The Doctor Who Real Time Marathon - The Enemy Of The World
The Enemy Of The World - Part One (23/12/07)
Quite an exciting episode this week! It started off with the TARDIS landing on a beach in Australia only for the Doctor, Jamie and Victoria to be chased and shot at by three blokes in a hovercraft. Cue exciting chase through the sand dunes. They were rescued by a woman called Astrid in a helicopter (who was connected with the gunmen) and taken to her bungalow. The gunmen followed them there and shot Astrid in the arm. She and the Doctor's party escaped through the back of the house and the gunmen (only two now as they accidentally killed one of their own when breaking into the house) took Astrid's helicopter (which they had shot earlier, damaging the petrol tank) to follow but the helicopter blew up (cue exciting footage from James Bond movie).
Astrid took the Doctor et al. to her boss, Giles Kent, who revealed that all the fuss was because the Doctor is the spitting image of corrupt politician Salamander, a man with a dodgy Mexican accent. Giles believes Salamander is planning to do something distinctly un-beneficial to the world, although he's managed to sort out the world food shortage. So in a bid to blackmail the Doctor into posing as Salamander he's invited his nemesis (and Salamander's No. 2) round to his office whilst the Doctor's there! Cue cliffhanger!
A fantastic tonic to the monster-fest we've had for the last few months and what I hope will be quite an interesting storyline - hopefully all the excitement won't dissipate following the first episode. So, the Doctor looks like another Human. This seems to be a different tack to the Hugenots in Paris story that Bill was in. It'll be interesting to see what similarities and differences there are between the two!
The Enemy Of The World - Part Two (30/12/07)
Very James Bond, this one. Really good this week. The Doctor has agreed to help find out what's going on but is reserving judgement on whether Salamander is really as bad as Giles Kent believes. Turns out he is, plotting to have the leader of the Central European Zone assassinated. So Astrid takes Jamie and Victoria to Hungary to infiltrate Salamander's inner circle by faking a rescue from a bomb attack. It works and Jamie and Victoria (his 'girlfriend') are offered jobs with Salamander's retinue.
Meanwhile, Salamander is trying to warn Denes (leader of the Central European Zone) of an imminent volcanic eruption, but Denes doesn't believe him. Denes, meanwhile, is in league with Astrid. Oh, and the Doctor and Giles are off to spy on Salamander's research station in Kanowa.
It's all very confusing put down on paper, but it seems to make sense watching it and it's all very entertaining. The cliffhanger was the Hungarian volcano erupting and Salamander telling Denes he will be held responsible by the world authorities for ignoring Salamander's warnings on the matter. Not only an interesting cliffhanger devoid of alien threat, but also a cliffhanger devoid of the Doctor, Jamie or Victoria! And this didn't affect it in the slightest!
Also, there's another supporting character who may prove interesting; Fariah, Salamander's very attractive food taster, who seems to be more interesting than just another employee. Looking forward to Part Three!
The Enemy Of The World - Part Three (06/01/08)
Oooh! Looks like Salamander's figured out he has a doppelganger! Having held Denes captive in a corridor (?) for the episode, Astrid attempted a rescue with Jamie (now a guard) and Victoria's (now a kitchen hand) help. Not sure if it succeeded. It looked like Denes was shot in the back - so is he dead? Astrid escaped. Jamie and Victoria were caught and brought before Salamander who easily twigged they were plants.
Aside from that, not much Doctor this week. Just a scene with him and Giles spying from Giles' caravan. Along came security, trashed the crockery, then left again. "See?" said Giles, "Salamander's trying to destroy the world!". On this evidence, unsurprisingly, the Doctor wasn't convinced.
A comedy Australian chef called Griffin was introduced this week, and his scenes with Fariah and Victoria really stole the show. As hinted last week, Fariah is working for Salamander against her will. Looks like she might be an important character. She's very cool.
Oh, and Salamander poisoned Denes' #2 (who he was blackmailing) after he'd failed to poison Denes, and claimed it was suicide. What a bastard!
It just occurs to me that Patrick Troughton's dodgy Mexican accent isn't annoying me as much as previous dodgy accents (namely his awful German doctor in 'The Highlanders' and Professor Zaroff). This could be due to it being Salamander and not the 'real' Doctor putting on an accent. That doesn't make any sense at all, so maybe I'm just enjoying the story more than previous episodes featuring cod accents. Anyhow, roll on next week!
The Enemy Of The World - Part Four (13/01/08)
Another episode, another set of new characters, another plot twist! Turns out Salamander's had a small colony of people living in a bunker below his research station for the last five years, conning them into thinking that they're sheltered from a nuclear war on the surface which they can only stop by engineering natural disasters to attack their enemies! Exactly why this deception I have no idea. It seems Salamander must be a very well written prize loon! It's (again) all very James Bond.
