This Season 15 story from 1977 featured a parasitic virus taking over victims through their eyes. The Swarm are mostly remembered for the character of the Nucleus of the Swarm, who resembled a hybrid of living prawn and cooked/peeled prawn, and the story is not thought of especially well (though it did introduce K9). Nucleus of the Swarm, ‘The Invisible Enemy’ BBC. This story returned the Fourth Doctor and Leela to the original TARDIS console room from the beginning of season 14, now with a considerably updated appearance, with the changes in its features and the fact the Doctor had reverted to using a different console room all this time being explained as a deliberate attempt to redecorate the console. In 2010, Mark Braxton of Radio Times awarded it two stars out of five, contrasting it with the Philip Hinchcliffe era and describing it as "a kidified, Poundland Star Wars". He felt "many of the effects are excellent" but observed a "precarious juxtaposition" between good and bad effects and "the ambition of the serial as a whole". He praised the story as a "romping yarn" which "brings out the best in veteran designer Barry Newbery", but criticised "unbelievably incompetent" action scenes, as well as "harsh lighting" and "pristine white sets". He also commented on Louise Jameson as looking "unsurprisingly ill at ease" despite giving "her usual 100 per cent". [2] DVD Talk's John Sinnott disliked the way K9 was used too conveniently and found the plot too similar to Fantastic Voyage (1966), but less well done. He praised the visual effects of the inside of the Doctor's head, but criticised the other sets. [8] Commercial Releases [ edit ] In print [ edit ] Doctor Who and the Invisible Enemy Inhuman Eye Concealers: The station manager, Lowe, is taken over by The Virus. As the infection manifests with a strange growth around the eyes, Lowe conceals his infection by donning a pair of blast goggles and telling people his eyes had been injured during the explosion, making him very sensitive to light. When K9 shoots one of the infected men, the blast beam appears to come out of his eyes, then moves down to his snout as the camera moves.

Then there's the whole virus bit. Leaving aside the prawnliness (what's that about?), a virus that spawns and hatches? Argh! And what about the clones? Apart from the awesome stupidity of them being fully dressed, let alone being produced - from a single cell! - as adults with all the memories of the originals, there's all that ridiculous stuff about how Leela bumping her head on the outside gives the Leela clone a headache. What are they like? No, we can't do this anymore. It's bad for our blood pressure.Studio Sweepings - A rare opportunity to go behind the scenes on the recording of this story, courtesy of a time-coded videotape recording A virus lurking in deep space infects the crew of an earth shuttle on its way to Titan. The infected humans kill the crew they are supposed to be relieving, except for one man, Lowe, whom they infect. They begin preparing the base for breeding. Meanwhile, the TARDIS has been invaded by the same virus, and the Doctor becomes the host for the Nucleus of the Swarm. After he attempts to kill "The Reject" Leela (who is immune), the Doctor realizes what's happening and puts himself into a self-induced coma to keep from being taken over completely. Leela, accompanied by Lowe, rushes him to the Bi-Al Foundation hospital asteroid using the TARDIS, where she hopes Professor Marius will be able to find a cure. Early Region 2 versions of the box set feature a fault on The Invisible Enemy disc. A scene from half way through episode 3 is skipped and appears after the closing credits. 2|entertain was aware of the problem but decided to go on with the release as planned. They fixed the problem for later copies of the DVD box set. As for the rest of Invisible Enemy, where do we start? Well, there's the plot, which is stuffed with enough bad science to get Einstein revolving in his grave on high rotate. It'd take us all day to list all of it, but particularly enraging is the witless way they deal with their Fantastic Voyage ripoff. So the Doctor and Leela clones go on a day excursion inside the Doctor's brain, do they? Uh huh. How, exactly, are they breathing in there? And why is it when they disappear they leave various bits and pieces, like Leela's knife, behind? (Not a particularly good idea in itself, we'd have thought. Any sudden movements and the Doctor's going to get a needle through the synapse.) The Doctor says he has lost the ability to tune his brain's Reflex Link with "The Time Lord Intelligentsia - a thousand super-brains in one."

