The Invisible Enemy

A space-borne virus attacks a shuttle crew and sends them to Titan to prepare a hive for its spawning. The TARDIS is also attacked and the Doctor in infected, becoming a carrier for the nucleus of the swarm itself. Leela takes the Doctor to a medical facility to be treated by Professer Marius and the virus spreads among the staff, forcing the Doctor and Leela to be cloned and injected into the Doctor's own brain to destroy the nucleus. The virus escapes and enlarges itself to human proportions and plans to spawn and take over the galaxy, but with the aid of Marius's robot dog, K9, the Doctor and Leela destroy the breeding tanks on Titan.

The first thing that comes to mind for anyone who has seen this one is the absolutely awful awful design of the nucleus creature itself. While lodged in the Doctor's head it was pretty shapeless but out in the macro world it looks.... ugh. Big shrimp with claws is pretty close to the truth. The people infected by the virus undergo a scary metamorphosis, growing spiky white hair and their faces erupting with welts that look suspiciously like bubble wrap. Wait... it was bubble wrap.

The journey into the Doctor's head by the cloned versions of himself and Leela is very Incredible Journey, all realized with the cunning skills of the BBC's CSO department. Watching it made the inside of my head itch.

And then there's K9. A hit with the kids, a nightmare for the effects department. A robot dog with a sarcastic edge to him, he was the show's reaction to the success of R2D2 and C3P0 in Star Wars the year before. And in a way he's a good addition to the TARDIS crew, but a bit of a convenience factor since he's the second companion to pack a weapon as a matter of routine. Yes, K9 is armed with a laser under his nose. Of course the nature of K9s design means he's not going to be very good on uneven surfaces, but hey that's the magic of the BBC, they can make anything fly. Do I like K9? Yes. And the news that he is returning along with Sarah Jane Smith in the new series episode School Reunion is good, especially from a continuity point of view.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Back to the series.

NEXT EPISODE : IMAGE OF THE FENDAHL