192 The Web of Fear: Episode One

EPISODE: The Web of Fear: Episode One
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 192
STORY NUMBER: 041
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 03 February 1968
WRITER: Mervyn Haisman & Henry Lincoln
DIRECTOR: Douglas Camfield
SCRIPT EDITOR: Derrick Sherwin
PRODUCER: Peter Bryant
RATINGS: 7.2 million viewers
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - The Web of Fear
TELESNAPS: The Web of Fear: Episode One

"Now is it safe?"
"Oh, I shouldn't think so for a moment!"

I wrote the original version of this blog entry on Wednesday 4th May 2011. Yeah I was a few days ahead but there was a couple of trips away coming up and a hospital visit so having a few (29) blog entries in the bank didn't hurt. Besides it meant that I got to spend the morning of my Birthday watching one of my favourite surviving episodes of sixties Doctor Who. And as a bonus I got to talk about the London Underground too! RESULT!

Jamie closes the doors on the Tardis sealing them off from the forces pulling them outside. At a museum in London the elderly Edward Travers is arguing with the museum's owner, Julius Silverstein, for the return of his Yeti when Travers' daughter Ann arrives. Travers tells her that he has reactivated a Yeti control sphere but it's gone missing. She persuades him to come home with her. The museum's owner goes to lock up when he hears a crash. The Control Sphere has broken through a window, reactivating and changing the Yeti. The beast comes alive killing Silverstein. The Tardis materialises in space but finds itself quickly coated in a web like substance. In London some soldiers are in an underground shelter Corporal Lane is on the telephone as Corporal Blake searches for Captain Knight. Knight is giving an interview to journalist Harold Chorley, paying tribute to their commanding officer, Colonel Pemberton, who has been recently killed. Travers is brought in by some soldiers: his presence has been requested by his daughter who is working here. The Web clears a little allowing the Doctor to move the Tardis half a mile from where they were expected to land. They are in a tunnel. Exploring they find they are on the platform of Covent Garden Underground station. The Doctor believes it's night time but walking to the locked surface gates they find it's broad daylight. A news paper seller sits against the gate, but when Jamie taps him on the shoulder he topples over dead, revealing a sign reading "Londoners Flee! Menace Spreads!" Retreating to the tunnels Jamie steps onto the track but fortunately for him the power is off. As they walk down the tunnels to the next station suddenly the tunnel is illuminated. Hiding, they are passed by three soldiers unravelling a drum of cable. Jamie & Victoria follow the soldiers while the Doctor traces the cable back to it's source. Craftsmen Weams thinks he hears something in the tunnel but Staff Sergeant Arnold dismisses his fears. However Victoria then walks into a cob web and screams, allowing the three soldiers to capture them. The Doctor follows the cable to Charring Cross station where he finds in wired to boxes of explosives. He hears a familiar beeping sound and ducks under the platform as a Yeti walk onto the station. Back at the base Lane is unable to contact Holborn to find out what's happened to their ammunition truck. Ann Travers tells him and Captain Knight that she's repaired the blast recorder. Another Yeti joins the first, both pointing guns at the explosives box which cover it in a web like substance.

Arnold brings Jamie & Victoria to the fortress where Knight hasn't got time to question them. They tell Arnold they were alone, trying to stop them hunting for the Doctor. However now he believes there's nobody in the tunnels Arnold reports to Knight it's safe to detonate the explosives. There's a small blast on the platform and the web covering the boxes starts to glow.....

LOTS to talk about today :-)

This is one of the stories that everyone remembers: Yeti in the Underground, the Daleks in central London, the Cybermen coming up out of Sewers and "the one with the Seaweed and foam" are probably the four most mentioned sixties stories amongst non fans. The Yeti become the series third returning monster with this story a mere 12 episodes between the end of their last story and the beginning of this one (The Cybermen had a gap of 14 episodes between Tenth Planet and The Moonbase. Although memorable they're probably some way down the all time Doctor Who monster listings due to not having appeared since 1968. A recent series of new Doctor Who did feature the Great Intelligence, the Yeti's controlling force and "snowmen" albeit of the more icy kind. Some have seen their inclusion as an on screen hint of the imminent return of the story.....

