Episode 187: The Enemy of the World (2)

Synopsis:

Donald Bruce is in the office of Giles Kent, demanding to know the identity of the man seen earlier with Astrid Ferrier. An inner door suddenly opens and his boss, Salamander, enters...

Kent has deliberately brought Bruce here in order that the Doctor should be forced to impersonate the would-be dictator. The deception is working as Bruce is shocked to see Salamander here, as he and Kent are the bitterest of enemies. He was also under the impression that Salamander was currently in Hungary.

The Doctor bluffs his way through the encounter, explaining that Bruce will find out why he is here when he wants him to know. After he has gone the Doctor accuses Kent of bringing him here deliberately to force him into impersonating Salamander - but Kent is pleased with his experiment. The Doctor can successfully pass for his enemy, and can get him the evidence he needs to destroy him.

The Doctor will remain in Australia with Kent to work on his impersonation and to check out Salamander's research facility at Kanowa, whilst Jamie and Victoria will travel to Hungary with Astrid to make contact with Alexander Denes, Controller of the Central European Zone and an ally of Kent.

At Kanowa, Bruce consults with his underling Benik, who confirms that Salamander got on a rocket transport to the Zone controlled by Denes, to attend a conference. Bruce tells him that he has just left their leader with Kent. Benik thinks him mistaken and explains that they will not be able to contact Salamander until after the conference is over. Bruce is concerned that Kent may have some hold over his boss.

At the Presidential Palace where he is staying, Salamander is warning Denes that the entire region is at imminent risk of volcanic disturbance. Denes insists that the Eperjes-Tokaj range has been dormant since the 16th Century. Their argument is being observed by Fedorin, Denes' deputy. Also present is a young woman named Fariah, and Fedorin is appalled to learn that she acts as Salamander's food-taster - especially after he has consumed some wine which she hadn't yet tested.

Denes leaves, but Salamander wants Fedorin to remain.

Astrid has a rendezvous with Jamie and Victoria at a park near the Palace. There is a plan to get Jamie onto Salamander's staff.

Astrid then contacts Kent and the Doctor to update them on progress, and to inform them that she has arranged a covert meeting with Denes.

Salamander has rejoined Fedorin and they are talking when Jamie suddenly appears on the terrace, armed with a pistol. He urges Salamander not to touch the radio-telephone sitting on the table. He picks it up and throws it into the bushes where it apparently explodes - really a small blast set off remotely by Astrid. Jamie then surrenders his weapon and explains that he only acted as he did to save Salamander. Impressed with his actions, the would-be dictator offers Jamie a role with his security team. The young man asks if there might be a job for his girlfriend Victoria as well.

Jamie returns to the park to update Victoria and Astrid, who slips away when they see Fariah and the Guard Captain approach. They have come to take them to the Palace to commence their new roles. Victoria will assist in the kitchens.

Astrid goes to a disused jetty to meet with Denes and tell him about the scheme to infiltrate Salamander's retinue. Astrid questions Fedorin's loyalty towards Denes. He hopes he can trust him.

At the Palace, Fedorin has been told of a number of secrets about himself which Salamander has obtained - instances of financial embezzlement. He protests his innocence, but Salamander tells him that he is going to replace Denes as Controller of this Zone. He again claims that a disaster is about to befall the region, and then states that Denes will be killed by an unknown assassin soon after.

Bruce arrives from Australia in response to the earlier assassination attempt, but his efforts to speak to Salamander are interrupted by earth tremors and the sight of volcanic eruptions on the horizon. Nearby communities are being destroyed, with many dead.

Denes rushes in, demanding to know how Salamander could have known this was going to happen with such accuracy.

As the volcanic eruptions continue, Salamander angrily accuses Denes of being a traitor and of failing in his duty to protect his region...

Data:

Written by David Whitaker

Recorded: Saturday 9th December 1967 - Lime Grove Studio D

First broadcast: 5.25pm, Saturday 30th December 1967

Ratings: 7.6 million / AI 49

Designer: Christopher Pemsel

Director: Barry Letts

Additional cast: George Pravda (Denes), David Nettheim (Fedorin), Milton Johns (Benik), Carmen Munroe (Fariah), Gordon Faith (Guard Captain)

Critique:

Fedorin was originally going to be the Chief of Police for the Central European Zone, rather than Denes' deputy. Fariah was a female security guard, and it was in a similar role that Victoria was to be recruited, suggesting that the whole kitchen sequence in the following episode, and Fariah's position as Salamander's personal food-taster, came later as the story developed. As mentioned last time, everything after the opening instalment existed only in draft form when Barry Letts joined the production, and he had to work closely with Derrick Sherwin on all subsequent episodes.

Filming for this instalment was confined purely to back projection sequences. These included the park near the Palace, the backdrop to the disused jetty, and the bomb explosion. Letts was inspired to make full use of back projection after seeing Shaun Sutton employ the technique on Z-Cars.

The park location was Walpole Park in Ealing, close to the BBC's Villiers House, which would later feature as the exterior of Kent's office building. The filming took place on Thursday 9th November. Jamie was seen to approach in long shot as his double, Richard Halifax was once again used.

Life was made easier for Patrick Troughton in studio as he only had to dress as Salamander for this episode - first as the Doctor impersonating him, and then as the real character for the rest of the running time. 

