Sunday, 11 January 2026

Episode 191: The Enemy of the World (6)


Synopsis:
Astrid is approaching the research facility when she hears faint cries for help coming from the undergrowth. She finds Swann, who has been brutally attacked. She drags him into a nearby cave where he reveals he was attacked by Salamander, and tells her that there are people underground who must be warned.
The Doctor and Jamie are trying to convince Donald Bruce of Salamander's guilt, and tell him that the evidence they need will lie in the records room. However, that is locked with the would-be dictator inside. Benik enters the interrogation room, having just come from the records room where the guard has stated that Salamander could not have left it.
He attempts to trick the Doctor into revealing who he really is but fails. After he leaves, the Doctor is able to show Bruce that supply records indicate that far more people based here than are known about.
Astrid is able to tell Swann that there has been no nuclear war just before he dies of his wounds. She sets off down the tunnel to find the people he told her about.
The Doctor has Bruce arrange safe passage for Jamie and Victoria away from Kanowa, instructing them to go to the TARDIS and wait for him there.
In the underground shelter, an alarm sounds to indicate that someone is descending, and Colin assumes that it is the return of Salamander and Swann. He decides to confront them.
It is Astrid, however. Not recognising her, the others attack. Colin and Mary intervene so that she can explain her presence here.
She tells them of meeting Swann and of his death at the hands of Salamander. She informs them that there has been no war and to prove this she shows that the Geiger counter has been rigged to give false readings.
Concerned about Bruce allowing Jamie and Victoria to leave, the Guard Captain goes to find Benik.
Astrid intends to use the travel capsule to get back to the surface. It will only take a maximum of three people, and so Colin and Mary will accompany her.
Giles Kent is now in the research station, and has accessed a monitor which shows Salamander in the records room.
He has his own means of entering the room and inside he confronts Salamander. He pulls a gun on him and assures him that he has not come here alone.
Bruce and Benik observe the confrontation on the monitor. Kent has locked the door from the inside and it will not be easy to cut through as it is heavily reinforced.
Kent reveals that he knows of the secret exit from the room, which leads to the tunnel system and out to the waste ground beyond the facility. There are explosives set up in a chamber here which will bring down the tunnel and prevent anyone following.
Astrid suddenly appears from the shaft entrance with Colin and Mary, who recognise Kent as the person who had them enter the underground shelter in the first place. He and Salamander had planned all this together, until the falling-out between them. Now Kent intends to take over himself.
However, it is not Salamander whom he has confronted here but the Doctor - who now knows the truth about him. Bruce has also heard everything.
The real Salamander is in the tunnels, watching events unfold on a monitor.
Astrid has learned that Kent lured the shelter people down there as part of a survival experiment in living after a nuclear war. Salamander then turned up to claim that this had actually happened, and they then set about getting revenge on their attackers using manufactured natural disasters.
Kent flees and descends to the tunnels. The Doctor and Astrid find they are now trapped in the records room, knowing that Kent can detonate the explosives and destroy the facility above.
They are able to adjust the monitor to show the tunnel chamber where Salamander has been hiding.
Benik attempts to overpower Bruce but the Security Chief's deputy, Forester, arrives in time with a party of men. Benik is arrested, as are all the facility personnel.
Kent arrives at the chamber and is confronted by Salamander. He tries to strike a deal with him, but Salamander shoots him. As he dies, he detonates the explosives.
This is witnessed by the Doctor and his friends in the records room, just as Bruce's men finally get the door open. They escape into the corridor just in time, suffering only minor injuries.
Astrid tells Bruce about the people still trapped in the shelter, and a monitor shows they are still alive. He will help her free them. 
The Doctor offers to assist but Astrid points out that the people will think he is Salamander and try to kill him. Instead he has Bruce arrange passage for him away from the facility.
Night has fallen, and Jamie and Victoria are waiting for the Doctor by the TARDIS when they see him approach through the dunes. Still wearing his disguise, he appears to be somewhat dazed and says nothing as he stands scanning the console. He then indicates that Jamie should take over, but his companion points out that he is never allowed to touch the controls. A voice from the doorway congratulates him on remembering this rule and they turn to see the real Doctor standing there, back in his usual outfit. 
Salamander reveals that Kent died in the blast, and he decided to imitate the Doctor to escape. The Doctor tells him that he will leave him here to face justice for his crimes.
Salamander reaches for the controls and the two struggle before Jamie pushes him away. However, the dematerialisation control has been activated with the doors still open.
As the TARDIS dematerialises, Salamander is sucked out into the Vortex - and the Doctor and his companions face the same fate...
Next time: The Web of Fear

