With its story of an intelligent, microscopic, parasitic virus trying to take over the Universe, The Invisible Enemy is brilliant example of the great scripting and acting from this strong era of Doctor Who.Unfortunately, its credibility is almost entirely undermined by the revelation of the enemy - at the end of the third episode of this four-parter - as a laughter-inducing child-sized prawn monster.
While watching this, whenever, this creature - the "nucleus" - was on-screen, all verisimilitude went out the window as I stifled hysterical giggles at the sight of one of the least convincing costumed creations in the show's long and glorious history.
The set-up for the story, with an invisible beast targeting a space shuttle on the way to Saturn's moon Titan in the year 5,000AD, immediately reminded me of last Saturday's Russell T Davies' script Midnight; a feeling reinforced when the entity honed in on The Doctor as a suitable vessel for its "nucleus" because of his superior intelligence.
The early scenes on Titan, as The Fourth Doctor (Tom Baker) and Leela (Louise Jameson, looking her most stunning, especially when she later disguises herself as a nurse in a green, PVC outfit) arrive, drip atmosphere - playing up the sense of isolation and helplessness.
The action quickly shifts to a nearby medical facility on an asteroid, where The Doctor meets Professor Marius (Frederick Jaeger) and his "best friend", the robot companion, K-9.
While being stalked through the corridors of the medical centre by virus-infected zombies (led by the ever-reliable Michael 'Mr Bronson' Sheard), The Doctor and Leela are first cloned (short-lived carbon-copies of their original selves) then miniaturised so they can be injected into The Doctor's own virus-infected brain. All very Fantastic Voyage!
This being a family show, the clones, of course, (totally unrealistically) are grown fully clothed from the donor's single cell and while I can live quite happily without seeing The Doctor naked, this sad old geek feels he was deprived of a chance to see Leela in her birthday suit. Sadly, there isn't even a DVD extra to correct this omission.
At this point, once the two miniature clones are inside The Doctor, the viewer's suspension of disbelief is pushed to near breaking point by the combination of technobabble and bizarre studio sets that pass for the literal and metaphorical representation of the Time Lord's brain. It is also here the cloned couple first encounter the organism that will become the prawn monster.
Outside of The Doctor's body the "nucleus" grows to its full-size and is taken back to Titan by its infected servants, so it can spawn with the hive of spores growing there and create a Universe-dominating swarm.
Silly monster aside, The Invisible Enemy remains an intelligently scripted and tight, solid science-fiction story.
The awkward relationship between The Doctor and Leela has carried over from Horror Of Fang Rock as he is constantly rude and dismissive of her, even though it is she and K-9 who really save the day.
Then again, he doesn't seem to mind her being quite gung ho with both a blaster pistol and her hunting knife, taking down possessed medical staff and astronauts left, right and centre.
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