Product Details

• Actors: Tom Baker, Elisabeth Sladen, Louise Jameson, John Leeson, Michael Sheard
• Directors: Derrick Goodwin, John Black
• Format: Color, DVD, Original recording remastered, Subtitled, NTSC
• Language: English
• Subtitles: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 2
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: BBC Worldwide
• DVD Release Date: September 2, 2008
• Run Time: 143 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B001AGXEBU
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #41,286 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Doctor Who: The Invisible Enemy - Story 93) & K9 and Company: A Girl's Best Friend" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

The Brain of Morbius: The TARDIS is infiltrated by the Swarm--a space-borne intelligence that wishes to spread itself across the universe--and the Doctor is infected by its nucleus. The ship then materializes on Titan, one of the moons of Saturn, where the human occupants of a refueling station have also been taken over. The Doctor eventually collapses as a result of his infection, but first manages to relay to Leela the coordinates of a local hospital asteroid. At the Bi-Al Foundation, based on the asteroid, Professor Marius clones the two time travelers, miniaturizes the clones using the relative dimensional stabilizer from the TARDIS and then injects them into the Doctor's body in the hope that they can find and destroy the nucleus.
K9 and Company: A Girl's Best Friend: Sarah pays a Christmas visit to her Aunt Lavinia's house in the village of Moreton Harwood. She discovers that Lavinia, a noted scientist, has yet to return from a lecture tour of the USA. She does however meet Brendan - Lavinia's ward--and Commander Bill Pollock--her partner in a small market garden business. Also in the house, in a box sent to her by the Doctor, she finds K9.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

46 of 51 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Contact with this DVD has been made., June 14, 2008

By 

Armchair Pundit "Armchair Pundit." (Durham City, England.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Doctor Who: The Invisible Enemy - Story 93) & K9 and Company: A Girl's Best Friend (DVD)

The Invisible Enemy.
A mysterious cloud is causing havoc in space, infecting all those who pass through it with an intelligent virus, the first victims are a crew of a shuttle heading for Titan base.(One of Saturns moons)
The Doctor and Leela try to come to the rescue, but the TARDIS passes through the cloud itself, leaving the Doctor infected with the nucleus.
He and Leela then try to find help at a medical station situated inside a Asteroid, where they meet the eccentric Professor Marius and his pet robot K-9.
According to this story written English in the future will be spelt phonetically, look at the wall signs. Interesting concept.
(Air date:~01/10/77-22/10/77)
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This was an ambitious story that was unusually given more sfx shots then was usually allowed for a Who story. And once again the Beeb was thankful for it's supplies of old Gerry Anderson models.
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DVD extras.
Commentary. With actors Louise Jameson and John Leeson, visual effects designer Mat Irvine and co-writer Bob Baker.
Dreams and Fantasy - artistes and production crew recall the making of this story and even take the original K9 for walkies. With actors Louise Jameson and John Leeson, director Derrick Goodwin, co-writer Bob Baker, visual effects designers Tony Harding and Mat Irvine, K9 operator Nigel Brackley, journalist Gary Gillatt.
Studio Sweepings - a rare opportunity to go behind the scenes on the recording of this story, courtesy of a timecoded Shibaden videotape recorded for production use.
Visual Effect - Visual effects designer Mat Irvine meets up with his old colleague Ian Scoones at Bray Studios to talk about the visual effects for 'The Invisible Enemy' and other stories.
Blue Peter - K9 meets John Noakes and Shep in this extract from the long running children's magazine show
CGI Effects - this gives the viewer the option to watch the story with many of the original video effects sequences replaced by CGI versions. Trailers and Continuity, Photo Gallery, Coming Soon, Easter Egg, Radio Times Listings Programme subtitles, Subtitle Production Notes.
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K9 and Company.
Sarah Jane Smith pays a Christmas visit to her Aunt Lavinia's house in the village of Moreton Harwood. She discovers that Lavinia, a noted scientist, has yet to return from a lecture tour of the USA. She does however meet Brendan (Lavinia's ward) and Commander Bill Pollock*, her partner in a small market garden business.
Also in the house, is a box sent to her by the Doctor, in it she finds K9.
The luckless Brendan is kidnapped by a local coven of witches who want to sacrifice him to the goddess Hecate. Sarah, with K9's assistance, set out to try and foil their dastardly plan.
This was a pilot for a possible spin-off series from Doctor Who. Alas, it was not to be.
(Air date:~ 28/12/81)
(*Bill Pollock is played by Bill Fraser, he played General Grugger in Meglos.)
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Once passed the annoying and severely dated eighties theme and credits this is an okay story for the undemanding viewer. The more discerning Who fan will probably be impatiently waiting for "Seeds of Doom" and other such stories.
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DVD extras.
Commentary - With actors Elisabeth Sladen, John Leeson, Linda Polan and script editor Eric Saward.
The K9 Files - key production personnel look at the making of this story and K9's subsequent life in books and comic strips. With actors Elisabeth Sladen, John Leeson, writer and co-creator of K9, Dave Martin, script editor Terrance Dicks, director John Black, visual effects designer Mat Irvine and journalist Moray Laing.
K9 - A Dog's Tale - K9 himself answers a selection of questions about his life.
Pebble Mill at One - K9's appearance on the Christmas 1981 edition of the BBC1 lunchtime magazine show.
Trails and Continuities, Photo Gallery, Coming Soon Trailer
K9 Stories - four books for younger children - 'K9 and the Beasts of Vega', 'K9 and the Missing Planet', 'K9 and the Time Trap' and 'K9 and the Zeta Rescue' - plus the K9 annual on PDF for Mac and PC.
The K9 Radio Times Listings
Programme subtitles, Subtitle Production Notes.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Better Then Bad; It's GOOD!, September 21, 2008

