This Way Up Alt: The Invisible Enemy

Season15@40. Or `Invisibull Nme` if you’re reading this in the far future. This story has a poor reputation derived largely from the appearance of antagonist the Nucleus of the Swarm which is basically a giant prawn made out of coloured plastic that needs to be pushed along the floor to move. However dodgy looking monsters came with the territory in the 1970s and if they were a problem then an average of almost eight million people would not have been watching. This is a Bob and Dave extravaganza and for two blokes with such normal names they certainly knew how to throw all kinds of colourful things at Doctor Who viewers over the years. Against a track record that included the Axons, the Gellguards and Eldrad’s blobby domain, the Nucleus seems positively tame by comparison! Besides there are other faults in a story whose relentless enthusiasm often gets the better of its logic. One thing’s for certain - `The Invisible Enemy` is never dull!

Actually in semi darkness the Nucleus doesn’t look too bad, but exposed in strong studio lights you can see not only the string holding its secondary claws up a la Alpha Centauri but the material it’s spines are made from. The head and bulbous eyes are quite effective, it’s just the body that looks awkward and there’s no disguising the fact that its minions appear to be rolling it along on wheels. Had the plot been able to contrive a means by which it could only appear in an enclosed environment in dim lighting – as it does latterly- I doubt its reputation would be so low. Despite its shortcomings I do actually quite like it and much of that is to do with John Leeson’s excellent voice work.

Lest we forget this story is also the introduction of K9. While the robot dog is a brilliant idea rendered and voiced fantastically its use is soon changed from a sort of luxury portable computer to a handy mobile arsenal. I wonder how different things would have been had K9 been built without defensive properties- indeed I wonder why Professor Marius thought to arm it so effectively. To try and keep K9 from becoming the answer to all tight corners, the writers employ a need for it to recharge every so often but this only draws attention to its convenience as it always powers up just in time to save the day. The engine is a bit of a problem too though none of the characters seem to be able to notice. It is a good thing though to finally have a companion who is not a human and an early indicator of the way the Graham Williams period would shift the show towards the more fantastical and away from the literary and pulp influences that had informed Philip Hinchcliffe’s tenure.

So John Leeson is the unsung hero of this story. His debut as K9 is better remembered and here he gives the metal dog more character than any of the humans we meet. What I love about his K9 is the hint of superior mischievousness that occasionally shows. K9 is both a great thing for kids and an intelligent aid for adults to enjoy. No wonder it joined the crew. Yet Leeson’s best turn is as the Nucleus voice oozing menace and threat and doing a sort of angry gargling that really conveys something alien.

This is both an ambitious yet simple story. Its plot by numbers holds no surprises as such and contains only surface deep characters. In fact it’s hard to think of a story of such vintage which has as many speaking parts yet as few actual characters. Only Professor Marius is written as anything other than a functional person and even he is something of a clichéd brilliant but dotty scientist. Yet the scale of the story is something else and there are a number of occasions when the production values cannot support it. We have to rely on speeches about the size of the Swarm spreading out across the Universe or the size of the Bi Al Foundation. Perhaps the moment when the difference between the script’s ambition and the team’s capability to deliver is clearest is when the Nucleus causes a shuttle to crash into the hospital. Despite an emergency call for all staff to head to the site of the crash we end up with four people there- the same four people in fact who’ve just been dealing with the Doctor. Of course it would be impossible for it to be any other way so the question is, why go with it?

The story takes place at a time when the Doctor says mankind is spreading out into space so the fact that the enemy is a virus provides a neat parallel. You can imagine if it were made now, that aspect would be given much more attention as humans would be blamed for the Swarm. No such parallels were drawn in 1977 yet the fact the Doctor suggests that this migration could be seen as “a disease” suggests it was on Bob and Dave’s minds.

It all begins promisingly enough with the `contact has been made` mantra and silvery eye make- up combined with some creepy incidental scratching noises. The first episode is also home to some well produced model shots too- the swirling liquid they use for the spaceborne virus is a memorable image I recall appearing in adverts all week before the episode was shown. It looks odd but the phonetic spelling is an attempt to weave a futuristic world and gives the story further identity.

The narrative though is awkward in many aspects. The way the Doctor is taken to the Bi Al Foundation for example glosses over who flies the Tardis- presumably the Doctor though he seems to be semi- conscious. The story’s breezy momentum makes it difficult to avoid seeing the production joins too- literally in one case when a column that is about to be blasted by K9 already has the break the tin dog will make visible as if this is a second or third take. I’m not a fan of close quarters shoot outs as they never look convincing on television drama. We’ve already seen a large set but the later action is confined to a small part of it. I suppose there wasn’t time to film both sides separately and edit them together afterwards.

This was director Derrick Goodwin’s only Doctor Who and he was used to more static procedural dramas (he was also a co –writer of the 70s comedy Mixed Blessings). He is happier with the dialogue scenes and also brings a menacing feel to the early sequences where the possessed crew are stalking the base. Yet whenever there is action it doesn’t really work as well as it might. It may be that he didn’t have the experience of this sort of production.

Though the movie Fantastic Voyage was the inspiration for the plot it differs in execution. In the film a team was miniaturised by shrinking their atoms and sent into blood stream of a scientist to fix his brain. Here, it is a cloned version of the Doctor and Leela that is shrunk all of which takes place in an astonishingly brief time frame. It’s a bold conceit that shares with the film the fact that the shrinking only lasts of a limited time. In this case it’s a considerably elastic eleven minutes though you could argue that some of the events we see which seem to stretch this limit much further are happening simultaneously. There’s a countdown clock that supports this idea.

It’s a shame that having strained credulity this far and more or less got away with it the actual sequences inside the Doctor’s head are not that interesting. Despite production limitations there is scope to be more inventive in the same way that `The Deadly Assassin` was with its surreal third episode. Instead we see the Doctor and Leela wander about CGI sets somewhat randomly until enough running time has elapsed and the Doctor then has his customary chat with the monster who save for one appendage seems to be hiding under a black sheet.

I’m unsure if the explanations given pass muster. The Doctor’s cure for example comes about because of Leela’s immunity which gets into his blood stream but how does it do this? One thing we don’t see is blood. And immunity based on personal characteristics seems unlikely. As for the denouement that was the subject of much debate at the time (see old reviews below).

One of the reasons why the story seems to work better than its visuals suggest is in the seriousness of Tom Baker’s approach. The Doctor is infected much earlier than you might expect and the actor makes him seem quite unnerved by the presence of the virus within him. Flippancy is reserved for taking down the aspirations of the Swarm a little and to reassure Leela. It is received wisdom drawn from 1977 reviews that from this season Tom’s performance deteriorated but eight weeks in I’ve seen no evidence of that whatsoever. Louise Jameson continues to find interesting nuances to Leela. One scene does stand out- when she panics and screams as the antibodies attack I think this is more effective because Leela has been so casually confident (and quite violent) up to this juncture. We see that, like the Doctor, she can be afraid of some circumstances.

`The Invisible Enemy` is flawed but always lively and interesting, Like all of Bob and Dave’s Doctor Who it tries to be a movie on a tv budget and while that is never going to wholly work you have to admire all concerned for valiantly trying.

So...what did fans think in 1977? Well some people hated it...