Aside from that, this week, all was very downbeat. Oh, and it's only just occurred to me that we had no Jamie or Victoria! Must've been a good episode!
Anyway, as I was saying: downbeat. Denes was shot in the back and killed, which made me feel surprisingly sad. He was a likeable character and his death just seemed quite meaningless as far as the narrative went. Worse still, Fariah followed Astrid back to Australia and handed over evidence against Salamander. However, Salamander's henchman, Benik, ambushed them in Kent's office and Fariah was shot dead trying to get away. Her death scene was quite brutal, with her lying on the ground telling Benik that she could only be killed once and he hadn't pulled the trigger.
The new stuff with the bunker distracted from this for a while, but right at the end, in Kent's caravan, Astrid and Giles were making up the Doctor to look like Salamander and they heard someone outside and wondered if it was Fariah, underlining the fact that they don't realise she's dead. It was, in fact, Bruce - Head of World Security. Quite a sad episode, then, but also probably the best this series!
The Enemy Of The World - Part Five (20/01/08)
Quite interesting if a little wordy this week. The Doctor persuaded Bruce to trust him and the two of them went to the research station to rescue Jamie and Victoria. They, in turn, had a run in with Benik, who is possibly the most unpleasant character ever to have been in the series! His sadistic and almost fetishistic questioning of Jamie and Victoria was interrupted by the Doctor entering with Bruce and pretending to be Salamander. He then sent Benik away and continued the act to get Jamie and Victoria to prove to Bruce they were not trying to assassinate Salamander. Victoria also started to beat him up when he revealed that Fariah was dead.
Meanwhile, Swann (one of the people in the bunker) found a newspaper cutting indicating Salamander's lies about a nuclear war and demanded to return to the surface with him. Almost there, Salamander twatted him over the head with a crowbar.
Meanwhile, Astrid and Kent escaped their guard (left by Bruce as he only trusted the Doctor) and the cliffhanger was Astrid encountering Swann at the entrance to the cave leading to the bunker. I think it says a lot that this story can get away with having so many cliffhangers which don't feature the Doctor, Jamie or Victoria. This is the third in four weeks! I think it's because it's all very espionagey and serious - you just end up getting pulled along by the plot.
The Enemy Of The World - Part Six (27/01/08)
Wow! What a good episode, although it did seem that about 10 minutes was missing from near the end. Turns out Giles Kent was a bad guy all along, using the Doctor and Astrid to gain access to Salamander in order to kill him. He and Salamander set up the bunker in order to engineer the 'natural' disasters, break down social order and take control of the world. However, Salamander got greedy and discredited Kent. Following a confrontation with the Doctor, thinking he was Salamander, Kent escaped into the passages below the research station and was killed by the real Salamander.
Astrid encountered the people in the bunker and learnt about Kent from them. It was their rescue that was missing, but that doesn't matter because it gave way for a great cliffhanger ending! Salamander followed Jamie and Victoria (who were hardly in this episode) back to the TARDIS and tried to get them to take off by (badly) impersonating the Doctor. Jamie wasn't fooled, and then the Doctor turned up and, during a struggle between him and Salamander, the take-off lever was knocked and the TARDIS dematerialised with its doors open. As a result, Salamander was sucked into the vortex and the Doctor et al. left clinging on for their lives!
All in all, this was probably the best story of the season. Unlike the last few, there haven't been any major slow bits and rather than being set in one place this one felt quite epic with a large cast and varied locations. The plot was complicated (and Bondian) but I was totally surprised to find out that Kent was a villain alongside Salamander. Quite impressed. We need more stories like this one!
Quite an exciting episode this week! It started off with the TARDIS landing on a beach in Australia only for the Doctor, Jamie and Victoria to be chased and shot at by three blokes in a hovercraft. Cue exciting chase through the sand dunes. They were rescued by a woman called Astrid in a helicopter (who was connected with the gunmen) and taken to her bungalow. The gunmen followed them there and shot Astrid in the arm. She and the Doctor's party escaped through the back of the house and the gunmen (only two now as they accidentally killed one of their own when breaking into the house) took Astrid's helicopter (which they had shot earlier, damaging the petrol tank) to follow but the helicopter blew up (cue exciting footage from James Bond movie).
Astrid took the Doctor et al. to her boss, Giles Kent, who revealed that all the fuss was because the Doctor is the spitting image of corrupt politician Salamander, a man with a dodgy Mexican accent. Giles believes Salamander is planning to do something distinctly un-beneficial to the world, although he's managed to sort out the world food shortage. So in a bid to blackmail the Doctor into posing as Salamander he's invited his nemesis (and Salamander's No. 2) round to his office whilst the Doctor's there! Cue cliffhanger!