By 

Erik Runnels "Bessie" (Los Angeles) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Doctor Who: The Invisible Enemy - Story 93) & K9 and Company: A Girl's Best Friend (DVD)

Look, Doctor Who is never going to win any awards for special effects. In addition, the fight sequences occasionally leave me in stitches; I'm afraid everyone in the Doctor Who universe is easily felled with a stiff kick to the shins or a slight nudge to the back of the neck.

Once one gets past these rather inconsequential shortcomings, however, Doctor who is generally a combination of both acting and teleplay brilliance!

The Invisible enemy is no different. Amongst the excellent focal points of this "episode" are: the introduction of K-9 (who preceded even R2-D2 in the cute robot milieu), Leela at the top of her form, Tom Baker - brilliant as always, and a rather interesting plot involving a microorganism with intelligence.

Furthermore, this DVD includes K-9 and Company. As a kid, I always wanted, but was never able to see this quirky chapter in the Doctor Who canon. To be honest, I thought it was quite fun. The theme song, by the way, hilariously embraces the kitzchy-ness of 1970's techno-disco. All in all, Sarah Jane is always fun, K-9's neither over or under-utilized, and the side characters are more than adequate.

My verdict? A fantastic introduction to the Doctor Who collection of DVD's!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The Doctor and Leela go on a "Fantastic Voyage" and adopt a dog, August 5, 2011

By 

buckbooks (Hillsboro, Oregon USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Doctor Who: The Invisible Enemy - Story 93) & K9 and Company: A Girl's Best Friend (DVD)

"The Invisible Enemy" marked a subtle transition in Doctor Who as producer Graham Williams, still in his first season, was pressured to veer the show away from grittier, horror-centered stories, such as the previous "Horror of Fang Rock," toward brighter, more fun-filled scripts. "Invisible Enemy" is also remembered as the story that, for better or worse, introduced a robot dog named K9. Love him or hate him (and fans did both), K9 would remain a regular feature of the program for four years.

Sadly, the gothic horror of the Philip Hinchcliffe-Robert Holmes years produced some of the best shows in the series' history, including the previous season's "Talons of Weng-Chiang," but also led to somewhat of a public backlash that the stories were too scary and violent. "The Invisible Enemy," by contrast, juggled some interesting sci-fi concepts, such as cloning, but was pretty much a shameless ripoff of the 1966 sci-fi movie classic "Fantastic Voyage." With the introduction of a new, radio-controlled robot character, the story was also plagued with special effects problems.

The crew of a shuttle to Titan is infected by an interplanetary virus that wants to establish a hive on Saturn's moon. The Doctor is infected with the "nucleus" of this unseen foe, which we will later learn looks like a giant prawn. At a nearby space hospital, clones of the Doctor and Leela are miniaturized and injected into the infected Doctor's brain in hopes of finding an antidote. The story copies "Fantastic Voyage" down to the smallest detail, including the clones' planned escape through a tear duct.

The voyage into the Doctor's brain required Tom Baker and Louise Jameson to work in both colorful, imaginatively designed sets created through color separation overlay and actual physical sets that proved less convincing. The sterile, laser-pistol shootouts look ridiculous, with actors firing in one direction and the resulting laser blasts lighting up somewhere else. K9 keeps crashing into things, sometimes becoming wedged in scenery or breaking down altogether. In one scene, he is required to shoot out a section of wall to create a barrier. The first take didn't look quite right, so the crew shot it again but didn't have time to cover up the seam where the wall broke away in the first take or even to sweep up debris left on the floor from the earlier shot.

This two-disc set also includes "K9 and Company: A Girl's Best Friend," a TV special broadcast in 1981 that was hoped might spin off into its own series featuring the robot dog and former Doctor Who companion Sarah Jane Smith. Elisabeth Sladen looks great here, but after four years, K9 had clearly expended whatever magic he might have once had, and a new series was not to be.