Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day 482: The Invisible Enemy, Episode Four

Dear diary,

Today’s episode is something of an odd affair… because it seems to be everything that people think Doctor Who is like, and quite unlike anything I’ve grown used to in the series over the last few seasons. As Doctor Who fans, we’ve all encountered those same old jokes about the programme’s ‘classic’ run. The sets wobbled! The Daleks couldn’t get up stairs! The monsters were rubbish! The companions simply stood around and screamed! Ignoring these comments is something you simply learn to do when faced with them, and I think you’ve truly graduated to a certain type of person when you choose to not bother correcting people, but simply smile and nod (while, of course, knowing that they’re completely wrong and quite possibly an idiot).

And yet, everything in this episode seems determined to back up many of the well-worn cliché´s. Leela doesn’t have to stand around screaming, but it’s set in a stereotypical ‘space’ set, the guest cast run around with silly face make-up on, the monster is less-than-impressive, and there’s a few effects that simply don’t work. We’re even back to the old-style TARDIS console room from this story onwards, but it’s not given anything near the space it used to have, and seems to look tatty and cramped already - just a few weeks after it returned to the programme at the start of this story.

I don’t think we’ve had any other single episode which so fulfils the idea of ‘that’s what Doctor Who is like’, and I’m not sure if that’s because this is just a very… typical episode. There’s nothing very surprising or new in here (unlike yesterday’s episode which at least had the good grace to do CSO effects better than usual, or Episode One which really highlighted just how good the model work in the show can be), it’s just a lot of running around, fighting a rubbish monster. You just know that this is the episode people will have tuned in to purely by chance, and then not bothered to return the following week (which can only mean that tomorrow’s episode must be an absolute blinder - it’s typical for something like that to happen!)

I’ve always found it somewhat strange that Doctor Who does develop all these stereotypes of what it’s like, when they’re really not right at all. I’ve mentioned above that people always talk of the ‘screaming’ companions from the old days, but we’ve still not really hit that. Oh, sure, you get it now and then - but it’s always used to great effect. It makes an impact because you’re not used to seeing the Doctor’s friends that scared. I know that by the time we hit Mel it’s likely to have become more prominent, but it’s really not true of any companion from the fourteen years of the show I’ve already watched through.

This idea of ‘stereotypical’ Doctor Who has always been around, though. Watching the ‘Tomorrow’s Times’ feature (a summery of contemporary press reaction to the series) on the DVD for The Face of Evil a few weeks ago, I was surprised by a comment made by one reporter during Romana’s time on the programme:

“No matter what time the stories are set in, or what new girl is chosen to be the Doctor’s accomplice, one thing remains constant. The girls are always half-naked. And they are always being chased.”

It just didn’t ring true to me. Janet Fielding often tells the story that she was made very aware of the fact she was on screen to keep the dads watching, but really only Leela up to this point could fulfil the ‘half-naked’ description. Jo Grant liked to wear her mini-skirts, but still! It feels especially odd coming late in the Tom Baker era, because I’ve never really thought of either incarnation of Romana as being particularly under-dressed.

I suppose what I’m trying to say is that there’s a commonly held perception of what Doctor Who is like. There was a time when it’s what people thought all Doctor Who was like, whereas these days it’s shifted to be what the old series was like, before they had the money, and the computers, and that David Tennant. Often, this perception is completely wrong, or at least only formed from half-truths. Sometimes, though, you get an episode like The Invisible Enemy Episode Four, which just seems to be exactly what outsiders expect the series to be like… and that leaves me a bit cold!