A fantastic tonic to the monster-fest we've had for the last few months and what I hope will be quite an interesting storyline - hopefully all the excitement won't dissipate following the first episode. So, the Doctor looks like another Human. This seems to be a different tack to the Hugenots in Paris story that Bill was in. It'll be interesting to see what similarities and differences there are between the two!
The Enemy Of The World - Part Two (30/12/07)
Very James Bond, this one. Really good this week. The Doctor has agreed to help find out what's going on but is reserving judgement on whether Salamander is really as bad as Giles Kent believes. Turns out he is, plotting to have the leader of the Central European Zone assassinated. So Astrid takes Jamie and Victoria to Hungary to infiltrate Salamander's inner circle by faking a rescue from a bomb attack. It works and Jamie and Victoria (his 'girlfriend') are offered jobs with Salamander's retinue.
Meanwhile, Salamander is trying to warn Denes (leader of the Central European Zone) of an imminent volcanic eruption, but Denes doesn't believe him. Denes, meanwhile, is in league with Astrid. Oh, and the Doctor and Giles are off to spy on Salamander's research station in Kanowa.
It's all very confusing put down on paper, but it seems to make sense watching it and it's all very entertaining. The cliffhanger was the Hungarian volcano erupting and Salamander telling Denes he will be held responsible by the world authorities for ignoring Salamander's warnings on the matter. Not only an interesting cliffhanger devoid of alien threat, but also a cliffhanger devoid of the Doctor, Jamie or Victoria! And this didn't affect it in the slightest!
Also, there's another supporting character who may prove interesting; Fariah, Salamander's very attractive food taster, who seems to be more interesting than just another employee. Looking forward to Part Three!
The Enemy Of The World - Part Three (06/01/08)
Oooh! Looks like Salamander's figured out he has a doppelganger! Having held Denes captive in a corridor (?) for the episode, Astrid attempted a rescue with Jamie (now a guard) and Victoria's (now a kitchen hand) help. Not sure if it succeeded. It looked like Denes was shot in the back - so is he dead? Astrid escaped. Jamie and Victoria were caught and brought before Salamander who easily twigged they were plants.
Aside from that, not much Doctor this week. Just a scene with him and Giles spying from Giles' caravan. Along came security, trashed the crockery, then left again. "See?" said Giles, "Salamander's trying to destroy the world!". On this evidence, unsurprisingly, the Doctor wasn't convinced.
A comedy Australian chef called Griffin was introduced this week, and his scenes with Fariah and Victoria really stole the show. As hinted last week, Fariah is working for Salamander against her will. Looks like she might be an important character. She's very cool.
Oh, and Salamander poisoned Denes' #2 (who he was blackmailing) after he'd failed to poison Denes, and claimed it was suicide. What a bastard!
It just occurs to me that Patrick Troughton's dodgy Mexican accent isn't annoying me as much as previous dodgy accents (namely his awful German doctor in 'The Highlanders' and Professor Zaroff). This could be due to it being Salamander and not the 'real' Doctor putting on an accent. That doesn't make any sense at all, so maybe I'm just enjoying the story more than previous episodes featuring cod accents. Anyhow, roll on next week!
The Enemy Of The World - Part Four (13/01/08)
Another episode, another set of new characters, another plot twist! Turns out Salamander's had a small colony of people living in a bunker below his research station for the last five years, conning them into thinking that they're sheltered from a nuclear war on the surface which they can only stop by engineering natural disasters to attack their enemies! Exactly why this deception I have no idea. It seems Salamander must be a very well written prize loon! It's (again) all very James Bond.
Aside from that, this week, all was very downbeat. Oh, and it's only just occurred to me that we had no Jamie or Victoria! Must've been a good episode!
Anyway, as I was saying: downbeat. Denes was shot in the back and killed, which made me feel surprisingly sad. He was a likeable character and his death just seemed quite meaningless as far as the narrative went. Worse still, Fariah followed Astrid back to Australia and handed over evidence against Salamander. However, Salamander's henchman, Benik, ambushed them in Kent's office and Fariah was shot dead trying to get away. Her death scene was quite brutal, with her lying on the ground telling Benik that she could only be killed once and he hadn't pulled the trigger.
The new stuff with the bunker distracted from this for a while, but right at the end, in Kent's caravan, Astrid and Giles were making up the Doctor to look like Salamander and they heard someone outside and wondered if it was Fariah, underlining the fact that they don't realise she's dead. It was, in fact, Bruce - Head of World Security. Quite a sad episode, then, but also probably the best this series!