Watching this I almost resent the intrusion of the cliffhanger from the previous episode and the lengthy Tardis scene at the start because it keeps the Doctor & co out of the Underground for so long. As I explained at some length yesterday it'd be better to chop the opening Tardis scene off and bolt it onto the end of Enemy of the World 6, starting this episode at the museum! (a challenge to any video editors out there)

However the section at the start of this story makes me feel the Tardis crew are in a lot more danger than the brief segment at the Enemy of the World did which we'll credit to returning director Douglas Camfield, who'd not worked on the program since the 12 part Dalek Masterplan two years earlier.

But the actual opening of the story is superb, almost straight out of a Hammer Horror film, complete with candles, and the sequence as the Yeti change form and come to life might as well be Frankenstein's Monster coming to life.

This sequence features one of the few actors in Doctor Who who were born in the 19th Century. Frederick Schrecker, playing Julius Silverstein the Yeti's owner, was born January 10, 1892 in Vienna, Austria. He'd have been 76 when this episode was made. He made his film acting début in 1913 in Der Feldherrnhügel as the Regimentsarzt (under the name Fritz Schrecker) He died 8 years later on July 13, 1976 (age 84) in London.

The scenes with Silverstein in his museum, originally planned for location filming at the Natural History Museum, are brought to perfection by the music used: Bela Bartok's Adagio from Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta. This appeared in the previous story, the Enemy of the world, most notably in episode 4 when Salamander enters the shelter, but to me it works much better here. It's not the only piece of music this story that returning director Douglas Camfield will reuse!

As well as The Yeti the character of Edward Travers returns played once again by Jack Watling, the father of Debbie Watling who plays companion Victoria. He's the second non regular character, after the Meddling Monk, and the first human non regular character to appear in two different stories. Oddly enough the program's MOST regularly recurring character makes his début later in this story.

Returning to Doctor Who for this production are Mervyn Haisman & Henry Lincoln, who wrote the Yeti & Travers' previous appearance, The Abominable Snowmen. There's an indication in the script that Haisman and Lincoln might be Pink Floyd fans: Web of Fear features characters named Arnold Lane. Seeing the names together makes you think that inspiration may have come from the Floyd's 1967 hit Arnold Layne.

The scenes in the Underground are so atmospheric, it's just such a natural location for Doctor Who to be set in with enclosed dark tunnels. I say location, but it's isn't, this is all Studio Sets. Camfield had his production assistant Gareth Gwenlan, later to be Head of Comedy at the BBC, enquire of London Transport as to the possibility of filming there. They said no, so designer David Myerscough-Jones created the distinctive Underground tunnels in the studio. So good was his work that London Transport wanted to know how Camfield et al had managed to gain access to their premises without their knowledge and court action was mooted.

The geography in this episode seems a little bit wonky at first glance: How can the Doctor & co step onto the track on the station where the Tardis lands and end up where they do? A little interpretation makes sense of it. We see three locations: The shelter, which we later find out is the deep level shelter at Goodge Street Tube Station. The Tardis materialises at Covent Garden tube station. The explosives are found at Charring Cross Tube station. So although the story makes it seem that Jamie, Victoria & The Doctor have just walked into the tunnel and found the cable the likelihood is they've walked south on the Piccadilly Line, and then at Leicester Square walked through the station to the Northern Line tunnels - the Northern line connects Charring Cross & Goodge Street stations - and walked from there. But Charring Cross in the story isn't the present day Charring Cross tube station: the Northern Line station there was at the time named The Strand and not connected to the Bakerloo line as it is now which stopped at a separate Trafalgar Square station (now absorbed into the present day Charring Cross station). "Charring Cross" then is the present day Embankment tube station, serving Northern, Bakerloo, District and Circle lines.