However, there is one scene in which we see him as the Doctor - when Astrid radios Giles Kent to provide an update, and the Doctor humorously mishears "disused jetty" as "disused Yeti".

This scene was simply filmed during a later recording session - presumably Episode 4 as Kent's office set is used in this, and Troughton would be dividing his time more evenly between the Doctor and Salamander - and edited into this episode.

Joining the cast this week, playing one of the guards in the Presidential Palace, was Ian Hines - Frazer's cousin. 

As with most of these episodes, Letts decided against lengthy reprises - or cut them altogether. Here only Troughton's closing line from Episode One is repeated.

Some scenes were recorded out of order this week.

One of the recording breaks was followed by the scene in which Bruce confers with Benik at Kanowa - allowing Troughton to change into the full Salamander costume and make-up.

The establishing shot of the research centre was a photo-caption of Dungeness Power Station, with a sign superimposed in front.

Most of the terrace scenes were recorded before another break, and then the scenes at the jetty were recorded - a split-level set allowing for guards to stand above the heads of Astrid and Denes. 

The remaining terrace scenes were then recorded following another break.

Sound effects of birdsong were used to help establish the park setting, as the location film was silent, and the lapping of water for the jetty scene.

Stock footage of the Vesuvius eruption of 1944 was used for the climactic scene.

It was during the camera rehearsals for this episode that all of the photographs of Troughton as Salamander were taken, as well as portraits of Nettheim and Pravda. (I'm assuming the one below was colourised by Clayton Hickman).

Having only appeared on a screen giving a speech last week, this is our first proper look at Salamander - and we get to see the nature of his villainy. He blackmails Fedorin and plots the assassination of Denes, and seems to be very well informed about the imminence of a volcanic eruption - claiming that his scientists are more competent than those Denes employs. He clearly gets rid of people who might challenge him and replaces them with weaker figures over whom he has some hold. The fact that he employs someone to taste his food and drink for poison shows that he knows his own popularity is on shaky ground, but he is arrogant enough to believe he will come to dominate this world.

Tellingly, he finds the sight of the volcanic eruption "beautiful", even though he's just been told there are many fatalities.

Apart from the staged bomb attack, this is obviously more of a character-driven episode after the action-orientated opener. We do get some globe-trotting, with another foreign locale - but unfortunately this isn't set up very well. We get some Mittel European accents, but some establishing shots of the Presidential Palace or its environs might have helped.

Trivia:

• The ratings see a sizeable upswing, no doubt due to it being that quiet period between Christmas and New Year, before the January sales commence. The appreciation figure drops below 50, however.
• ITV opposition remained repeats of Sir Francis Drake in most regions, though Southern began showing Gerry Anderson's latest series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons.
• The Hungarian mountains mentioned in this episode are a chain of hills which run between the cities of Eperjes in the south, and Tokaj in the north. They form the inner volcanic part of the Carpathians and are a popular hiking trail, as well as a noted wine growing region.
• George Pravda would return to the series on two further occasions - as corrupt scientist Jaeger in The Mutants, and as Castellan Spandrell in The Deadly Assassin.
• Milton Johns would also return to the series - also playing a Castellan (Kelner in The Invasion of Time). His next role after Benik would be playing Guy Crayford in The Android Invasion. He is one of a small number of Doctor Who regular guest artists who have played Imperial officers in the original Star Wars trilogy, appearing with Michael Sheard and Julian Glover in The Empire Strikes Back.
• The Daily Mail Boys & Girls Exhibition opened at Olympia on 27th December, and featured a number of Doctor Who costumes as well as the winning entrants in the recent Blue Peter competition. Monsters on view from the series included a Dalek, Cybermen, a Yeti, an Ice Warrior, Fungoids and the Mire Beast from The Chase, a Varga Plant (Mission to the Unknown) and a Rill (Galaxy 4). The exhibition ran to January 7th. A short Movietone film titled The Young Idea was produced, which features the Cybermen and Yeti at 0:57, which you can view on YouTube here - THE YOUNG IDEA Hopefully this will feature on a Troughton Blu-ray box set when they finally get round to giving us one.

Inspirations: The Girl Who Died...

But not The Woman Who Lived...

Steven Moffat said that he was going to change the way viewers thought about two-parters this series, and here we have an example of what he was talking about. Many see this and the following episode as two halves of a single storyline - how Ashildr becomes immortal and what happens when the Doctor has to then confront the consequences of his actions in making her so. 

However, the actual narratives within each episode - the background / plot - have absolutely nothing to do with each other, and the Doctor could have had his follow-up meeting with her - now known as Lady Me - at any point later in the series. Indeed, I said in my review at the time that this might have been preferable. There's no reason whatsoever to follow up on her in the very next episode.

There is also the obvious fact that both of these episodes are written by different people.

This is why I'm going to look at the two separately.

Jamie Mathieson had come up with a number of story ideas - but unfortunately every one of them was already an idea being developed by someone else this year. He was therefore given the starting point of "the Doctor meets Vikings" by Moffat.