The Enemy Of The World - Part Five (20/01/08)
Quite interesting if a little wordy this week. The Doctor persuaded Bruce to trust him and the two of them went to the research station to rescue Jamie and Victoria. They, in turn, had a run in with Benik, who is possibly the most unpleasant character ever to have been in the series! His sadistic and almost fetishistic questioning of Jamie and Victoria was interrupted by the Doctor entering with Bruce and pretending to be Salamander. He then sent Benik away and continued the act to get Jamie and Victoria to prove to Bruce they were not trying to assassinate Salamander. Victoria also started to beat him up when he revealed that Fariah was dead.
Meanwhile, Swann (one of the people in the bunker) found a newspaper cutting indicating Salamander's lies about a nuclear war and demanded to return to the surface with him. Almost there, Salamander twatted him over the head with a crowbar.
Meanwhile, Astrid and Kent escaped their guard (left by Bruce as he only trusted the Doctor) and the cliffhanger was Astrid encountering Swann at the entrance to the cave leading to the bunker. I think it says a lot that this story can get away with having so many cliffhangers which don't feature the Doctor, Jamie or Victoria. This is the third in four weeks! I think it's because it's all very espionagey and serious - you just end up getting pulled along by the plot.
The Enemy Of The World - Part Six (27/01/08)
Wow! What a good episode, although it did seem that about 10 minutes was missing from near the end. Turns out Giles Kent was a bad guy all along, using the Doctor and Astrid to gain access to Salamander in order to kill him. He and Salamander set up the bunker in order to engineer the 'natural' disasters, break down social order and take control of the world. However, Salamander got greedy and discredited Kent. Following a confrontation with the Doctor, thinking he was Salamander, Kent escaped into the passages below the research station and was killed by the real Salamander.
Astrid encountered the people in the bunker and learnt about Kent from them. It was their rescue that was missing, but that doesn't matter because it gave way for a great cliffhanger ending! Salamander followed Jamie and Victoria (who were hardly in this episode) back to the TARDIS and tried to get them to take off by (badly) impersonating the Doctor. Jamie wasn't fooled, and then the Doctor turned up and, during a struggle between him and Salamander, the take-off lever was knocked and the TARDIS dematerialised with its doors open. As a result, Salamander was sucked into the vortex and the Doctor et al. left clinging on for their lives!
All in all, this was probably the best story of the season. Unlike the last few, there haven't been any major slow bits and rather than being set in one place this one felt quite epic with a large cast and varied locations. The plot was complicated (and Bondian) but I was totally surprised to find out that Kent was a villain alongside Salamander. Quite impressed. We need more stories like this one!
Once again, LOL moment at "Salamander twatted him over the head with a crowbar" :D
ReplyDeleteIsn't it funny how the one surviving episode we had for so long managed to tarnish the reputation of the story as a whole. Makes you wonder whether The Space Pirates is far better than fan consensus would have you believe... (I think it is anyway, but still.)
So yes, much better as a whole than Episode 3 in isolation, this story is a bit of a revelation. That said, the longer it goes on the worse it gets, or at least the more credulity is stretched: the second-half revelation of the bunker and that whole thread of the plot is one massive arched eyebrow. The story's much more successful when it contents itself with being a global espionage thriller. It also does those very Troughton-era things of populating the story with an international cast (this time in many unlikely international locations! Although that's never passing as an Australian beach...) and introducing a fantastic futuristic form of travel that's never seen or heard of again.
A good story overall, faults aside, with a corker of a cliffhanger. The helicopter and hovercraft stuff add a sheen of sophistication and money having been spent, but it's the all-too-brief confrontation between the Doctor and Salamander at the very end - and the even briefer but very successful split-screen face-off - that steals the show.
Obviously, I wrote these entries almost 5 years before their discovery and release on DVD, but I'd already been impressed by the story when I first got the narrated soundtrack and watching it over Christmas and New Year 2007-08 as a recon + the one remaining episode just raised my opinion of it. Since its recovery, I'd say I rank it up there with The Power Of The Daleks, The Macra Terror and The Invasion as my Top 4 from the Troughton era, and it's certainly the best of his complete stories (not that it has much competition in that regard).
DeleteIt's a disturbing thought that 50 years ago David Whitacker came up with an idea that in 2018 the world would be under threat from an insane world leader who a vast majority of people believed was a great and powerful individual whose actions were only in the best interests of the many. What's even more disturbing is that in the actual 2018 I could be talking about any of a large number of Presidents and Prime Ministers in that last sentence. It makes me wonder where they've located all their secret bunkers!