Since it's the centrepiece of the action it's probably worth reproducing a diagram of the Northern Line c1968. I've included the names then and, where different, now plus which other lines they intersected then and what stations mentioned in the story they're connected to.

EUSTON
|
WARREN STREET
|
GOODGE STREET
{The location of the Army's Fortress}
|
TOTTENHAM COURT ROAD
(Central Line for Holborn)
|
LEICESTER SQUARE
(Piccadilly Line for Piccadilly Circus (West) and Covent Garden & Holborn (East))
|
THE STRAND
[Now Charring Cross]
(Bakerloo Line for Piccadilly Circus)
|
CHARRING CROSS
[Now Embankment]
(Bakerloo Line for Piccadilly Circus)
(Circle & District Lines for Cannon Street & Monument (East))

Knowing that the Charring Cross scenes are at the present day Embankment explains why the army is attempting to destroy that tunnel: they want to stop the Yeti, and the Web, penetrating from the South West corner of the Circle Line they currently hold (see later episodes) onto the Northern Line. It's worth asking yourself what the Yeti are doing on Charring Cross station. Did they just stumble across the explosives that Staff Sergeant Arnold's party have laid or did they know it was there somehow......

The Army's 2nd base at Holborn, lies on the Piccadilly Line one stop north of where the Tardis landed at Covent Garden. It also has platforms for the Central Line which intersects the Northern Line between Goodge Street & Charring Cross at Tottenham Court Road, for many years the tube station closest to most of London's comic and sci fi shops. Interestingly between Tottenham Court Road and Holborn lies the disused "Ghost Station" of British Museum. Sadly Web of Fear goes nowhere near ghost stations which is a fascinating subject in itself.

Right lets get the changes in behind the scenes personnel out the way: It's Peter Bryant's first show as producer proper, after a trial run on Tomb of the Cybermen. The new script editor is Derrick Sherwin, an actor turned writer. He'd been working on the popular soap opera Crossroads and brought with him to Doctor Who a writer he'd worked with there to act as his Assistant Script Editor: Terrance Dicks, who'll we'll he re much, MUCH more from later.

There's a little on-screen nod to the production staff at the start of the episode when during his interview with Chorley, Captain Knight pays tribute to Colonel Pemberton, his recently deceased CO. This character is named after Victor Pemberton, Doctor Who's occasional Script Editor (Tomb of the Cybermen, while Peter Bryant was having his trial at producing) who was at the time writing the next story: Fury from the Deep.

Appearing as a soldier in this episode only is Bernard G. High - he's the young looking chap to the left of the picture looking at the cable drum. High had appeared occasionally in Z-Cars during 1967 as Det. Constable John. By an odd coincidence his director in all 3 appearances was one D Camfield who later reused him as a Unit Soldier in Terror of the Zygons 2! His final Z-Cars appearance, Finch & Sons pt2 also features Richardson Morgan who plays Corporal Blake in this story and later returns as Rogin in Ark in Space!

What's that I spy behind Chorley as he gets up? It's another power plant panel! In fact we saw this one in the previous story when it was in Salamander's office!

Web of Fear 1 was the second episode of Doctor Who to be returned to the BBC Film and Video library. In 1978 Sue Malden, BBC archive selector, made a visit to BBC Enterprises and found a batch of returned films from which she believed to be from Asia TV in Hong Kong (Note this information, taken from the first edition of Wiped! Doctor Who's Missing Episodes was removed for the The Second Edition). Amongst these was one episode of Doctor Who: Web of Fear 1. She contacted Asia TV but they said they had no other old episodes of Doctor Who. However 14 years later the same television station found prints of all four episodes of The Tomb of the Cybermen in it's vaults. 13 episodes of Season 5 remain. 2 were always known to be at the BBC, four more were actually at the BBC all along but lost. So prior to 2013 of the episodes returned from outside sources this season most of them come from Asia TV. Further searches of their archives have been made and they insist nothing else is there. The only problem with this story is that in 1976 a list of episodes held by the BBC was produced in order to make the Whose Doctor Who documentary. That list includes a lone episode of the Web of Fear: episode one....

