The Invisible Enemy is the 93rd serial in the series. It's the 2nd serial of the 15th season and the 1st show of 4 started airing October 1 1977. It's a special serial for a couple of reasons, the introduction of K-9 and the return of regular Tardis control room. The Victorian console room had been stored poorly and was damaged by moisture making it unusable. The serial was written by Bob Baker and Dave Martin and directed by Derrick Goodwin. Looks like the only work on the series by Derrick but Bob and Dave have worked on several stories over the years
The Doctor and Leela are in the Tardis flying through space near the end of our solar system. It's about 3000 years in the future and they get involved with another alien invasion. The invaders are using a virus to turn humans into their slaves. The Doc and Leela fight back and put a stop to that.
Much of the action takes place on a base on Titan but a bit takes place in the Doctor's brain. Clones of the Doc and Leela are shrunk down and injected into the brain. They have to find the Nucleus of the Swarm. Some of the brain sets look pretty good and others look pretty poor. Most of the sets on Titan look ok. The story isn't my favorite. It's not that it's bad but it's just another alien invasion. The show moves along fairly well and there isn't much wasted story. For some reason the online reviews are a bit negative but the fans on the IMDb give the 1st episode a 7.3 score. They do blow up the hospital astroid and the Titan base, so that's fun.
The DVD extras have a short making of that spends a good amount of time on the making of K-9, some alternate video takes of the blue screen work shot in the Doctor's brain and a short featurette on the visual effects. I do like that they go out and find the people who created the show and talk to them. Often they bring props or other things to show off. The original K-9 is still in working condition. There's a Blue Peter segment that introduces K-9. One of Blue Peter's real dogs keeps trying to bite the robot dog. Made me laugh. Louise Jameson, John Leeson, Bob Baker and Matt Irving appear on the commentary. They did a nice job. There are some new CGI effects that were done recently, you select the option of seeing them or the original broadcast ones. There's the usual photo gallery and Radio Times PDF to look at too.
K-9 and Company: A Girl's Best Friend is on the second disc in the set. This is the pilot episode of a 1981 attempt to put Sarah Jane Smith (Elisabeth Sladen) back into the Whoniverse. She hadn't been interested in returning as a sidekick but was interested in playing the lead role. The episode was written by Terence Dudley and directed by John Black. The show was watched by 8.4 million people, which was pretty darn good but the BBC had only agreed to make it as a one time program and there were no more episodes. The program idea was resurrected after Sarah Jane's return to Doctor Who in the 2005 revival of the series. I'd already watched all The Sarah Jane Adventures and mostly enjoyed them. I did notice that they kept K-9's appearances to a minimum. The screen caps above are from the K-9 And Company title which placed first in TV's Top 5 worst title sequences on David Walliams' Awfully Good TV. It's a pretty laughable title, the music is crap, and the end credits aren't any better.
The story takes place in a small town where a witch's coven is up to no good. Sarah Jane comes to visit her Aunt Lavinia. The aunt is gone when she arrives. Sarah Jane picks up her aunt Lavinia's ward, Brendan at the station and back at the house they open a large box that Aunt Lavinia had been holding for Sarah. It had been there for several years. Open, the box contains K-9. Sarah had left the Doctor Who series before K-9 had arrived and didn't know anything about him. K-9 becomes their pal and they all have an adventure together.
Sarah finds out that her Aunt had complained in the newspaper about the local witch activity and not made any friends over it. More story is revealed and someone attempts to kidnap Brendon. K-9 stops him and knocks out one of the kidnappers. When he revives he warns Brendon to leave before 'they get him'. Of course Sarah and her gang do find out that the locals have a coven and that they are indeed up to no good. Brendan gets kidnapped successfully and we find out that he's to be a human sacrifice. Sarah Jane has a lot of work to do to save him. K-9 helps a good bit, especially blasting the witches.
Not a bad story but nothing too special. I could see why it didn't get turned into a series. I wasn't sorry to see it but I'm not too sad that they didn't make more, especially if it means not listening to that title song. You can watch the whole episode on YouTube or just that tile song. Just click the links above until you find them.
The extras on the disc include a short making of, a made for the dvd interview with the robot dog that plays K-9, a 1981 clip from Pebble Mill At 1, photo gallery, info track, PDFs and some promo bits for the show. The fake interview with robot dog who plays K-9 is stupid. I wish they wouldn't make those sort of films. Pebble Mill At 1 is a lunchtime magazine program and that interview is just the thing you'd expect it to be. Both PMA1 and K-9AC were shot at the BBC Birmingham studios. In the interview K-9 says that the title song is on a record. Can you imagine! Those poor people, subjected to that horror. Well, you can always smash your radio. The commentary with Eric Saward, Elisabeth Sladen, John Leeson and Linda Polan was interesting enough.
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