His first idea began with the Doctor and Clara already captured by Vikings after a school trip to the island of Lindisfarne, off the Northumbrian coast. With them would be a number of other woman taken from the island. The Valkyrie would descend - female warriors on winged horses - and take all the women on Odin's orders. At the floating city of Valhalla, the female captives - who included Ashildr - would be forced to fight gladiatorial combats. In this version it was women whom the aliens wanted, as part of a breeding experiment to create a hybrid species.

The Doctor captured one of the Valkyrie and discovered that they used alien tech. Odin retaliated by sending the Leviathan to attack the Viking village. Part of the Doctor's plan to defeat the aliens was to tamper with one of the Valkyrie helmets.

Only one or two of these ideas / images would make it through to the episode as broadcast.

Leviathan became the wooden dragon used to frighten the Mire, and the tampering with the helmet is what helps feed the Doctor's imagery through the aliens' psychic link and is manipulated by Ashildr - leading to her death.

Moffat liked the notion that the Doctor had to train a second-class band of Vikings to become an effective defensive force. In this he was inspired by Dad's Army - the much-loved BBC sit-com about the Walmington-on-Sea Home Guard, broadcast between 1968 - 1977. This even led to a working title of "The All Father's Army" - 'All-father' deriving from Norse mythology, another name for their supreme god.

The Doctor would also have to furnish his Viking band with weapons derived from the only available resources and technology - an idea exemplified by US action series such as The A-Team and MacGyver.

Another very obvious inspiration is The Magnificent Seven (1960), which was a Western version of 1954's Seven Samurai. In these a small group of ill-prepared locals have to defend their community against a larger, more organised force, making use of the advice and support of outsiders.

Moffat was quick to point out that he knew that Vikings did not go around in horned helmets all the time. Horned, or winged, helmets were worn only on ceremonial occasions - but were popularised in the 19th Century through productions of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen. 

However, he thought that the general viewing public would expect to see them and they were a good visual shorthand for "Viking".

The Mire were originally intended to be humanoid in appearance, wearing helmets akin to the famous Sutton Hoo one. At one point Vikings were to have been inspired to add horns to their helmets because the Mire wore them on theirs.

Vikings had appeared in the series once before - in The Time Meddler - and John Lucarotti had attempted to contribute another story involving Eric the Red's discovery of the Americas. The Vanir in Terminus are based around Norse mythology, which also feeds into The Curse of Fenric and The Greatest Show in the Galaxy. A later working title for this episode would be "Ragnarok".

Odin was the All-father, or king of the Norse pantheon. He is generally depicted as an older, bearded man with only one eye - having sacrificed the other in order to drink from the Well of Mimir, which gave him great wisdom.

The role, here played by David Schofield, was originally intended for Brian Blessed, who had played the blustering King Yrcanos in Mindwarp, but he had to drop out after taking ill.

This episode takes the time to explain why the Doctor looks exactly like someone he met in a previous incarnation - namely the Pompeiian marble merchant Caecilius. In The Fires of Pompeii, the Doctor had been convinced by Donna Noble to save Caecilius and his family, and here he realises having his features is a sign that he is expected to save others. The Doctor had questioned the familiarity of his new appearance in Deep Breath.

The Doctor demonstrates his skill in communicating with babies once again, having been seen in A Good Man Goes To War and Closing Time.

He is also seen playing with a yo-yo, a toy he has used since The Ark in Space, often for the serious purpose of judging local gravity.

In one of the drafts of this episode, the Doctor was to have taken Ashildr's body to the Sisterhood of Karn to be saved using the Elixir of Life - first introduced in The Brain of Morbius.

At one point the Doctor talks of how he could "reverse the polarity of the neutron flow" - the classic Third Doctor line only ever spoken in full in The Sea Devils, with a later cameo by Pertwee in The Five Doctors. However here the Doctor claims not to know what it actually means.

The Doctor also refers to his 2000 Year Diary. He was earlier seen to have a 500 Year version from The Power of the Daleks onwards.

Next time: a quick jaunt through European medieval and early-modern history, and the Doctor is forced to stand and deliver...

TWBTLATS (2): Plastic Apocalypse

This episode is mostly set in the conference hall, as Barclay begins his task of acting as intermediary for the human race in their negotiations with Homo Aqua. As such it is a bit more talky - though there's a big VFX set-piece before the end. We also get to see some shady politicking developing, as a British businessman / MP enters into a conspiracy with military personnel representing the USA and France.

Gung-ho US military are a bit of a cliché in these sort of things, and I'm assuming the fact that one of the co-conspirators is French is a nod to their sinking of Greenpeace's Rainbow Warrior in Auckland in 1985 - for this episode sets out the anti-pollution of the seas message in stark terms.

The French officer leaks Barclay's identity to the press (for no discernible reason) whilst the MP (Sir Keith Spears, played by Patrick Baladi) obtains some Homo Aqua DNA by devious means (acquired through a lab assistant examining one of their still-born eggs).

Kate Stewart still doesn't trust Barclay to just be himself and, as expected, he decides to go off-script and speak to Salt from the heart - just as we could see coming. She responds well to this but the agreement to hold these talks was never to be a sharing of ideas and meeting of minds. Homo Aqua have come with a list of grievances which they want resolved right now, rather than a promised 50% reduction in pollutants in 40 years time as Barclay is compelled to propose. 

