DOCTOR WHO, SEASON 15 SERIAL 2:

THE INVISIBLE ENEMY

Doctor: Fourth (Tom Baker)

Companion: Leela

And introducing...K9

May 2023

Screencap from The Invisible Enemy: in a white hospital, the Doctor lies unconscious on a bed with a large machine suspended over his head. A man in a white outfit watches; another man in atweed coat with a goatee talks to K9, a metal dog. In the corner, Leela keeps watch.

The Invisible Enemy is an interesting story. It tries a lot of different things, and not all of them work—but some of them do. I certainly wouldn’t call it a bad story, but I don’t know if I’d call it a great one.

It starts out wonderfully: the first episode feels very strong in particular, as a hostile virus starts taking over the inhabitants of a human base on Titan, and the Doctor has to fight it off. This is a great setup, and it also affords Leela some time to shine as a star while the Doctor’s put himself in a coma to keep from being overwhelmed.

And then the setting changes. And then it changes again. We go through three locations in as many episodes, which feels very unusual for this show—though not bad. This whole story really has a strong high concept, and it’s be easy to call it “the one where they shrink down and go inside someone to fight off a disease”, because at this point that’s a classic concept (heck, even Doctor Who did it again in Into the Dalek), but it really makes up a startlingly short percentage of the overall screentime. That’s mostly fine? But it is notable.

I may have been accidentally burying the lede a bit here: in addition to being another strong showing from Leela, this is the introduction of K9, one of the longest-serving companions on the show and coincidentally also a robot dog. I’m a big fan of K9—he’s a funny, charming little robot dog, and he also has a nose laser and his ears wobble. What more could you want?

More seriously, K9 has (to me) the sort of robot charm that makes Data so likable in Star Trek (to the best of my knowledge—I haven’t seen a lot of Star Trek): regularly insisting that he is an emotionless android while also regularly obvious displaying emotions, being pleased or dismayed or (often) indignant. It helps that his design fits neatly into being silly and cute in a very Doctor Who sort of schlocky sci-fi way. It additionally helps that Leela has a fun dynamic with him. Also, the dialogue Leela has at the end with the Doctor is adorable: very “kid who found a stray dog on the way home from school and is begging her dad to let her keep it” vibes and I love it.

There’s also some interesting ideas with clones: for basically all of episode three, we follow not the Doctor and Leela but temporary clones of them that only last ten minutes (so they can go inside the Doctor’s brain), but seem to share all of their memories and sometimes sensations? E.g. when the original Leela bonks her head, Leela 2.0 feels it. It’s also implied that after the clones cease to be, the original flavor of the Doctor and Leela gain the clones’ memories? Truly some wild implications there, none of which are ever delved into. So be it.

Screencap from The Invisible Enemy: in the TARDIS, the Doctor, K9, and Leela (wearing a shiny green outfit and holding a white cap) converse. Leela looks indignant or angry.

We’re reaching the point where stuff starts to break down a bit, and also some spoilers:

So the idea of the virus being extracted from the Doctor’s brain and scaled up to the “macro world” is...interesting. Not least because that’s really not how viruses work, but whatever, this isn’t science, it’s science fiction. Unfortunately, the creature (or, the Nucleus) isn’t really very well-realized, which detracts from the whole experience rather significantly: it sort of feels like this has started becoming something totally different by the end of the third episode, and it doesn’t help that the Doctor’s confrontation with the Nucleus inside his own brain is sort of...disappointing? Like, not a lot happens: they talk a bit, and then the Doctor and Leela disintegrate because they’re clones and the Nucleus gets removed for some reason, and I still don’t know why it needed to be and why it couldn’t have just kept control over the Doctor. But whatever.

Fortunately, by the time we get to episode 4 and return to Titan, it starts to settle into itself more, in time for a solid ending, if a largely unexpected one based on how the story started. Leela continues to be great, and K9 comes along!

Top Leela quotes:

  • "I still say we should blow it up."
  • "I thought you didn't like killing?" (Doctor: "I don't!") "Then why are you doing all this?"
  • (Doctor: "Shall we try using our intelligence?") "...If you think that's a good idea."
  • "Good luck, Doctor. You know we should've done what I said." (Doctor: "What was that?") "Blow them up."
  • "Never mind, Doctor, I found the answer! [...] Knife them in the neck! :D"

Overall Thoughts:

The Invisible Enemy is weird. It’s not bad, but it strays from the line of being great or having a great deal of internal consistency around episode 3—but if you can stick around for it and suspend your disbelief enough, it’s fairly enjoyable. Plus, it gives us K9. Watch it if you want to see K9’s first episode or don’t mind an ending that doesn’t deserve all the stuff that led up to it; don’t watch it if you don’t enjoy weird schlocky monsters. It’s got nothing on Horror of Fang Rock, though.

Next up: Image of the Fendahl! We’re leaving behind stories I’ve seen before once again, as I once went through and started watching all the stories with Leela. This is where I trailed off. Hope it’s good! Leela goes to modern-day England I think!

Leela Kill Tally: 11 (+3)