Wednesday 27 September 2023

What's Wrong With... The Invisible Enemy


The Invisible Enemy was the second story of Season 15 - but the first one recorded that year due to the cancellation of Terrance Dicks' vampire adventure. This swap around led to some production issues.
The pressures of studio recording added to the headaches.
For instance, we all know about the pillar which K-9 has to demolish to create a barrier in the corridor in the Bi-Al Foundation. This has clearly been pre-broken. However, the pillar was perfectly finished at the start of recording, the break concealed. Unfortunately, the scene had to be reshot - and the design team simply didn't have the time to finish it properly to the way it was.
K-9 itself caused all manner of problems due to its construction - using a remote control mechanism which interfered with the electronic cameras. These caused it to go out of control. The operator, Nigel Brackley, had to be very close to the prop to operate it without this interference posing too big a problem.
Later, Tom Baker impatiently dragged K-9 along very quickly on its leash, shearing the gears.
It was too heavy to lift, so a lightweight dummy had to be made for later appearances, once the decision had been made to turn it into a regular companion.
K-9's blaster ray never seems to emit from the same place twice. At one point Leela is knocked out, when the beam hasn't even touched her. Also, it was ordered to kill at the time, so why only stun?

When first attacked by the Virus, the Doctor surmises that he has been affected by the equivalent of St Elmo's Fire - but this is an atmospheric condition. Why would he think something like that could occur in deep space, and get inside the TARDIS in the first place?
The space shuttle crew slaughter their Titan base colleagues, when the Virus wants to infect people and spread its influence. A waste, surely? After this it always leaves its victims living and infected, so why destroy potential recruits?
Marius is an expert on alien biology - so why is he sent for when the Doctor is brought in? They don't know he's an alien. In fact, he'll be logged on their system as an Irishman!
We see the damaged Bi-Al Foundation long before the shuttle crashes into it. (This was due to the undamaged model footage being mislaid, and the wrong material used to replace it).

How can the clones be clothed?
Has Leela honestly never seen what she looks like? Has she never seen a reflection in her travels so far? Wouldn't she have seen a mirror when she changed clothes at Professor Litefoot's home?
Everyone knows they have only an 11 minute lifespan, so why make such a fuss about where the clones will emerge? They are hardly likely to survive that long.
The size of the Doctor's insides isn't taken into account. How can the clones be expected to travel all the way to the part of the brain where the Nucleus is settled and out again through the tear duct - bearing in mind they will have to hunt for the Nucleus. They don't know where it is.
And if time is so pressing, why does the Doctor's clone spend so much time sight-seeing and blabbing to the Leela clone?

The Doctor tells Marius that he thinks Leela's immunity is psychological rather then physical in the second episode. He then discovers this to be the case in the third episode, only after looking for physiological reasons. It then turns out, in the fourth episode, that she did have a physiological immunity after all.
How can the clones' genetic material be absorbed by the Doctor when they are so small? The action in the brain at the end is confusing. Why does the Nucleus look so different? How can something with six legs be so immobile?
Why do some bits of Leela survive (hair and knife) and not others. It's just not directed / edited very well.
The clones are physical entities, inside a biological being. How then can they witness "imaginings" at the interface between "brain" and "mind"? The interface surely cannot be a physical environment.

The Nucleus thinks it will benefit from entering the macro-universe as it won't be so vulnerable to attack - but full-size it is more vulnerable. It was much more insidious in its micro-level existence.
You can shoot or blow up a man far easier than you can attack a microscopic virus.
All the language we see printed is in a phonetic Year 5000 language - e.g. "Egsit" instead of "Exit". Except the word "Oxygen" is printed normally.

No comments:

Post a Comment