Salt lets it be known that what belongs to the human race in the oceans will be returned to it - and so we get our big VFX set-piece. Except it's not all that impressive.

Basically lots of plastic bags and bottles fall out of the sky over London, along with a big anchor. One person is seen to be killed, and St Paul's Cathedral gets a hole in its dome. The Titanic finally arriving in New York is at least funny. Visually, I found this all a bit of a let-down.

The question also has to be asked: if Homo Aqua had the technology do this, why not do it a lot sooner?

They could have done it without even showing their faces, and if they didn't want humans to notice them then they could simply have dumped it all in the middle of the Sahara or somewhere similarly remote, to remain a bizarre unsolved mystery.

Salt then states that the waters of the world belong to them and they want complete control over them. The human race are landlubbers, and that's where they will have to stay. They can't go into the oceans, lakes and rivers, and can no longer cross them - even by air.

Naturally this provokes outrage amongst the delegates from across the world who are in attendance, especially as it will affect trade and local / global economies. Sir Keith and his co-conspirators have already let it be known to the viewers that trade is all that matters to them.

Barclay is able to east tensions.

Salt's final demand is that next time they meet it must be in their domain, so there will be a resumption of talks at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean - to which Barclay agrees.

So the scene is set, with Salt's demands never going to be agreed to as many nations rely on intercontinental trade, and we've already seen some shady individuals working against Homo Aqua before any of this episode's events have even taken place.

Doctor Who has already addressed plastics pollution of the oceans, as Pete McTighe very well knows since he wrote Praxeus for Series 12. Then, the Doctor gave humanity a right good talking to about it - and nothing has been done about it at all, so obviously this sort of drama is not necessarily the best way to address these issues. Lecturing / hectoring fans of Doctor Who, or its spin-offs, about environmental issues really is preaching to the converted, in my opinion. (We all knew pollution was bad from watching The Green Death in 1973, so no need to tell us again).

No doubt Western nations will be presented as the chief culprits, but a quick search on-line reveals that Asian and South American nations are far and away the biggest polluters of the seas. Will this be addressed in the series? I'd like to think that some basic research has gone into this if messages are going to be pushed.

I've read that some 2.82 million viewers watched Homo Aqua, dropping to 2.05 for this instalment. Might look bad but Sunday night also saw the finale of I'm A Has-Been, Get Me Out Of Here on ITV, so audience share will be more important.

TWBTLATS (1): Homo Aqua

The war starts off in a relatively low key fashion. A Sea Devil, as was, is accidentally caught in the nets of a Spanish fishing boat and the crew shoot it dead when it bursts out. UNIT find out about the corpse from social media, and so a team are flown in to the small island where it is being held. In command is General Austin Pierce (Colin McFarlane) who we first met in Torchwood: Children of Earth, and seconded to the mission is Barclay (Russell Tovey). He's there by mistake, having once covered for the person who should be there, for Barclay is just a lowly logistics assistant who books transport for UNIT.

The Sea Devils - now dubbed Homo Aqua, though it's acknowledged that this is itself a misnomer and they should really have a much more complex taxonomy - then show up in force. Pierce starts peace negotiations - but it turns out that they want this anyway.

Cue setting up a big glass tank at a Thames-side building in London to host the talks - shades of that Torchwood series again - and Barclay is invited, having been part of the initial contact team.

The talks will be supervised by Kate Stewart (Jemma Redgrave) but conducted by a seasoned diplomat.

Having been seen to pay respect towards the dead Homo Aqua, the chief negotiator on their side, who goes by the name of Salt (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), insists that Barclay be the one they go through.

And that's the opening instalment in a nutshell. It's very much setting things up by introducing the key players and giving viewers some idea of just who these Homo Aqua are, for those that might be unaware of the Silurians and Sea Devils of Doctor Who.

The Doctor does get a mention - Barclay telling a colleague that he once saw them at "the Tower". (Whether this is the new Tony Stark-style tower or the older base under the Tower of London isn't specified).

We're introduced to Barclay's family, which comprises a teenage daughter and an ex-wife, neither of whom had any idea of what he really did for a living. It's therefore a big shock to them when they get  removed from their home at gunpoint as Kate initially believes that there may have been some prior collusion between Barclay and the amphibians. This isn't the cosy UNIT set-up we've been used to through the parent programme. They act like ICE agents and don't trust anyone. There's a harder edge to the characters, which include recent regulars Colonel Ibrahim (Alexander Devrient) and Shirley Bingham (Ruth Madeley).

The new Sea Devils are mostly of the turtle-beaked variety, who do not communicate in English. When their delegation arrives at the conference venue - swimming up a giant pipe from the river - we see that there is a second species, which is much more piscine. Salt seems to be one of a kind, having a more human-like form and features. It's said that they all have a pearl imbedded in their throat and this seems to act as a piece of technology - allowing them to have witnessed and recorded Barclay's private act of respect for instance. There is a lot of talk of their advanced technology, and we saw that they were able to transmit their demand for talks globally, but so far we have seen little of it. They live in, and / or travel in, large coral formations which are able to rise up from the sea in major world cities. We see one rise near the Statue of Liberty, and another in the Thames by Big Ben.

These, the first appearance of the creatures en masse off the Spanish island, and their arrival in the conference venue are the big spectacles of this opening instalment.