Doctor Who Series 13 Cast: Game Of Thrones’ Grey Worm Actor To Play Action Hero ‘Vinder’ By Louisa Mellor Leela tells the receptionist that the Doctor is from Gallifrey. The receptionist believes it to be in Ireland. Thirdly: any remotely insectoid species previously seen in the show could return as a swarm: the Wirrn from ‘The Ark in Space’ (which are similar to the Alien from the film Alien– except giant wasps), the Vespiforms from ‘The Unicorn and the Wasp’, the Zarbi and/or Menoptera from ‘The Web Planet’, the Malmooth from ‘Utopia’, the Metatraxi from the lost stories of Season 27, or possibly just all the bees that disappeared in Series 4. Maybe Goronwy’s bees from ‘Delta and the Bannermen’. Doctor Marius and his robot dog, K9, helped the Doctor while Leela protected them from infected staff armed with guns that should never have been in the hospital. Nevertheless, gun battles raged. Bob Baker and Dave Martin originally hoped that much of part three could be made on location, with the Doctor's mind represented by college cloisters or a stately garden.

The Invisible Enemy was the second serial of season 15 of Doctor Who. It saw the first appearance of K9.

Pushy Gun-Toting Villain: Lowe (under control of the Nucleus) becomes this when he attempts to force the Doctor at blaster-point into the Nucleus breeding chambers as food. This story was released on DVD on 16 June 2008 in the K9 Tales Box Set. It was released in the box set alongside K9 and Company. Leela and the Doctor decide to create clones of themselves, which will then be shrunk and inserted into the Doctor. There they will destroy the Nucleus and escape through a tear duct. In the meantime, Leela and K9 fight off the infected staff of the hospital. The plan goes awry, allowing the Nucleus to escape and become human sized. The Nucleus and the infected staff leave for Titan Base so the Nucleus can spawn. Love the haphazard way the crazy German Doctor scoops cloned Doctor and Leela into his syringe. How are they not crushed and drowned?Mega-Microbes: The miniaturized clones of Leela and the Doctor confront the virus inside the real Doctor's brain. Later, the virus is taken out of the Doctor and enlarged to human scale. Genetic Memory: The clones of the Doctor and Leela have the memories of their originals. K9 explains that this is because they are more like "biological photocopies" than proper clones, hence their shortened lifespans. Which does not in any satisfactory way explain how they cloned their clothes. Homaged much later on in "The Doctor's Daughter". Detect Evil: Leela can "sense" the evil of the coming story so strongly that she chews on the Doctor's scarf for comfort and forcibly prevents the Doctor from opening the TARDIS doors. Naturally, he ignores her. Up till now, we thought The Web Planet was the worst Who we'd seen. But at least The Web Planet was trying, even if it failed spectacularly. This is just a cynically slapped together mess that spits in the audience's eye. Ugh. Take it away. The miniaturisation plot is bizarre and reminds me more than a little of the Magic Schoolbus. It should be really cool but somehow looks like a lot of generic alien planets

K9 stuns Marius so the Doctor has time to examine his own blood and discover that Leela's clone has left him with antibodies against the virus. He replicates the antibodies and cures Marius, who can replicate the cure for his staff. The Doctor plans to eradicate the virus spawning on Titan, but Leela insists they simply blow it up. When the cure is ready, the Doctor borrows K9 from the Professor and heads for Titan Base. Easter Egg: K9 appears on Larry Grayson's Generation Game. To access this hidden feature, press left at Visual Effect on the Special Features menu to reveal a hidden Doctor Who logo. contribution to the series had been the previous season's The Hand Of Fear. Their starting point was a The Doctor suggests a "kind of St. Elmo's fire" is responsible for the halo of light that momentarily surrounds him.

Clip

Rating: 4/5 prawn-possessed astronauts suffering horrific internal injuries from a knife wielding maniac. When the Doctor is congratulating himself on blowing up the Swarm, the shadow of a boom mike can be seen. Good bits? The debate over the right to exist or be conquered, exploring instinct vs intellectual, and comparing humans to a plague. Unfortunately though, the story just misses inspiring the viewer to more deeply contemplate these issues. Visible Boom Mic: When the Doctor is congratulating himself on blowing up the Swarm, the shadow of a boom mike can be seen. On top of this the detail of the story is weak. It is a bit of a 'base under siege' affair in some ways but mostly it doesn't really work in the first half. In the second half it just gets daft. The Doctor's clone enters his own head – and not in a theoretical way which one could go with, but in a real 'Innerspace / Fantastic Voyage' way. This element is daft in the concept, and really doesn't work at all in the execution. The design standards don't help but it doesn't do much interesting in there – or at least not interesting enough to cover for the weaknesses. The nucleus itself is a sight to see – a mix of a prawn, a rat, and one of those inflatable dancing men you see outside North American car showrooms. It is hard to take serious, particularly as it is forcibly wheeled around the place. Speaking of which, K9 makes an appearance here, and as much nostalgic charm as he/it brings, it is hard not to notice the limitations of the character even in the first outing. I do look forward to seeing how they manage to find a use for him moving forward.