Synopsis:
In Giles Kent's trailer, Astrid is helping the Doctor prepare to impersonate Salamander when Head of Security Donald Bruce unexpectedly walks in...
He has tracked Kent here as he believes that he intends to assassinate Salamander. Kent and the Doctor explain their real purpose - to gather evidence against Bruce's boss, which is to be found in the records room of the research facility. They are able to sow seeds of doubts in his mind. Astrid then overpowers the guard accompanying Bruce, taking his gun.
The Doctor elects to hand over the captured weapon as a show of faith - believing that Bruce will trust them enough to take their claims seriously. Though a senior member of Salamander's inner retinue, he respects the rule of law and is at heart a fair man.
They convince him to allow the Doctor a chance to get the information they seek. The Doctor also wishes to rescue Jamie and Zoe, who have been brought to the facility.
Bruce agrees to accompany the Doctor, but only if Kent and Astrid remain behind under guard as hostages.
In the underground shelter, Colin and Mary are talking. He still wants to get away from here and see the surface. Swann tries to placate him.
They are unloading boxes of provisions which have been supplied by Salamander, who is relaxing in the adjoining office.
Swann notices a piece of newspaper stuck to the underside of a box, which causes him considerable alarm. He goes to the office demanding to speak privately with Salamander.
The scrap of paper, only a few months old, reports the accidental sinking of a cruise ship. Swann demands to know how there can be cruise ships operating if full-scale war is raging, as Salamander claims.
Salamander tries to convince him that there is some semblance of normality, but people are hideously mutated by radiation and the environment is toxic in many places. He wishes the shelter dwellers to continue creating natural disasters so that they will one day emerge and inherit the Earth.
Undeterred, Swann insists on seeing for himself. Knowing he cannot be dissuaded, Salamander informs him that he can come with him when he returns to the surface. This is announced over the public address system to the rest of the shelter - causing Colin to become upset as he has been yearning to go and Swann knew this.
Benik begins interrogating Jamie and Victoria - threatening her to make him confess to working with Kent.
Salamander suddenly arrives with Bruce and dismisses Benik - claiming they will take over the questioning. Having only just been told that the Leader was still in the records room, and the guards had not reported him leaving it as he had ordered, Benik becomes suspicious. He tries to get him to sign some supply orders, but the Doctor - for it is he - manages to deflect this.
He is then able to get Jamie and Victoria to tell all they have discovered about Salamander in front of Bruce, without revealing his real identity. This way Bruce will know their information to be genuine.
On being told of Fariah's death, Jamie launches himself at the Doctor - who is now forced to admit the deception.
Elsewhere, Benik challenges the guard on the records room door, demanding to know why he did not inform him that the Leader had come out - only to find that he is adamant that Salamander has not left it.
Salamander is taking Swann to the surface via a set of rocky tunnels. He has failed to talk him into returning to the shelter. They have reached a chamber where other supplies are stored, and here Salamander arms himself with a large metal bar...
Frustrated at being held in his trailer, Kent devises a scheme to escape by creating a diversion.
Astrid breaks a window, causing the guard to run in and find Kent lying on the bed, apparently dead from a gunshot wound to the head. The guard runs for help, but it is tomato ketchup not blood on Kent's forehead.
He rushes away to the research facility - followed soon after by Astrid.
Moving through waste ground towards the complex, trying to avoid the security guards, she hears faint cries for help. Hidden in the undergrowth she finds Swann, terribly injured...
Written by David Whitaker
Recorded: Saturday 30th December 1967 - Lime Grove Studio D
First broadcast: 5.25pm, Saturday 20th January 1968
Ratings: 6.9 million / AI 49
Designer: Christopher Pemsel
Director: Barry Letts
Last time, I mentioned nepotism in the series and this story sees four relatives employed at one time or another. First of all we had Sarah Lisemore, daughter of the Production Assistant, who acted as Debbie Watling's location double. Then we had Frazer Hines' cousin Ian playing a security guard in the Central European Zone. Last week Andrew Staines - the director's nephew - featured as another member of the security forces.
This week, as a favour to Patrick Troughton, Letts gave the star's son David a background role as yet another security guard, seen in Kanowa corridor scenes. The future RSC star was on his festive break from school and was eager to follow his father into the acting profession. He would, of course, go on to appear in three further Doctor Who stories. You'll recognise him sitting on the right in the image below.
The rocky tunnel was another very simple set by Christopher Pemsel, which could be shot from different directions and angles - making it look like a much larger cave system.
The episode began with Colin Douglas re-enacting his last two lines from the previous episode.
The tunnel set necessitated frequent recording pauses for Troughton and Christopher Burgess to move position, suggesting movement through the passages.y76t
For this episode, Troughton was in his Salamander make-up throughout, and once he had donned the full costume he could retain it for the whole evening as he was either playing the disguised Doctor or the villain.
The first recording break came after the Doctor formed his uneasy truce with Bruce in the trailer. The two trailer scenes towards the end of the episode - where Kent first formulates and then puts into effect his escape plan - were recorded back to back just before the tunnel scenes. The latter had the actors' voices echoed.
The final recording break allowed Burgess to move to a small woodland set, where Astrid finds the injured Swann.
A close-up cutaway was used of the newspaper scrap found by Swann. It read "Holiday Liner Sinks - Many Feared Lost" and was dated to Friday 16th August 2017.
Troughton mimed playing Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star on a recorder to prove the Doctor's true identity to Jamie and Victoria.
It is a rather weak cliff-hanger this week, but then Astrid's inclusion in this episode was the result of rewrites designed to placate Peach and stop her from withdrawing from the production.
Bruce contends that he traced Kent through a tracer planted on his trailer by Benik, which must have been during his crockery-breaking spree in Episode Three. But surely this large vehicle is fairly conspicuous outside the research facility anyway - otherwise how did Benik spot in in the first place. It also suggests that Kent and the Doctor had been driving back and forth in it throughout Episode Four - when it looks like it is a static caravan.
- Ratings for the penultimate episode of the serial see a drop of almost a million viewers.
- David Troughton will be back in The War Games as Private Moor, before guesting as King Peladon in The Curse of Peladon. His most recent appearance was as Professor Hobbes in Midnight - a role he took on at the last minute when actor Sam Kelly broke his leg.
- The day after broadcast critic George Melly, writing in The Observer, was comparing Doctor Who to The Prisoner, claiming the former "is perfectly adjusted to exteriorise children's fears and anxieties without taking them out of their depths".
- On Thursday 18th January Radio Times published a centrespread feature on the visual effects of the series, and Doctor Who made the front cover - which these days was now printed in full colour. This was a publicity shot of Troughton taken during the making of The Ice Warriors. Though published during the broadcast of The Enemy of the World, the story does not feature in the article:
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