DVD Extras include:
Design"The Invisible Enemy" begins with a good deal of impressive model effects work, as Ian Scoones works his magic and takes us to new worlds. Sometimes you can spot some wobble in the shuttlecraft, eating away at the illusion of scale, but the sequences are generally quite convincing and atmospheric. Gerry Anderson, eat your heart out.Barry Newbery, a veteran set designer since the second episode of Doctor Who in its black-and-white inception, was also responsible for last year's dark secondary console room. He returns to get it right this time, and manages to create the most definitive console room in Doctor Who's long existence. With minor additions, the console room debuting here in "The Invisible Enemy" will remain in frequent use through season 22, and continue to last and be seen less frequently up until seasons 25 and 26. The white walls with yellow roundels and swinging jagged-edge main doors at camera-left harken back to the earliest days of the program, while the superior realization of the scanner screen from last year is updated to a white colour that fits in with the new room, and shifted over to camera-right where it belongs. We also get a perfect little door leading to the rest of the maze-like interior, and the good old console is back, with its center column rising and falling and three central red tubes of lights flashing within. This is what it's all about, the classic interior. It is such a grand relief to return to it. "Invisible Enemy" deserved a larger slice of the season's budget if for no other reason than to get this set right, because all subsequent stories will benefit from it. The one noticeable element that could be improved on is that only half of the corner-joins between wall panels are properly hidden behind corrugated pillars, the others have their bolted-on angle-brackets exposed to the cameras, making it look a little too much like a set. Ah well, there's always room for improvement; at least the basic design is on form from now on. Philip Hinchcliffe sought so hard to get the Doctor away from UNIT and into space; if only he'd made the effort to get this room right, he could have been there much more successfully. Without UNIT HQ, the series needs this room as its standing centrepiece set.
Illiterate FlightThe police box exterior of the TARDIS also gets its due, making several proper materializations and dematerializations throughout the story, while the relationship between interior and exterior is adequately demonstrated as well. From a story point of view, however, one of the TARDIS's most interesting trips would be the one supposedly piloted by Leela. I'm not prepared to believe it unless I see it, and even then it would be a leap of character logic. As believably tense as the existing scenes are acted out, the script should really have had some restructuring to avoid the ridiculousness of having the temperamental machine piloted with such outstanding accuracy by a character who is only just learning to write her own name. That said, we need two more things for visual literacy to be complete - a proper police box materialization effect (the footage for which is already in the can), and.... - well, my second point is a bit of a spoiler, so I'll only talk about that in the In-depth Analysis version of this review. Suffice it to say that this trip becomes one of the story's most confusing and disappointing sequences.Set design on the rest of the story is good on the whole. The white of the hospital interior seems to use many elements similar to the TARDIS interior, but remains recognizably different. The white is contrasted by sets like those for the Titan base, which incorporate the orange-brown of natural rock and many dark areas, not to mention much of the interior of the mind and the shuttle interior. The shuttle interior is another set where the multi-level aspect seems gratuitous, not arranged in a fashion that would help the crew relate to each other and see and do everything their duty requires.
WritingAs in most good science fiction, the story and plot has got to hold everything together, and Bob Baker and Dave Martin know their genre. A simple line of logical character motivation keeps our protagonists active as they go from location to location, dealing with one sci-fi concept after another, finding solutions to all their challenges. From exploring space to laser fights and mental battles to robot dogs to pseudo-cloning to "Fantastic Voyage" style surgery to medical research and immunology, this story does justice to it all.Dialogue is another matter, for although Baker and Martin are capable of first-rate stuff, and have a knack for giving the Doctor some of his best, most in-character lines, they often resort to gimmicks as well. Last time, their catch-phrase crutch was "Eldrad must live." This time it's "Contact has been made." This is not too bad, actually, as it adds clarity to one of the story's unique key processes, and doesn't become a source of additional bad jokes. Dialogue concerning Leela's character is the script's weakest point, especially with all the derogatory comments on her intelligence. Think about it: although she comes from a non-technological warrior culture, she is actually one of the sharpest members of her tribe. She questioned her own traditions, and eagerly soaks up new knowledge and ideas. Travel is broadening her mind even further. She just has quite a ways to go yet before piloting the TARDIS becomes something the Doctor would believably attempt to teach her. Her morals and manners may still be lacking, but I don't think there's any dysfunction at all in her intelligence, and the script's attack on it reflects more on the perceptions of the writers than on Leela herself.
Fantastic HomageThis adventure also gives us something never seen before or since in any Doctor Who story. Drawing inspiration from the feature film "Fantastic Voyage", its concept is taken a step further as we take a trip inside an infected character, proving that this show can and will take its viewers anywhere. Wonderful stuff. A lot of marvellous effects are pulled off to achieve this environment, and the lining up of CSO backgrounds with the actors' feet is particularly top notch. This is one aspect of the finished story that the production team can be particularly proud of. Later biological visuals appearing on the equipment in the lab are equally impressive, and do their fair share of helping the story along visually.Guest characters for this story don't require too much of an acting stretch, as it is much more an action oriented piece, but the production is still blessed by the returning presences of Michael Sheard and Frederick Jaeger, who both give solid, enjoyable performances. Jaeger's Professor Marius is notably memorable.