The recent recovery of a near complete set of prints for this story has shed some light on the origins of the BBC's existing print of Web of Fear 1. The prints returned from Nigeria had been sent to them by RTV in Hong Kong. The BBC's print is likely to be the copy of Web of Fear sent back from Australia on 04/06/1975. This batch of films also included all the stories which have had individual episodes recovered in the UK over the years: Galaxy 4 episode 3, Underwater menace 2, Faceless Ones 3, Evil of the Daleks 2 and Wheel in Space 3.

I wanted to see Web of Fear 1 when I was younger. I was very fond of the book of this story which I'd read in my local library dozens of times (said Hardback copy now sits on my shelves here) and I knew this episode existed. Anticipation was heightened by watching Abominable Snowmen 2 on Doctor Who - the Troughton Years in 1992. As we saw it wasn't released with Doctor Who: The Ice Warriors in 1998. In fact it didn't come out on video till the very last Doctor Who video release The Reign Of Terror, which Blackstar very helpfully failed to send me necessitating a run round several shops hunting a copy down (thank you HMV in Richmond). Since the soundtrack for the whole story was released on 6th March 2002 that makes this one of (at the time of the original Blog) four episodes of Doctor Who that I heard before I saw them (the others are Dalek Masterplan 2 and Faceless Ones 1 & 3 - 11 more episodes have been returned since and added to the list). Of course it's now available on DVD as part of Doctor Who - Lost In Time with a commentary by Deborah Watling (Victoria) and Script Editor Derrick Sherwin moderated by Gary Russell.

The return of the Web of Fear doesn't affect us for this episode at the moment but a copy of Web of Fear 1 was returned with the four other episodes and apparently that's of superior quality to the existing one so when the DVD comes out it might be interesting to compare the episode there with the one found on Lost in Time.

Join us next week as we WATCH Web of Fear 2 - something I never thought we'd be able to do!

191 The Enemy of the World: Episode Six

EPISODE: The Enemy of the World: Episode Six
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 191
STORY NUMBER: 040
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 27 January 1968
WRITER: David Whitaker
DIRECTOR: Barry Letts
SCRIPT EDITOR: Peter Bryant
PRODUCER: Innes Lloyd
RATINGS: 8.3 million viewers
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - The Enemy of the World
TELESNAPS: The Enemy of the World: Episode Six

"Thank you. You're doing so well impersonating me, ah, I thought I might return the compliment."

Bruce is having difficulty believe the Doctor, Jamie & Victoria when Benik arrives with papers for "Salamander" to sign. The Doctor examines them and finds they're for food deliveries for 30 people which is suspicious because only a dozen work at the centre. As he dies Swann gets Astrid to promise to rescue those in the shelter. The Doctor arranges for Bruce to release Jamie & Victoria: they're told to contact his deputy Forrester with a code word summoning him to the research centre. Astrid arrives at the shelter: the inhabitants initially are scared of her, fearing Radiation contamination but she proves to them that Salamanders radiation detection instruments are faked. She, Colin and his wife Mary return to the surface. Giles Kent has entered the research centre and goes to confront Salamander in the records room but it's the Doctor he meets. Astrid arrives with Mary & Colin who identify Kent as the man that took them to the shelter. He set the scheme up with Salamander but they disagreed and parted company: Colin & Mary believe he'd been killed. The Doctor was suspicious of Kent from the start. Kent escapes into the lift to the underground tunnels where he intends to detonate explosives stored there. Forrester arrives and under Bruce's orders arrests the research centre staff including Benik. Salamander is waiting for Kent, having observed the confrontation in the records room. They fight and Kent is killed detonating the explosives. The people in the shelter survive the blast as do those on the surface. Astrid explains the shelter can be reached via the tunnel she found and Astrid & Bruce lead the rescue attempt. The Doctor, seemingly wounded returns to the Tardis where Jamie & Victoria are waiting and beckons Jamie to take off. Jamie is suspicious: he was told never to touch the console. Rightly so: This is Salamander exposed when the real Doctor arrives. In a scuffle the Tardis starts to take off with it's doors open and Salamander is sucked out leaving the time travellers at the mercy of the forces pulling through the open doors.....

