infection and tells Leela how to get the TARDIS to the nearest medical centre. Accompanying them is Lowe, who has been infected, although the Doctor and Leela don't know this.
At the medical station, the Doctor's doctor, Professor Marius, introduces the group to K-9, a robotic dog he made to replace the real dog he had to leave on Earth. Professor Marius is baffled as to how to treat the Doctor's strange infection. Meanwhile, Lowe has been infecting the staff of the hospital.
Leela and the Doctor decide on a last-ditch strategy. They create clones of themselves, which can only survive for ten minutes due to problems with the technique. The clones will then be shrunk and inserted into the Doctor. There they will destroy the Nucleus and escape through a tear duct. In the meantime, Leela and K-9 fight off the infected staff of the hospital.
After a hazardous voyage through his mind, the Doctor's clone and Leela's clone are separated, and the Doctor's clone reaches the Nucleus. He has no weapons with which to destroy it, and it learns the intended escape route of the Doctor's clone, since the Doctor thought of it. Prof. Marius faithfully retrieves something from the tear duct and expands it to human size. It turns out to be the Nucleus. The Doctor is cured of his infection.
The Nucleus and the infected staff leave for Titan Base so the Nucleus can spawn. The Doctor realizes he is cured since Leela's clone introduced into his blood stream her immunity factor. He replicates it and gives it to Prof. Marius. The Doctor, Leela, and K-9 proceed to Titan Base in the TARDIS.
They just barely manage to fight off the infected humans, but are again without sufficient weaponry to destroy the Nucleus, or its many children, which are about to hatch as "macro-sized" beings, like the newly macro-sized Nucleus. The Doctor manages to jam the door they are behind and rigs a gun to fire into a cloud of Oxygen gas he is releasing and escapes. As intended, when the Swarm finally forces open the door, the blaster fires, igniting the Oxygen in Titan's methane
Methane
Methane is a chemical compound with the chemical formula . It is the simplest alkane, the principal component of natural gas, and probably the most abundant organic compound on earth. The relative abundance of methane makes it an attractive fuel...
atmosphere and destroying the Swarm and the base.
When they return to the hospital, they thank Prof. Marius for the use of K-9, who has ably assisted them. Prof. Marius offers K-9 to the Doctor, as he is due to return to Earth, and the Doctor and Leela leave with their new companion in the TARDIS.
Continuity
- A new TARDISTARDISThe TARDISGenerally, TARDIS is written in all upper case letters—this convention was popularised by the Target novelisations of the 1970s...
console room debuts in this story, replacing the more Victorian, auxiliary console room that had been used for the previous season. That console room set had been exposed to moisture in the break between seasons and warped to the point that it was no longer usable. The re-designed TARDIS console, which had last appeared in Pyramids of MarsPyramids of MarsPyramids of Mars is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four weekly parts from 25 October to 15 November 1975.-Synopsis:...
, is once again used from this story up until The King's DemonsThe King's DemonsThe King's Demons is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was originally broadcast in two parts on March 15 and March 16, 1983...
. - In part 2, Gallifrey is assumed to be in IrelandIrelandIreland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
, much the same as TeganTegan JovankaTegan Jovanka is a fictional character played by Janet Fielding in the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. An Australian airline stewardess and a native of Brisbane who was a companion of the Fourth and Fifth Doctors, she was a regular in the programme from 1981 to...
tells her captors in Arc of InfinityArc of InfinityArc of Infinity is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four twice-weekly parts from 3 January to 12 January 1983...
. Gallifrey was also assumed to be in Ireland in The Hand of FearThe Hand of FearThe Hand of Fear is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four weekly parts from 2 October to 23 October 1976...
, in "Human NatureHuman Nature (Doctor Who)Human Nature is an original novel written by Paul Cornell, from a plot by Cornell and Kate Orman, and based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. The novel was also serialised in e-book form on the BBC Doctor Who website, but was removed from the site in 2010...
", and in the novel Blood HarvestBlood HarvestBlood Harvest is an original novel written by Terrance Dicks and based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It features vampires in common with Dicks' 1980 television serial State of Decay and makes reference to that story's events as well as to those of The...
.
Production
- Working titles for this story included The Enemy Within, The Invader Within and The Invisible Invader.
- It was not decided until late in the production that K-9 was to be a new companion. The decision to use it in multiple serials was made partly to offset the expense that had gone into making the prop.