UNIT remain peripheral for now, so it's very much Tovey's episode and he comes across as a likeable everyman figure. Kate - under pressure from the PM and other political figures - doesn't trust him to be himself, however. When Salt insists they will only talk through him, UNIT insists that he still follow their script. As a viewer, we know that's not how it is going to go. Homo Aqua want to talk to, and through, an ordinary person - and that's the set up for the next episode...

There's an apparent nod to Chibnall's The Hungry Earth (which, of course, brought back the Silurians) when two members of the initial mission are killed - the ground liquifying and them being pulled under. This looks a little odd as we've clearly seen that the outbuilding in which the Homo Aqua corpse was being kept was well up from the beach on a rocky ledge. If they were able to get water to rise this far up, I'd love to know how they did it.

One other thing which wasn't terribly well set up was Barclay's response to these deaths. He mentions it only once as a reason for not trusting Homo Aqua, yet these feelings simply never re-materialise. I think more could have been made of his conflicting opinion of them. He is suddenly being asked to negotiate with beings who killed his friends.

It would have been nice to have included at least one representative of the classic Sea Devil design amongst their delegation as well.

As an introduction, it does everything it needs to do. A little spectacle, the beginnings of some political manoeuvrings, and a personable leading man. You'd certainly want to carry on watching...

The Sea Devils (2025)

Before watching the opening episodes of The War Between The Land And The Sea (reviewed tomorrow) I decided to watch the new re-edited omnibus of The Sea Devils. I must admit I almost didn't bother as the complete story is already available on Blu-ray, and the Season 9 box set includes an existing omnibus put together by the original production team.

There was also the issue of the two previous re-edits from the current team which certainly had their faults.

The Daleks and The War Games had as their main selling point the fact that these were 1960's monochrome stories which were going to be colourised. That process, for me, was successful.

The Hartnell story had its padding, an extra episode having been requested after Terry Nation came up with a 6-parter, so there were obvious edits that could be made. 

The Troughton story was a lengthy 10 episodes in duration, and the editing was much more of a hack job in the middle instalments. The cuts and jumps really jarred.

A problem across both stories was the soundtrack. There was some wholly inappropriate and intrusive music slapped over sections of The Daleks - the escape sequence stands out - whilst bits of Nu-Who music were used on The War Games, where more era specific music would have fitted much better. Using the Saxon Master theme for the War Chief also went against what the co-creator of both characters intended.

The Sea Devils obviously doesn't need to be colourised, so this was all going about the edit and the soundtrack.

I'm pleased to say that this was a much more successful project. 

The cuts made were the right ones in my view, so that all the main narrative beats were present and the story flowed. There were only a couple of new bits of filming edited in - a drone shot of the sea fort and a new initial view of the Master's prison at the start. The opening titles were omitted, to closer match those of the new spin-off. When the Doctor tells Jo about his encounter with the Silurians we get some flashback clips from the Season 7 story.

Some of the cuts are achieved by having dialogue continue over the next scene. The stuff in the prison is where most of the cuts seem to have been made. What we still get are all of Pertwee's more humorous moments, and anyone coming new to this would be encouraged to check out more of the Third Doctor's adventures. The main action sequences and iconic imagery, such as the Sea Devils rising from the waves, were there. Also nice to see the Clangers sequence retained. Unnecessary to the plot but a lovely character moment for the Master and illustrative of Trenchard's unimaginative nature.

There is new music, but fortunately Mark Ayres has been confined to general remastering and kept well away from this aspect of the new edit. Apparently some original unused cues from Malcolm Clarke were employed, along with new themes from another composer which were more mood pieces, and so nowhere near as intrusive and jarring.

If you want to revisit The Sea Devils but don't have the time or inclination to watch the complete six episodes, then this is a perfectly fine alternative.

I'm going to assume it won't warrant a release on its own, but may be an extra on the spin-off Blu-ray when it arrives in the New Year.

Episode 186: The Enemy of the World (1)

Synopsis:

The TARDIS materialises on an Australian beach, and the Doctor immediately strips to his long-johns and takes to the water as a bemused Jamie and Victoria look on. After his brief dip, the Doctor notices a small hovercraft standing on the shoreline nearby. The three men operating it, Anton, Rod and Curly, are observing him closely, for they are sure they know exactly who he is...

Concerned by their attention, the Doctor returns to his companions. The hovercraft speeds towards them and so they take to the sand dunes. Anton has contacted a woman named Astrid Ferrier to report their sightings. She is stationed in a nearby office and urges them to stand down until she has consulted with their boss, Giles Kent - but Anton refuses to heed her advice. They plan on killing their target.

Astrid takes to a helicopter and rushes to the area. 

Jamie is able to knock out Curly with a punch as they are hunted through the dunes.

Astrid arrives in time to rescue the Doctor and his companions, but the helicopter fuel tank has been hit by bullets and she fears it may explode any moment. She has a cottage along the coast and takes them there, but Anton and his men follow close behind. The Doctor notes that it is the year 2018 from documentation in the craft.

At the cottage, the Doctor notices that Astrid has been wounded and so gives medical aid. He learns from her that he closely resembles a man who is regarded as a saviour by many, but who is feared by others to be a would-be dictator. She wishes him to meet Kent who can explain more, in the hope he can help them - even though it will be of great risk to himself.

