I mentioned a few days ago that The Talons of Weng-Chiang marked the end of an era, with the departure of Philip Hinchcliffe as producer. Horror of Fang Rock was transitional, still written like the gothic horror that was so predominant during the Holmes/Hinchcliffe seasons, but today's story marks a clear shift into the next phase of Doctor Who both in terms of style and also with the introduction of a new companion who is second only to Sarah Jane Smith herself in terms of being beloved by fans. It also demonstrates once again that just showing up to work is half the battle when it comes to success.

Let's talk about that.

The Invisible Enemy - Parts 1 & 2

(TARDIS Data Core recap)

Just a few weeks ago marked the 40th anniversary of the introduction of the tin dog K-9 to Doctor Who. He entered the show with the second episode of The Invisible Enemy, and he would go on to appear as a series regular for several years -- eventually spinning off into a one-off story with Sarah Jane Smith in 1980, and later appearing in a modern episode with the Tenth Doctor as well as in The Sarah Jane Adventures before getting his own series in Australia simply called K9. As for John Leeson, who provided the voice of K-9 (as well as the voice of the titular Invisible Enemy in today's story), well. I'll let him tell you about how it all happened.

And so, not unlike John Levene showing up for a one-off part as Benton in The Invasion and winding up with years of steady employment, John Leeson took the one-off gig to do a bit of voice acting and wound up with steady work for four decades. Not a bad gig.

Regarding the story, the gist of it is that a virus first infects a shuttle craft flying to Titan, and subsequently finds the Doctor to be the perfect host. It is determined to hatch itself from inside the Doctor's brain. Every time the virus infects a new host, it announces itself by saying "Contact has been made..." Because it feeds on complex thought processes, and because Leela operates primarily on instinct rather than reason, the virus rejects her out of hand. With the Doctor having deliberately placed himself into a coma to protect his own mind, he and Leela wind up on a medical installation in the asteroid belt in search of a cure, which is where they encounter Professor Marius and his best mechanical friend K-9. Cue the cuteness.

Right off the bat the story contains more model work than I have seen before in the show. There have been model effects here and there, but this story contains multiple shots of different shuttle craft and landing pads and such (some of which I am positive was inherited from Space: 1999). The production value is spectacular, even if the effects themselves maybe haven't aged so well. But the story goes big with its visuals, and it really pays off.

Unfortunately it feels like Leela gets pushed backwards in terms of character. In both Weng-Chiang and Fang Rock she was written as being very bright, if uneducated. Yes, she is a warrior, but she showed a level of cunning and curiosity that well exceeded her background. In this story, however, those touches seem to have been discarded. True, it is important to the plot that Leela remain an unacceptable host, I just feel like that could have been accomplished without reducing her character back to Ignorant Savage status.

At the climax of the second episode the Doctor and Leela are both cloned and miniaturized, and then injected into the Doctor's brain in order to hunt down the virus. It's about to get all Fantastic Voyage up in this join.

Which, by the way, leads to my single all-time favorite bit of dialog by the Doctor. But we will get there tomorrow.

STATS:

Doctor(s): Fourth
Companion(s): Leela, K-9
Episode(s): The Invisible Enemy - Parts 1 & 2
Steps Walked: 7,315 today, 1,576,528 total
Distance Walked: 3.74 miles today, 785.99 miles total
Weight: 258.72 lbs (five day moving average), net change -48.58 lbs