The Invisible Enemy

Parts of the plot are similar to the movie TREMORS. Unfortunately, for the story to work, the trained military crews of the space flights have to be even more dumb than the simple and humorous main characters in that very entertaining movie. I found it really tough to enjoy seeing this episode again after many, many years because the characters behaved do stupidly, in spite of their very simple and logical orders to always stay in sight. I kept wishing the writer had tried a little harder to set up the dangerous and scary situations without having certain people in the story be so dim-witted. A potentially interesting idea that just wasn't handled very well.

A spaceship from Earth is sent to look into the possibilities of colonizing Mars. The two astronauts however are attacked by an unseen entity and disappear. Three years later a new expedition of four men is sent led by Adam West to discover what happened and find the remains of the old ship. As figured, they start getting knocked off one by one by the same unseen enemy, however they soon make a shocking discovery of who or what is attacking them. This is a pretty ok episode that I loved to watch especially when I was younger. Watching it know it's easy to see its faults, as a lot of what's happening could probably be avoided by the characters who are supposed to be trained military astronauts not making stupid decisions. The creature on display however is pure 50s b movie gold and is why this is getting the rating it is as it's pretty much the only memorable thing about this, that and of course starring a young pre-Batman Adam West. The original short story this was based on sounds a lot better than how this turned out, and after finding out the script was re-written multiple times it's not surprising.

A pair of idiots are sent to Mars. They are killed due to incompetence. Five years later, another group of equal idiots are sent to see what happened. The space program has been put in the hands of men who have no discipline, no dedication to duty, nor respect for each other. There is all this talk about doing things by the book but when the first chance is there to explore, they ignore all their training. They are to remain in sight. They don't. One guy gets another one killed while he hunts for Martian diamonds. Since these are military men, the survivors should be court martialed the minute they arrive back on Earth. There is this steady comic byplay even after a colleague has been killed. One of the characters is such a miserable jerk that he shouldn't be allowed to tie his own shoes. Throw in two oddities: Adam West, Batman and Ted Knight, Ted Baxter from The Mary Tyler Moore Show are principle figures. They do nothing the least bit interesting in the show.

When Ben Brady took over as producer for the second season of OL, he wanted to do shows that were much more straightforward science fiction than the gothic melodramas and odd experimentations that were part of the charm of the Joseph Stefano version. "The Invisible Enemy" is one of the examples of what Brady's vision for the series was. This is not a bad episode, just a very nuts-and-bolts science fiction tale about what is attacking astronauts when they land on Mars. There is no philosophizing about humanity's place in the cosmos, commentary about the grotesque aspects of our natures, or even a whole lot of awe and mystery.

The first manned expedition to Mars lands, but all contact is lost, three years later a second expedition goes up, led by Major Merritt and Jack Buckley. Buckley makes it his mission to discover what happened to the first crew.

A real space chiller, more than average shades of horror about this one, and it worked very well, for the time this packed in the scares, I bet this caused a few sleepless nights.

Shades of Dune and Doctor Who, this seemed like a highly original episode, way ahead of its time. I keep expecting the standard in this second series to drop off, it hasn't.

Very good performances throughout, Adan West of course stood out. Rudy Solari did a fine job also, no complaints here.

Production wise, they did a very fine job, I thought the sand monsters looked very good, they definitely looked menacing, great job on a relatively low budget. Dated now or course, just remember this goes back all the way to 1964.

7/10.