They are interrupted by the arrival of the hovercraft. Rod is accidentally killed by his own friends in the confusion whilst Astrid leads the others out the back door of the cottage. 

Anton decides to take the helicopter to hunt them. Shortly after he and Curly have taken off, the craft explodes in mid-air.

Astrid takes the Doctor and his companions back to the office, which is Kent's base. He is astounded by the similarity of the Doctor to Ramon Salamander, the alleged would-be tyrant. He plays them a recording of a speech by Salamander at the UN General Assembly. He talks of his Sun-Catcher device, which focuses the sun's rays on parts of the Earth's surface and so allows crops to grow in otherwise inhospitable regions. As far as the Doctor can see, there is nothing sinister about him. Indeed, he appears to be a benefactor of the human race. Kent still claims he is a danger - and the Doctor is the person he needs to get the proof that will expose and discredit him.

Kent explains that he was once a senior member of the World Zones Authority, but Salamander had him replaced by a man named Donald Bruce when he started investigating his actions. Bruce is now his Head of Security. Since then a number of Salamander's political opponents have met with fatal accidents. Now only a man named Alexander Denes, of the Central European Zone, is brave enough to openly defy him.

Kent wants to know if the Doctor could impersonate Salamander and so infiltrate his organisation and find the evidence against him. The Doctor recognises his accent, from the Yucatan region of Mexico, and explains that with enough time he could no doubt copy him.

Word then comes through that Bruce has arrived at the building. The Doctor will be forced to carry out his impersonation immediately, and he realises that Kent has deliberately brought Bruce here to force his hand. He slips into another room as Bruce enters with security guards. He has come to investigate the deaths of the men at Astrid's cottage. He recognises Jamie and Victoria as having been seen with Astrid, and knows that there was another man with them. He demands to know who this was and where they now are.

The door to the adjoining room suddenly opens and Bruce is shocked to see his leader standing there, asking why he has come...

Data:

Written by David Whitaker

Recorded: Saturday 2nd December 1967 - Lime Grove Studio D

First broadcast: 5.25pm, Saturday 23rd December 1967

Ratings: 6.8 million / AI 50

Designer: Christopher Pemsel

Director: Barry Letts

Guest cast: Bill Kerr (Giles Kent), Mary Peach (Astrid Ferrier), Colin Douglas (Donald Bruce), Henry Stamper (Anton), Rhys McConnochie (Rod), Simon Cain (Curly)

Critique:

David Whitaker had last contributed to the series with a pair of Dalek stories, but those creations of Terry Nation's were now absent from the programme. Peter Bryant was in the process of taking over from Innes Lloyd as producer on Doctor Who, and the pair had decided to concentrate on science-fiction / monster stories this year now that the historical adventures had been dropped.

Whitaker was asked to provide a new six-episode storyline, but it was agreed that his would be the exception to the monster rule. What he came up with was a political thriller, but one set in the near future so that there could still be science-fiction trappings. These would prove to be mostly references to things off-screen. We hear of rocket planes getting people from one continent to another in a couple of hours but never see any, and the talk of Salamander's Mark VII Sun-Catcher remains just that.

With no monster or alien, the big draw for viewers this time would be the fact that the villain would be the Doctor's double.

We had seen two earlier "evil" versions of the Doctor in the series - the android copy created by the Daleks in The Chase, and the Abbot of Amboise in The Massacre - both during William Hartnell's tenure. In the latter case the Doctor and the cleric never encountered each other, and in the former Hartnell swapped the android role with Edmund Warwick from scene to scene. Here, Troughton would play both the Doctor and Salamander - named for the reptile which thrives in hot climates - and the actor was naturally concerned about this, already complaining about his workload on the series. Each episode was therefore carefully planned to facilitate his dual role, in terms of costume and make-up changes, so that they would be kept to the absolute minimum.

An obvious inspiration for the story was the popularity at the time of what we now call the "spy-fi" genre, exemplified by the James Bond movies. Bond-mania had built steadily with the first two films but had really taken off with the third in the franchise - 1964's Goldfinger. This had led to a number of copycat films and TV series, such as The Man From UNCLE and the Flint and Matt Helm films.

The Enemy of the World is the closest that classic era Doctor Who will come to the world of James Bond. The ingredients are all there: a super-villain, a strong female companion figure, an underground lair, high-tech gadgets, world domination and international jet-setting.

It was originally intended that the opening episode would be set not in Australia but in Central Europe, where the story will move to in the next couple of instalments. The character Curly was originally going to be called Otto whilst Rod was to be named Tibor, until incoming director Barry Letts decided on a change.

Letts was an old friend of Troughton, the two having worked together as actors, and the star was pleased to have an actors' director onboard (as opposed to a more technical one). Letts had also worked with Frazer Hines before.

Letts had attempted to write for Doctor Who in the past, but his story ideas had been rejected by Gerry Davis. One of these, about humanoid alien beings which would metamorphose into another form, would form the basis of 1972's The Mutants.

