OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 187
STORY NUMBER: 040
TRANSMITTED: 30 December 1967
WRITER: David Whitaker
DIRECTOR: Barry Letts
SCRIPT EDITOR: Peter Bryant
PRODUCER: Innes Lloyd
FORMAT: iTunes The Enemy of the World
DVD Preorder:: Doctor Who - The Enemy of the World
TELESNAPS: The Enemy of the World: Episode Two
"Oh, don't worry. We've arr... I suggested that we meet under a disused jetty by the river."
"Disused Yeti?"
Bruce is taken in by the Doctor and leaves. The Doctor takes Jamie's advice and accepts the assignment. Astrid, Jamie & Victoria travel to the Central European Zone to meet the sympathetic controller Denes and to infiltrate Salamander's inner circle. At the research centre Benik is questioned about if he saw Salamander leave for Europe. Benik tried to speak with Salamander. Salamander talks to Denes about extinct Volcanoes in his territory and how he has a food record of predicting which may come to life. Farriah tells Salamander he has a call. Denes leaves but Fedorin stays behind talking with Salamander. Jamie & Victoria wait in a park: Astrid joins them and gives Jamie the card he needs to get into Salamander's palace. Fedorin talks with Farriah who reveals she is Salamander's food taster. Jamie arrives throwing Salamander's communication box over the balcony which explodes. The grateful Salamander admits Jamie to his guards. When he protests that he's here with his girlfriend Salamander says he'll find her a job too. He fetches Victoria, but they are seen with Astrid by the guard captain. Astrid meets with Denes. Salamander produces accusations against Fedorin blackmailing him into killing Denes in return for Fedorin succeeding him. The palace is shook by a volcanic eruption proving Salamander's predictions. Denes arrives and accuses Salamander of being responsible for the disaster. Bruce arrests Denes: Fedorin will be a witness against him.
The flavour of this story is becoming more like a James Bond spy story than Doctor Who with secret infiltrations and plotting but no monsters. The story is enjoyable enough so far as Troughton relishes his dual roles but this episode lacks the visual spectacle of the first featuring no location work or the vehicle action seen there. The disused Yeti joke, quoted at the top, only serves to remind us that there's no monsters in this story. It's one of just three in the Troughton era to have this distinction, one per season. The other two are The Highlanders and The Space Pirates. Oddly they form a nice symmetrical pattern being Troughton's second tale, the middle of his middle season and and the penultimate story of his last season! The Yeti line also makes me think that I'd rather be watching the next story, one of my all time favourites.
Making his Doctor who début in this episode is Milton Johns as Benik. Jones always does slightly sinister and obsequious really well but here the sinister is turned well up.He'll be back as Guy Crayford in The Android Invasion, and Kelner in The Invasion of Time. Also joining the cast this episode is Carmen Munroe who plays Farriah. She's since gone on to extensive acting fame, including the wife in Desmond's, but I believe she is here the first female black actress in Doctor Who. She's also another entry on the "Doctor Who actors who have appeared in Play School" list!
It is *slightly* confusing having characters with the name Farriah and Ferrier (Astrid) in the same story!
This episode, and the next, feature Ian Hines, the brother of Fraser Hines who plays Jamie, in the role of a guard. He's not the only relative of a cast member to pop up as a guard in this serial as we'll see in episodes 5 & 6. Ian Hines returns as a White Robot in the Mind Robber. Here's a screenshot of Ian Hines, he's the guard in the middle of the picture:
But wait! Who's that on the left of the picture as the other guard? On his Who début it's long serving supporting artist Harry 'Aitch Fielder! IMDB claimed his first appearance was in episode 1 but there's no guard there. Apparently he's in episode 3 as well but is harder to spot.
Australia Geography time: Here's Salamander's research centre:
The sign reads Kanowa, which is born out in the script. I've not been able to find a place of this name, despite enlisting some help from friends in Australia. However what I find on the internet suggests that this is a misspelling of Kanowna, Western Australia, an abandoned gold mining town about about 20 km east of Kalgoorlie and about 250 miles away from Cape Arid where the Tardis landed in part 1. The Kanowa location is said, by Donald Bruce, to be less than 200 miles away from where he saw The Doctor impersonating Salamander - which implies that the office is more than 100 miles, probably 150 miles, away from where they are at the moment. Ian Marter's novelization suggests that Kent's offices are in Melville, WA a suburb of Perth which is slightly further away. I'll see what happens on-screen as to if any location is suggested there.
For some years the location that served as the location of the Kanowa research centre was in doubt. An existing blurry telesnap, thought to be a still was all people had to go on. The return of the episode has changed that though. There's actually *TWO* different shots of the location:
See the branch in the first shot? That's actually moving over the picture giving it the feel this is actual filmed footage. But look at the positioning of the sign - it moves from shot to shot in relation to the road, indicating it's been added into a photo that was filmed with someone waving a branch in front of it. But these images have allowed the real life location to be identified: it's Dungerness Nuclear Power Station in Kent, later to be used as the location in Claws of Axos. Here's a clear long shot of the buildings in question now.
It was always known that Walpole Park in Ealing had been used as a location in this story and it appears in this episode with the footage being used as a back projection behind the park bench Victoria, Jamie and Astrid sit on.
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