Data:
Written by David Whitaker
Recorded: Saturday 6th January 1968 - Lime Grove Studio D
First broadcast: 5.25pm, Saturday 27th January 1968
Ratings: 8.3 million / AI 52
Designer: Christopher Pemsel
Director: Barry Letts


Critique:
The filming for this episode mainly covered two sequences from the climax to the story - one on location and one at Ealing.
At the beach at Littlehampton the scene where Jamie and Victoria stand by the TARDIS, waiting for the Doctor, was filmed on the evening of Sunday 5th November - the only day when the regulars were free to do location filming. In order to capture the sound, it was realised that the film recordist, John Hills-Harrop, would have to be so close to the TARDIS prop that he would be in shot. Knowing the level of broadcast definition, he dressed all in black and, with careful backlighting, was able to record the dialogue whilst remaining invisible to the camera.
The Ealing filming covered the key scene in which the Doctor and Salamander finally come face to face. This took place on Friday 10th and Monday 13th November, and did not go exactly to plan. 
The technique Letts chose to employ involved masking one half of the lens to capture Troughton as the Doctor on the right side of the film. After careful rewinding, the same film would be exposed this time with the other half of the lens masked and with Troughton now portraying Salamander on the left hand side. Unfortunately the film jammed badly and could not be fully rewound, and so only a limited amount of footage could be used.
Only later did Letts discover that he had been badly advised and that he could have simply filmed the two performances separately, with a fixed camera, and had the images overlapped using optical printing.
When Salamander is sucked out of the TARDIS doors, Troughton was being doubled by fight arranger Peter Diamond, pulled on a Kirby wire.
This was the first time Frazer Hines and Debbie Watling had seen Troughton in character as Salamander, and found the accent hilarious. He was asked if Salamander was Welsh...
One other brief piece of filming is more of the model work as the shelter dwellers watch the capsule ascending on a monitor.


In studio, Letts was granted extra time due the technical complexities of this final instalment. Recording commenced at 8pm, running to 9.45pm.
A few seconds of the previous episode's ending, on 35mm film, acted as a reprise. To save recreating the small woodland set, Astrid is instead seen to tend to Swann in the rocky tunnel set as it would be used for much of the episode.
Troughton was able to wear his Salamander costume and make-up throughout the evening as the only scenes of him as the Doctor this week were those already filmed at Ealing for the final confrontation.
Dialogue concerning the release of Jamie and Victoria was simplified just before recording, and a scene between the Guard Captain and guard discussing the jammed records room door was dropped altogether.
Scenes set in the corridor and the records room were recorded first, mainly in story sequence, with the scenes set in the tunnels recorded towards the end of the evening. Recording breaks were mainly to allow actors to move from set to set. 
The corridor had a television monitor added, so that Bruce and others could observe what was going on in the records room.
After the main sequences were recorded, a number of brief cutaway shots were completed. These were mainly shots which were to be seen on the monitors in the corridor and records room - thus allowing Troughton as the Doctor to watch himself as Salamander - or vice versa - without the need to a recording break.
The detonation of the explosives was a piece of stock footage and smoke was superimposed over the picture. 
An electronic interference pattern effect was superimposed over the filmed shot of Salamander in the Vortex.

That day Letts and Troughton had once again discussed the problems which the star was facing with the production schedule on Doctor Who, and the director suggested that the series should run for only 26 weeks of the year, which was the norm for most on-going drama series. Filming for an episode could be done a whole week before studio recording, doing away with the current overlapping of productions and loss of days off. This was fed back to new producer Peter Bryant, who was positive about the suggestions and promised to make changes for the 1968/69 season.