The director was horrified to find only the script for the first episode in anything like a completed form when he joined the production, and had to work closely with Derrick Sherwin to pull this into shape. The other five episodes existed only in draft form. Sherwin had joined the series as assistant story editor to Bryant, and had trailed him on The Ice Warriors. He would then take over Bryant's role once he became producer after this story. Sherwin in turn had approached a colleague from his Crossroads days to become his assistant - Terrance Dicks. Dicks would agree to a three month contract early in 1968.

In Whitaker's original opening script, the setting was a large holiday camp, but Letts realised this would be impractical to mount and so changed it to a deserted beach.

Filming got underway on Sunday 5th November, lasting until Wednesday 8th. The location chosen was Climping Beach at Littlehampton, West Sussex.

Their first time working together as actor and director, Troughton was initially somewhat wary of Letts now that he was no longer an equal, but quickly settled once he saw him in action.

The regulars had recorded the third episode of The Ice Warriors the day before and so were working on what should have been their day off. Troughton and Letts would discuss the production schedule on the show over the next few weeks and the director would come up with some ideas which he thought would help - little knowing that he would one day be able to actually introduce them, though by then it would be too late to help Troughton.

Also present on location were Mary Peach, already an established film star, and the three actors who would play the hovercraft crew. Peach had already threatened to pull out of the production as the character of Astrid disappeared after the fourth episode, and so Letts ensured that she was given a role to play in the last third of the story to retain her.

The idea that the Doctor should strip down to his long-johns came from Troughton himself. The script simply had him paddling in the sea.

A Hillier UH-12 helicopter was hired for filming, given a fake registration of AST-018. Also hired was a prototype four seater hovercraft, after Letts approached its maker KR Morgan, an ex-Royal Navy man who had developed it.

The Sunday was the only day on which the regulars would be available so all their scenes were filmed, including the arrival of the TARDIS, the Doctor's impromptu swim, and the pursuit into the sand dunes. Also filmed was the arrival of the Doctor and companions at Astrid's cottage - really just two scenery flats erected on location next to the local golf course.

The helicopter was of course standing on the ground when the regulars and Peach were filmed sitting inside it.

The rest of the hovercraft and helicopter scenes were filmed over the next three days. For Jamie's attack on Curly, Hines was no longer present so only an extra's arm was seen in shot.

At one point Morgan injured his leg when the hovercraft jammed heavily into the sand.

As well as appearing on screen, the helicopter was used for capturing aerial shots and there was almost a serious incident when the weight distribution inside the cockpit threatened to roll it over. After this, Letts travelled in the craft as well to balance the weight.

Some shots of the TARDIS crew running in the distance were achieved using doubles. Regular fight arranger Peter Diamond doubled for Troughton, whilst Sarah Lisemore - daughter of production assistant Martin Lisemore - doubled for Victoria. Jamie's double was Richard Halifax. 

Photos of Peach posing with the helicopter were taken on Wednesday 8th November.

Filming continued at Ealing on Friday 10th and Monday 13th November, when the shots of Salamander's speech to the UN were recorded. Troughton had hoped to make Salamander look very different from the Doctor but, as the whole point of the story would be his impersonation of him, this could not be achieved. He based the look of Salamander on old photographs of his theatrical performances, selecting images from a 1950's production of Hamlet he had performed in the US.

The costume designer was Martin Baugh once again. He elected to base Astrid's outfit on a mix of Regency / Napoleonic design, with a hint of Highwayman. Debbie Watling was given an ensemble mirroring Jamie's - with a short kilt and round-necked sweater, topped off with a tartan beret.

There is no individual VFX designer credited on this story.

Rehearsals began with a small amount of friction between star and director, as Letts attempted to restrict the amount of extra-curricular activities which Troughton enjoyed during these sessions - namely card games with Hines and the guest artists.

Joining the cast was Colin Douglas, playing Donald Bruce, and Bill Kerr, playing Giles Kent. Kerr was best known for his work with Tony Hancock in radio's Hancock's Half Hour.

Whilst Troughton enjoyed working with the Australian, it was a less than happy time for Douglas, who regarded Doctor Who as a children's programme which was beneath his talents. He actually stated this to Watling, adding that he would never come back - "and don't want to be asked" (but see below...).

Mary Peach brought her children to the studio to meet Troughton as they were often frightened by the programme.

Two recording breaks were planned, the second to allow Troughton to change into his Salamander disguise. This involved donning a neutral black outfit and darker make-up, with his hair parted and eyebrows slightly fluffed up.

The set for Kent's office had a back projection screen on which Salamander's speech could be shown, as well as maps of the Cape Arid region of Australia for Astrid to view near the start of the episode. Also shown were a number of images of the people whom the would-be dictator had allegedly had killed. There had been more dialogue about these victims but this had been cut before recording.

The desk also had a small monitor on which Astrid could see her boss when he ordered her to stop Anton and his crew from attacking what they thought to be Salamander.

The only other set used this week was Astrid's cottage, which would only feature in this episode.

Stock footage included shots of the UN building in New York and scenes of the main assembly chamber, cut into Salamander's speech. The helicopter's destruction was going to be achieved on location by hanging a small explosive charge from the craft, but this proved unsatisfactory. Instead, some 35mm footage from Pinewood Studios was used  - appropriately enough a visual effects off-cut from the making of the second James Bond film, From Russia With Love.

Letts opted to save some money by dispensing with a new musical score, choosing instead to use classical pieces by the Hungarian composer Bela Bartok (appropriate to the original setting for the first half of the story).