K9It is K9 who steals the show, however, adding his much welcome and inimitable presence to the program. He is still a bit rough around the edges, as the production team learns how to operate him and get him to do all his tricks properly before the camera. John Leeson, who also voices the Nucleus during this production, gets K9's voice spot on from the beginning and does a marvellous job of him.
Lasers?The list of effects for this story also includes a lot of ambitious superimposed beams and flashes. The most well done of these are the "contact" transfers, which are almost always perfectly lined up, adding credibility to each of the actors involved. Many one-off flashes are also superbly done. K9's laser blasts are not yet up to standard, in look or in sound, but he does at least get a half-decent visual red beam and a sound effect that matches the visuals fairly well. His very first shot is a bit embarrassing, however. Ooops.Perhaps the most disappointing beam effect is the one most used in the story - that of regular hand weapon fire. In theory, the red diamond flashing on the beams' targets beats many of the simplistic blobs of the late Jon Pertwee era and early Hinchcliffe era, without outdoing the outstanding white-star effects of "The Deadly Assassin" (story no. 88). But directors of those past stories were usually much better at getting literately clear footage to go behind the effect. In this story, there are too many beam effects shots needed, and not enough time for the director and his crew to line them all up properly. The corridor battles are the worst for this, in large part because they were the last segments taped for the story and suffered from the fact that time had run right out on the production schedule. The camera script went out the window, as a mad dash ensued to rush through and get some version of all the remaining required scenes into the can. Very disorganized, and it shows, but better than not completing the story, as "Shada" (story no. 109) will attest to some two years later. Anyway, one is left to look at red diamonds flashing all over the place in these sequences, having little to do with the lines of fire they were intended to represent, while the cast shake their flat-nosed handguns at each other clumsily with appallingly uncareful aim. As much of a superimposition advocate as I am, I'm prepared to say that flash-charge props à la "The Monster of Peladon" (story no. 73) or "Planet of Evil" (story no. 81), without the red diamonds, would probably have provided a more effective result, but who knew in advance how desperately far behind schedule things would get? Things fare a bit better as the action moves to new locations for the conclusion, as these sequences were taped earlier when the crew still had time to do things right. The K9 prop is perhaps a little more out of control during this phase, but with a little help, he does all right in the end. It seems a bit silly for K9 to run out of ammunition at one point, but then again, K9 was designed as a medical research aid, not a soldier, something easily forgotten in view of his role in later Doctor Who adventures.
Contact Has Been GargledThis is not a story where the villain shines strongly. The Nucleus is perhaps at its best while "invisible", and even gets a dark and mysterious and effective look at one stage, managing to successfully hold up its end of a fascinating philosophical exchange. However, it really does suffer badly in other scenes, especially when scripted with unreasonable impatience and the kind of insults and threats that make so many Doctor Who villains boring on the page. It's hit and miss for sure, but thankfully there are some very nice sections to look forward to.I will have to leave out a good portion of this discussion, but you can read the rest of it along with the spoilers in the In-depth Analysis version of this review when you are ready.
New CGI EffectsThe DVD release of this story offers viewers the option of watching the story with many original effects replaced by upgraded ones, all without interrupting the pace of the original edit or the audio track. As always, options are cool. Two basic categories of effects have been upgraded. Pretty much all superimposed laser beams and flashes have been upgraded, and I can say that the results are consistently an improvement over the original. The corridor battles can be taken much more seriously now. Once in a while, it feels like too much of a glow has been plastered over the picture, but in the case of this story, it's usually covering up some embarrassment of camera blocking or lack of rehearsal, and thus is still an improvement.The other category of upgraded effects includes most, but not all, of the model work in the story. Nicely, the new material can intercut easily with the old, since the spacecraft was fashioned to look identical in both versions. But it's a bit hit and miss as to whether the new shots are better or more satisfying than the old. Really, I think a lot of the model work was only upgraded because, in the time since this story was made, our science learned a few things about the atmosphere of Saturn's biggest moon, and someone thought "The Invisible Enemy" should be made more accurate. Me, I'd have left all those old cool shots as they were, and not half because, for all we know, Earthmen could have siphoned off the methane atmosphere for fuel by 5000 A.D. This is fiction, after all! Anyway, for the opening sequence, my ultimate preference would be for a mix of the two versions, while for the Titan Approach sequence, my preference is for the old. The real frustration is that both are cool, and no matter which one I watch, I feel like I've missed something good and interesting. There are of course a few categories of effects that remain as they were in the original, chiefly those in the new environment debuting in episode three, and all the picture-in-picture mixes on CSO monitor screens, including biological scans and such. Add the CGI options to a lively audio commentary, an insightful making-of documentary, a unique featurette with Ian Scoones discussing his work on this and many other stories, behind the scenes footage, priceless reactions from real dogs meeting K9 on various clips from other shows, and you have here one of the better DVD packages in the Doctor Who line. This one comes highly recommended.
This story is becoming available on DVD and VHS video:
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