As we've previously mentioned, it was long thought that Episode 3 was retained in the archives as it was the first to be made for broadcast on the 625-line system - but the paperwork has been incorrect on this. The episode was kept, along with the sixth and final instalment of The Wheel in Space, purely as examples of the 1967/68 season.
After film copies were sold to countries including Hong Kong, Singapore, New Zealand, Gibraltar, Zambia and Nigeria, the video recordings of Episodes 2 - 5 were cleared for wiping in July 1969, with the first instalment following that September. 
The film copies were all thought destroyed by 1974 but, in 2013, the Nigerian copies were rediscovered by Philip Morris at a TV relay station and returned to the BBC archives. (We'll mention Morris again when we get to the next story).
The reaction from fans was to form a positive re-evaluation of the story and it is now well-regarded. Even the much derided Episode 3 holds up better once viewed in context.

This final episode does have its problems however. David Whitaker has striven for an epic, Bond-like feel, but the climax is somewhat disappointing. Bond always had a big climactic event which had to be averted, generally involving a countdown to disaster, but we have nothing like that here. 
There's the reveal that Kent was just as big a villain all along, and was out to usurp Salamander, but it's all far too rushed. 
We're told that Salamander has locked himself in the records room and no-one can enter. Presumably there's no way of seeing inside by monitor either, otherwise Salamander's absence would be found out, and his secret capsule spotted, every time he descended to the shelter. 
And yet here everyone can easily tune into the records room - and how did the Doctor get in there in the first place, when Salamander had locked himself in?

Benik is set up as a particularly nasty villain, but is dispensed with really easily, and heads off into arrest meekly asking for a fair trial. He deserved a more satisfying comeuppance. Bond villains have their henchmen (or women) and it is often their demise which pleases the audience more than the main villain's. Apart from his confrontation with Kent, and the final TARDIS scene, even Salamander hasn't much to do this week.
Jamie and Victoria have so little to do they are sent home early. And what happened to Colin and Mary?
They simply vanish after the explosion. We don't see them in the corridor, and they are the obvious ones to help Astrid rescue their colleagues - but where are they? If they got buried by rubble in the records room you'd expect this to be mentioned. There's a feeling Letts was rushing to fit in the key sequences on the night before the plug was pulled, so corners were cut.

Then we have the big face-to-face showdown, which everyone would have been waiting to see. From reading above, you'll note that it was hardly Letts' fault that this isn't as memorable as it should have been, but at the end of the day we are left with a key scene which is all too brief.
Ultimately, the conclusion to the story is too rushed and not terribly satisfying.
Was The Enemy of the World really a Doctor Who story at all, or simply a genre piece into which Whitaker shoehorned the TARDIS and its crew? The companions play very little role after the first couple of episodes, and the Doctor is quite out of character in sitting on the side-lines for so long.
You can't fault the ambition, but trying to do Bond in Lime Grove Studio D on a shoestring budget might not have been the wisest decision Lloyd and Bryant ever made.

Trivia:
  • The ratings for this story have varied greatly, but they end on the highest viewing figure for the season so far. We also get the best appreciation figure for the serial here, in the 50's for the first time since the opening instalment.
  • The Enemy of the World was David Whitaker's favourite of all his Doctor Who scripts.
  • Innes Lloyd, who died in August 1991, would go on to produce some of the BBC's most highly regarded television dramas, including a number of collaborations with playwrights Alan Bennett (Talking Heads, An Englishman Abroad and A Question of Attribution) and Stephen Frears (Going Gently, A Day Out). East of Ipswich was a semi-autobiographical piece by Michael Palin about his childhood days. Biographical dramas about Arthur "Bomber" Harris, the speed-loving Campbells - Donald and Malcolm - and the BBC's Lord Reith followed. He was also responsible for Nigel Kneale's The Stone Tape being produced. An excellent documentary on Lloyd is to be found on the DVD / Blu-ray of The Savages, and was also recently broadcast on BBC 4, along with an episode of The Ice Warriors.
  • The latest edition of Whicker's World was broadcast a few hours after Doctor Who this evening. This was titled "I Don't Like My Monsters To Have Oedipus Complexes", and dealt primarily with the Horror genre. Christopher Lee was interviewed as were members of the HAVOC stunt team. A Yeti pursued the celebrity interviewer through Highgate Cemetery, and he also had a chat with Terry Nation at his home in Kent, which housed a number of his own Dalek props...
  • To mark the return of the missing episodes in October 2013, along with those from The Web of Fear, DWM offered a choice of two themed covers:

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