When I listened to this story for the original version of this blog I said:

Not a bad climax to a story that's proved much better than I recall it being. The plot twist half way through the story is barkingly mad and completely unforeseen: here Kent's true motives have at least been hinted at with his quickness to violence. It's by no means a typical Doctor Who story being more closely related to a James Bond spy thriller with just the hint of science fiction with the villain's ability to cause natural disasters, his Suncatcher energy satellites are mentioned in the first episode - if I was re-writing I'd make them involved in the process some how and connect them with the work being done by the people hiding in the shelter from the war that never happened. This plot element reminds me of something I saw in my younger days but I can't think what. It's a little similar to the Silurians in Hibernation waiting for the Earth to recover from the moon hitting it, the people in the "Spaceship" in Invasion of Dinosaurs and of course Japanese soldiers marooned on remote islands convinced the second world war goes on, but the "sheltering from the nuclear war that never happened" idea rings big clear bells.

The Kaptain, Karl Thurgood suggests to me the Philip K Dick short story The Defenders, which was turned into the novel The Penultimate Truth, as the source of my recollections but I have no recollection of reading either of these!

Finally able to watch it I think this episode has some problems.

It starts off well enough though. First a paper trail finally produces some evidence for Bruce that *SOMETHING* is up:

DOCTOR: He's done us a good turn in bringing me these. This'll interest you, Bruce. How many people do you say work in the research centre?
BRUCE: Fewer than you'd think. It's fully automated, you know. Six engineers, and six guards on duty at any one time.
DOCTOR: A dozen, eh? Will you tell me why thirty people are catered for here?

Then in his dying moments Swann finally learns the horrific truth about what Salamander has done to him and the fellow shelterers:

SWANN: The war. How bad was the war?
ASTRID: War? I didn't understand you. I wish there was something I could do for you.
SWANN: What's he done? What's he done? He's kept us prisoners. Listen, there are others. There are more people down the shaft.
ASTRID: Others?
SWANN: Salamander's kept us down there, prisoners, years of it. Promise you'll bring them to the surface. Swear it. You've got to swear it.
ASTRID: Yes, I swear it.

This leads Astrid down into the shelter, treating us to a nice panning shot of the interior:

Note the control console on the left: we'll be seeing that again!

The shelterers reactions to Astrid isn't what she might expect, attacking her till she's saved by Colin & Mary who she convinces of her story:

COLIN: What's the matter with you? Are you all mad? Get back! Get back!
ASTRID: Thanks.
COLIN: First, don't move. I don't know who you are, but you must be carrying radiation.
ASTRID: What?
COLIN: You're from the surface, aren't you?
ASTRID: Radiation?
MARY: How'd you get down here?
COLIN: Did you see Salamander? And Swann? What about Swann?
ASTRID: Swann sent me.
MARY: Swann? Where is he?
ASTRID: He's dead.
MARY: You see, Colin, Salamander was right. He always said if we went up to the surface we'd die of radiation.
ASTRID: No, not radiation. Salamander killed him.
CROWD: No. No. I don't believe her.
ASTRID: He's lying to you.
CROWD: It can't be true.
ASTRID: He's been keeping you prisoners, I don't know why.
MARY: But that's impossible.
ASTRID: Now listen to me.
COLIN: Now, wait! We must decontaminate you. There's equipment in Salamander's control room. In there.
ASTRID: All right.

COLIN: In there. You see? Radiation. You can come out now.
ASTRID: I'm all right?
COLIN: Yes. Now tell us, what's this about Swann?
ASTRID: No. Just watch. Look at the meter. This machine's a fake. Is this ruler contaminated? Look, see those valves? There's an invisible ray. Break it, and it works the meter.
COLIN: But Salamander built this.
MARY: He built it. He always uses it when he comes down.
ASTRID: Yes, I know, to try to convince you for some reason or other that there's radiation above ground.
MARY: There is. The war.
ASTRID: War? What war?
COLIN: Where is he? Where's Salamander?
ASTRID: That's just what I would like to know.

