Doctor Who - The Invisible Enemy

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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. When K9 first meets Leela, a reflection of a moving crew member can be seen on the front of the cloning booth. They fight off the infected humans, but are again without sufficient weaponry to destroy the Nucleus, or its many children, which are about to hatch as "macro-sized" beings, like the newly macro-sized Nucleus. The Doctor jams the door they are behind and rigs a gun to fire into a cloud of oxygen gas he is releasing and escapes. As intended, when the Swarm finally forces open the door, the blaster fires, igniting the oxygen in Titan's methane atmosphere and destroying the Swarm and the base. Foreshadowing: At the very beginning of the first episode, the Doctor compares humanity's explosion into the galaxy to a virus.

Clothing-Concealed Injury: 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. Visible Boom Mic: When the Doctor is congratulating himself on blowing up the Swarm, the shadow of a boom mike can be seen.According to Matt Irvine, the model used for the cratered surface of Titan was a re-use of the model used for the surface of the Moon in Space: 1999. ( DCOM: The Invisible Enemy) Several pieces of furniture on Titan Base are reused from that series as well. The One With… a killer shrimp. Also, we meet a beloved tin dog note (as long as your name isn't Tom Baker). There are a few possible alternatives. Firstly: something brand new that’s impossible to predict (e.g. Skithra revenge fleets, the Master and the Cyber Lords get melded together, an evil version of W.A.S.P from Stingray). It’s probably going to be that really isn’t it? Studio Sweepings - A rare opportunity to go behind the scenes on the recording of this story, courtesy of a time-coded videotape recording

Optional CGI Effects - Option to watch serial with some of the original effects shots replaced by new computer-generated imagesDoctor Who Series 13 Cast: Game Of Thrones’ Grey Worm Actor To Play Action Hero ‘Vinder’ By Louisa Mellor

Leela sensed a message countermanding a distress call from Titan was fake. Immune to the virus, she instinctively considered it evil. It marked her for death, long before she suggested blowing it up. 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". In the Titan Base and Bi-Al Foundation sets, all signage is written phonetically in what the script calls "Finglish" — thus, for example, signs read "IMURJINSEE EGSIT" and "ISOLAYSHUN WARD" instead of "Emergency Exit" and "Isolation Ward". ( INFO: The Invisible Enemy)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 Some of My Best Friends Are X: The Doctor, just before he adds that in large groups Humans Are Bastards.

Secondly: a return to the Leisure Hive (from ‘The Leisure Hive’) based purely on the connective tissue between the words ‘Hive’ and ‘Swarm’.

Tropes:

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’. Visual Effect - Mat Irvine meets up with his old colleague Ian Scoones at Bray Studios to talk about the visual effects for The Invisible Enemy Here’s another of my guilty pleasures. There’s really nothing great save the concept, yet I enjoy it tremendously every time. However it’s a contrast to most other guilty pleasure stories, in that I feel this one becomes slightly LESS interesting the more I watch it. By the time the ship reaches Titan Base, the three crewmen have been infected also. They kill the resident crew and reveal their slowly changing faces. When the station supervisor, Lowe, realises the men he knew are now trying to take over the base, he sends out a distress call. While clones of the Doctor and Leela are miniaturised in this story, the Doctor would later himself being miniaturised with his companion during his twelfth incarnation and injected into a Dalek. ( TV: Into the Dalek)