Cast notes
- Michael Sheard (Lowe) makes his fourth of six appearances in Doctor Who.
- Brian GrellisBrian GrellisBrian Grellis is a British actor, best known for his role in the television series Z-Cars as Det. Sgt. Bowker.Other TV credits include: Softly, Softly, Pathfinders, The Regiment, Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?, The Onedin Line, The Good Life, Last of the Summer Wine, Survivors, Enemy at the...
previously played Sheprah in Revenge of the CybermenRevenge of the CybermenRevenge of the Cybermen is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four weekly parts from 19 April to 10 May 1975.-Synopsis:...
and would later appear as the Megaphone Man in SnakedanceSnakedance*In post-production, episode four of this story overran very badly. As a result, it had to be completely restructured. Originally the door for a third Mara adventure was to be left open, with closing scenes discussing the ultimate fate of the Great Crystal. Furthermore, a sequence in which the...
. - Frederick Jaeger (Marius) also played Jano in The Savages in 1966 and Professor Sorenson in Planet of EvilPlanet of EvilThe plot was deliberately conceived by Philip Hinchcliffe, Robert Holmes and Louis Marks as a mixture of the film Forbidden Planet and the novella The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. In addition, Marks had been reading science magazine articles about antimatter, and decided to write a...
in 1975.
Outside references
The sequence in which the miniaturized cloneCloning
Cloning in biology is the process of producing similar populations of genetically identical individuals that occurs in nature when organisms such as bacteria, insects or plants reproduce asexually. Cloning in biotechnology refers to processes used to create copies of DNA fragments , cells , or...
s of Leela and the Doctor journey inside the Doctor's brain was partially inspired by the 1966 film Fantastic Voyage
Fantastic Voyage
Fantastic Voyage is a 1966 science fiction film written by Harry Kleiner, based on a story by Otto Klement and Jerome Bixby.Bantam Books obtained the rights for a paperback novelization based on the screenplay and approached Isaac Asimov to write it....
.
Reception
Reviewing the serial for The TimesThe Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
newspaper on the Monday following the second episode's transmission, critic Stanley Reynolds gave the story a generally negative reception. He also pointed out that in ITV
ITV
ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...
regions where the series was competing with Man from Atlantis, it was now losing the ratings war.
"In the current story, The Invisible Enemy, now halfway through its four-week run, a malignant virus has struck a space station," wrote Reynolds. "Some evil force is attempting to take the station, and undoubtedly the universe, over. When one is being 'taken over' those sort of lightning flashes like the advert for learning how to hypnotize, travel from the eyes of the villain to the one having the fluence put upon him. One then gets rather furry of face and hand, but the appeal of Dr Who has always been the monster and this time out the BBC seems to have lost its touch with monsters... Maybe the leggy Leela is there for the dad and more earthy 14-year-olds, rather like those appalling rhythmic girls who practise dancing each week on Top of the Pops
Top of the Pops
Top of the Pops, also known as TOTP, is a British music chart television programme, made by the BBC and originally broadcast weekly from 1 January 1964 to 30 July 2006. After 25 December 2006 it became a radio program, now hosted by Tony Blackburn...
. Of course the return of the Dalek
Dalek
The Daleks are a fictional extraterrestrial race of mutants from the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. Within the series, Daleks are cyborgs from the planet Skaro, created by the scientist Davros during the final years of a thousand-year war against the Thals...
s is all Dr Who needs; what the Top of the Pops girls need is something else, but that is neither here nor there."
In print
A novelisation of this serial, written by Terrance DicksTerrance Dicks
Terrance Dicks is an English writer, best known for his work in television and for writing a large number of popular children's books during the 1970s and 80s.- Early career :...
, was published by Target Books
Target Books
Target Books was a British publishing imprint, established in 1973 by Universal-Tandem Publishing Co Ltd, a paperback publishing company. The imprint was established as a children's imprint to complement the adult Tandem imprint, and became well known for their highly successful range of...
in March 1979.
VHS and DVD release
- The story was released on VHSVHSThe Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....
in September 2002. - The DVDDVDA DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
was released on 16 June 2008 with the spin off "K-9 and CompanyK-9 and CompanyK-9 and Company was a proposed television spin-off of the original programme run of Doctor Who . It was to feature former series regulars Sarah Jane Smith, an investigative journalist played by Elisabeth Sladen, and K-9, a robotic dog. Both characters had been companions of the Fourth Doctor, but...
" in a double pack called "K-9 Tales".