Despite the speech appearance, Troughton was only credited as "Dr Who" for this episode.

Letts experienced problems during the editing of the episode, losing valuable time as the tape had been reversed. There would be a knock-on effect to later episodes, leading to the director having to give up his New Year's Day to complete the work.

Thanks to the 2013 return of this episode, we can now appreciate it a great deal better. Previously we were denied the comic sight of Troughton stripping down to his underwear and diving into the sea, followed by extended action scenes which audio and telesnaps failed to really capture the excitement of. Other little things were missed, such as the setting for the story. It had usually been set much further into the future by fans, thanks to some of that technology we hear about, but clearly on screen we got to see that the helicopter's registration expires in December 2018, so a late 2017 or early 2018 setting.

Nearly all of the location filming went into this episode, Letts and Sherwin clearly wishing to get the story off to a flying start. Indeed, some of the changes they made to this instalment were to add more action as Whitaker's scripts were deemed too dialogue-heavy.

Despite all the rushing around, there is still an opportunity for a quiet character moment as the Doctor and Astrid chat in the cottage as he tends to her wound. She tries to find out a little more about him, based on Jamie calling him "Doctor" - trying to discover just what discipline he is a doctor of.

The Second Doctor will often seem at ease with more mature women, as we'll later see with Anne Travers and Gemma Corwin.

Trivia:

• The ratings see a drop of more than half a million on the previous story. However, this can be explained by festive events once again - this being the last Saturday before Christmas.
• As mentioned last time, there was a short trailer for the new story broadcast immediately after the final episode of The Ice Warriors, comprising part of the scene of the Doctor and his companions watching the speech.
• This episode was the first to be recorded for transmission on the 625-line broadcasting system being adopted by the BBC. Paperwork erroneously states that this began with the third episode, and is the reason why that instalment was retained in the archives. Up to this point the series had been recorded for broadcast on 405 lines.
• Despite describing this as the worst job he had ever done, Colin Douglas would return to the series, as lighthouse keeper Reuben in Horror of Fang Rock.
• Radio Times covered the opening instalment with a brief synopsis of the story set-up, and an image of guest star Mary Peach:

• In some regions Radio Times also had a feature about the costuming for the story. This gave a date of 2017 for the setting.

Blake's 7 Series 2 - The Collection

The second season of Terry Nation's sci-fi series is now available on Blu-ray, and once again it will be of great interest to Doctor Who fans of the 1970's / 80's. 

For starters we have a host of Doctor Who guest actors making appearances across the entire season. Bruce Purchase plays an alien monarch and gives almost exactly the same performance as he gave as the Captain of Zanak, for instance, and you get to see William Squire without his Shadow mask.

Other guests include Gareth Armstrong (The Masque of Mandragora), Paul Shelley (Four to Doomsday), John Abineri (Ambassadors of Death and others), Sheila Ruskin (Keeper of Traken), John Bennett (Invasion of the Dinosaurs / Talons of Weng-Chiang) and many, many more.

The episode Gambit alone features John (K-9) Leeson, Aubrey Woods (Day of the Daleks), Paul Grist (Claws of Axos), Denis Carey (Shada / Keeper of Traken / Timelash), Sylvia Coleridge (Seeds of Doom) and Deep Roy (Mr Sin) - and it's written by Robert Holmes.

Director Morris Barry, responsible for the best two Cyberman stories ever, even pops up as a medic in the episode Killer.

Of course, this series was the one which almost had the Daleks feature as the invading aliens in the final episode, Star One, but on hearing of this plan Graham Williams decided to get them back into Doctor Who and we got Destiny of the Daleks.

As with Series 1, every episode can be enjoyed with new VFX and these are to be recommended as I was always disappointed with many of the original shots - such as an overuse of flat cut-outs, for instance.

As with the Doctor Who Collection box sets, we have a plethora of extras to enjoy, made by the same teams.

Both of the Matthew Sweet interviews have Doctor Who connections. The first is with Brian Croucher who took on the role of Travis for the second season, and who had appeared in Robots of Death.

The second interview is with designer Roger Murray-Leach, who speaks just as much about his work on Doctor Who as on Blake's 7.

There are two new biographical pieces on actors who are no longer with us. This is the series in which Gan dies, and so we have a lovely documentary about David Jackson who played him. This is hosted by Toby Hadoke, who interviews his son and widow as they look through his theatrical scrapbooks. The vast majority of Jackson's work was on stage and is therefore ephemeral, so it was nice to learn more about him.

The other biography is of Supreme Commander Servalan herself, Jacqueline Pearce. She played Chessene in The Two Doctors, and Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant are amongst the contributors to this. It was a fascinating, eccentric life she lead, as you'll quickly find out.

Mat Irvine appears in a couple of featurettes on model work, and we also get some archive convention footage.

There are two wider-ranging documentaries - part two of an older one, and the second part of the new one filmed for these box sets, which looks specifically at this second year. There is a certain amount of overlap as the new doc uses excerpts from the older one, but that older one is still welcome as it includes contributions from a number of people no longer with us. The first parts of both documentaries appear on the Series 1 set.

Definitely recommended in its own right, and as a companion piece to classic Doctor Who.