Yet more actors are added to the shelterers roster this episode but the only one I can spot with any form is Ruth Harrison who was in The Daleks episode 7: - The Rescue as a Thal. However in amongst the guards is a first television appearance for Jay Neill who goes on to play a Policeman in Doctor Who and the Silurians episode 3, a Pikeman in The Masque of Mandragora part two, Silvey in The Invisible Enemy part one, and Guard Klimt in Underworld parts two & three. His IMDB entry shows he's had a long TV career in a wide variety of productions, I can see him appearing in several episodes of Doomwatch as a Man in Project Sahara, Laing in The Battery People, a Man in By the Pricking of My Thumbs..., a Young Man in Flight Into Yesterday and a Man in Flood. He was a Bar Guest in Fawlty Towers: The Wedding Party and a bodyguard in Yes Minister: The Death List.

The first hint of a problem in this episode comes when Giles Kent walks into the record room. The record room that Salamander has locked from the inside!

Let's be charitable and say the computer console that we see Kent fiddling with, just before Benik and the guard pass by, enables him with his prior knowledge of the complex and Salamanader's scheme to bypass the security locks and get into the room.

Considerably more charity will be required by the time we're done today.....

The confrontation between Kent and "Salamander" is a good one:

SALAMANDER: Giles Kent. What are you doing here?
KENT: Oh, I've been looking forward to this meeting. You're getting careless. You didn't double lock the doors. Oh, its all right, I've done it now. The only way anybody can get through there is to blast their way through.
SALAMANDER: How did you get into the Research Centre?
KENT: Oh, you know me. There isn't a pass in the world I can't get my hands on if I put my mind to it.
SALAMANDER: You won't find it so easy getting out.
KENT: Really? Well, we'll see. I'm not on my own this time. I've got friends here with me, and between us we're going to fix you once and for all.
SALAMANDER: You always were a tiresome man, Kent.
KENT: I'm going to be more than tiresome this time. You know, the biggest mistake you ever made was not killing me when you had the chance.
SALAMANDER: Oh, so you going to kill me, huh? How petty. What good do you think that will do?
KENT: Hold it! Now, don't move quickly. My nerves are a bit shaky at the moment.

KENT: Never get away with it. Oh, that's good, coming from you. Or don't you realise you're dispensable, and the world is going to get along fine without you from now on. The only good idea you ever had in your life was getting rid of me, and you couldn't even do that properly, could you? And now I'm back and you're finished. Oh, what's that?
SALAMANDER: They're breaking down the door.
KENT: They don't appear to be having much success.

SALAMANDER: You're trapped, aren't you?
KENT: You're a fool, Salamander. You don't think I've forgotten already, do you?
SALAMANDER: What?
KENT: I've been with you too many times in this room in the past, not to know where this leads to.
KENT: Your little bolt-hole. Half way down the tunnel, a passage out to the fields and enough explosives down there to stop you or your thugs following me.
DOCTOR: Well, that's very interesting, Mister Kent. Why didn't you tell me that before?
KENT: Oh no, it can't be.
DOCTOR: Oh, I'm afraid it is.

So ..... How did the Doctor get past the security locks and into the room?

In a few episodes time we'll be able to use the standard Doctor Who excuse in situations like this of "He Used The Sonic Screwdriver!" but here we're just two stories too early so we need to look elsewhere for a solution.

Remember from earlier in the episode:

BENIK: The door to the Record Room is jammed. It was all right when you came out, wasn't it?
DOCTOR: Yes.
BENIK: Well, it won't open now. May I have your key?
DOCTOR: I'm going mad. I left it in there. What a fool.
BENIK: It's all right, I'll use the emergency key.
DOCTOR: Yes, do that, will you?

