4.19: The Invisible Enemy

In which the wheels start to come off – with tin dog and prawn.

Broadcast: October 1977

Watched: July 2020

The Invisible Enemy, Part One

God, Michael Sheard gets about a bit, doesn’t he? [He was last in Who two years earlier, in Pyramids of Mars. He’d been in two stories before that, and will be in two more, plus a Big Finish audio, after this one.]

Weird how specific the future history is here – it’s not just that “the Great Breakout” doesn’t fit with the rest of Who, it’s that it’s stated so explicitly, which the series doesn’t normally bother with. It’s very odd. [In this story and basically no others humanity is confined to the solar system until around the year 5000.]

A lot of the space stuff and model work is quite impressive, even though I know it’s going to turn to crap before the story is out. Some interesting direction too. The virus make-up looks ridiculous, but I, unexpectedly, really enjoyed that.

The Invisible Enemy, Part Two

“That tin thing is my best friend.”

Yeah this rapidly gets extremely silly doesn’t it? Suddenly everyone looks and acts ridiculous.

Oh look, it’s Professor Sorenson again. Between him and Sheard it feels like they’re recycling guest stars surprisingly quickly. 

I like that the eye section has a massive painting of an eye on the wall.

The Invisible Enemy, Part Three

“It’s very interesting.” “Thank you.”

Very long recap and a short episode – is this because they were struggling to film this one, or is it just there’s a lot to explain so that anyone knows WTF is going on? (Not that they succeed.)

The attempt to use music to make being attacked by some white balloons dramatic is very brave. I don’t think the trip into the Doctor’s head is a failure, exactly, it’s just kind of... there.

K9 being infected makes no sense. I’m almost offended on Leela’s behalf by all the “reject” stuff.

I like the way all the floor numbers have unnecessary X’s in them, but the word “exit” is spelled “eggsit” on a wall.

The giant prawn is so shit, why do they make it the fucking cliffhanger? Why? Why?

The Invisible Enemy, Part Four

Oh right this is one of those that gets worse by the episode isn’t it. 

Bob and Dave [the writers] don’t seem to know what a virus is.

I’ve no idea what’s going on, but on the upside I don’t care very much. And then it ends with an explosion because they ran out of ideas.

Leela begging to be allowed to keep a robot dog is quite undignified. Though not quite as undignified as the “I only hope he’s TARDIS trained!” joke. Sod off.

The thought occurs that Frederick Jaeger played three roles in Who, and every one of them gets to be both good and evil at different times. Odd typecasting.