There's no hint that this emergency key exists prior to the point Benik mentions it. I've even thought that bit of the scene might even be Benik testing "Salamander" and discovering it is someone impersonating him. But whatever happens at no point does Benik give the Doctor the key. So I say again: How did the Doctor get past the security locks and into the room?

Now admittedly the Doctor having got into the room first may explain how Giles Kent got in!

Kent's full role in events is then revealed.

DOCTOR: Oh, look. Here's another surprise for you. Look behind you.
KENT: Astrid, you've come just in time.
ASTRID: It's too late, Giles. I know everything.
COLIN: That's him. That's the man who took us down there in the first place.
MARY: Giles Kent. We thought you were dead.
KENT: Now look, I've never seen these people before in my life.
ASTRID: They've told me everything. You and Salamander were in it together. You built an atomic shelter, took some people down for an endurance test. The next person they saw was Salamander who told them that an atomic war had started.
DOCTOR: You see, Kent....

ASTRID: Oh, be careful, Doctor. He'll kill you.
MARY: You kept us down like animals.
COLIN: Why? Why did you do it to us?
KENT: We had to have someone create the natural disasters, didn't we? And we fooled you all!
DOCTOR: You didn't fool me, Kent.
KENT: You didn't suspect me.
DOCTOR: Any man who resorts to murder as eagerly and as rapidly as you must be suspect. You didn't just want to expose Salamander, you wanted to kill him and take his place.
KENT: And I will! Do you think you're going to stop me? And these people? Now move out of the way, quick! We'll see who'll stop me!
DOCTOR: Stop him. Stop him. He's going to try and blow the place up!
ASTRID: Come on then.
DOCTOR: No! Don't touch that door, it's red hot.
ASTRID: What do you mean?
DOCTOR: Well, it's locked. They're trying to burn through from the other side.
ASTRID: Look!
DOCTOR: It looks like some sort of cave.
ASTRID: It's the escape route. That's Salamander!
DOCTOR: Yes. I wonder if he knows Kent's on his way?

Kent finally catches up with the real Salamander in the tunnels under the research complex.

SALAMANDER: You always were a fool, weren't you?
KENT: Now, wait a minute. They'll be after both of us now.
SALAMANDER: Oh no, they won't.
KENT: I tell you, they know.
SALAMANDER: So what do you want me to do, huh? Bury our differences? I didn't need you once. I still don't need you.
KENT: Now wait a minute. The place is mined, we know that. We planned it for years, together. Between us we can destroy them all, and the evidence. Just you and me, Salamander.
SALAMANDER: You and me. What use are you to me? You were useful once, but now.
KENT: No, no!
SALAMANDER: You won't get away from me, Kent.
SALAMANDER: I told you you could not escape me.
KENT: Well, if I'm going to die, Salamander, you'll die with me.
SALAMANDER: No! No!

When Kent sets the explosives off is the point the episode really lurches off the deep end!

Where do Colin and Mary go after that? They're last seen clutching at each other as debris falls from the ceiling but just disappear after that:

Are they dead? Have they retreated to the shelter? You don't know. They're usefulness to the plot over, they're gone. Not a mention!

And then there's the logic of what happens next.....

The Doctor sends Jamie and Victoria straight from the Research Centre to the Tardis.

DOCTOR: This is Salamander. I want a security escort to come to the interrogation room immediately. I am releasing two prisoners. They are to be conducted to the main gates and set free. Is that understood? Good.

DOCTOR: You are to go straight to the Tardis as soon as you can.

They disappear at 5:27 and aren't seen again till 19:00 so are missing for 14 and half minutes, well over half the episode having been completely absent two weeks previous. But the point here is he sends them to the Tardis, he doesn't arrange for them to be taken here. The insinuation is the Tardis is nearby, in walking distance.

Then there's the explosion and Salamander's last seen in the tunnel. The Doctor leaves the research center, slightly injured and dressed as Salamander. A dazed figure dressed as Salamander wanders towards the Tardis and Jamie, like the viewer, mistakes the figure for the Doctor and lets him inside. Then the real Doctor shows up, changed into his normal clothes and with a plaster on his head which clearly enables us to distinguish him from Salamander in the fight that follows.

So to me it would appear as if Salamander has wandered out of the tunnel and, slightly dazed, stumbled on the Tardis. The Doctor meanwhile has returned to Kent's Caravan, which we know overlooks the Research Center (episode 3) which in turn is above the shelter (episode 4) which has as tunnel exit near the caravan (episode 5). This last point would make sense: Kent's parked the caravan near to both the tunnel and the research center so he can keep an eye on both. Having changed and tended to his wounds the Doctor makes his way to the Tardis.

Happy so far? Good.

Because the problem is this:

THE TARDIS IS NOWHERE NEAR THE RESEARCH CENTRE!

We saw the Tardis land on the beach in episode 1, which was shown then to be on Cape Arid. At no point is it established that the Research Centre is also on Cape Arid! In fact, as we've shown previously, it looks very much like Kanowa is a spelling mistake for at Kanowna which is 250 miles away! If it is then the episode really makes no sense with Salamander emerging from a tunnel 250 miles away from where he left and The Doctor, Jamie & Victoria having travelled 250 miles seemingly on foot.

Let's be charitable again (very charitable!) and assume that Kanowa is in Cape Arid. So the Research Centre is above the shelter, whose tunnel leads out near the caravan overlooking the Research Centre. The tunnel exit is also near the beach which in turn is near the rented Bungalow. I think the script needs a little playing with here to definitively establish the Research Centre's location: I'd have had the Doctor and Kent observing it from the Bungalow. That gives the the property that a reason to be near to the sea where the Tardis lands, has Astrid aiming for a nearby location that she knows when the helicopter is damaged, has "Salamander" (actually the Doctor) believably near somewhere he's known to visit in part 1 for the Thugs to pursue him. Everyone can then make their journey from Research Centre to Tardis easily in episode 6 and as a bonus we've saved ourselves the cost of building the caravan set by reusing the Bungalow location. I've never read the Enemy of the World novelization but I picked the book off the shelf to see how Ian Marter handles this: he has everyone flying south in helicopters with the Doctor realising that Salamander's deceived him before he leaves Kanowa. This isn't terribly satisfying as it relies on Salamander knowing the Tardis is at Cape Arid. I suppose you could claim that agents loyal to Salamander followed Jamie & Zoe and conveyed that information back to him. Jamie does say he thought they were being followed, but I'd take this to mean followed by Salamander. Some blame needs to be laid at outgoing script editor Peter Bryant's feet for not picking this up. A little tweak to all six scripts would have made this, and a small hole in episode 1, make a lot more sense.

In his book Who And Me director Barry Letts criticises the scripts saying:

When I arrived to begin work on The Enemy Of The world I was presented with only a draft script of the first episode and just rough synopsis of the rest.

He then goes onto say

From what I learnt later when I took over as producer it wasn't likely that he [writer David Whitaker] was responsible for the indefensible position I was put in.

But, somewhat typically, Letts doesn't then apportion blame for who actually was responsible!

What this episode will rightly be remembered for is the confrontation between the Doctor and Salamander, two characters both played by Patrick Troughton and visually distinguished by clothing, blood stains and a plaster!

JAMIE: I thought you were never coming. Hey, Doctor, are you all right?
VICTORIA: Oh, there you are, Doctor. You do look in a state. Come and sit down.
JAMIE: I told you he wouldn't be long. You, you worry too much.
VICTORIA: We shouldn't have left him.
JAMIE: You see, after the explosion, Doctor, we didnae know what to do. You said to come back here, which we did, but I'm sure we were followed.
VICTORIA: Please, can we start straight away?
JAMIE: Me, Doctor? But you said we were never to touch the controls.
DOCTOR: Quite right, Jamie.

DOCTOR: Welcome to the Tardis.
SALAMANDER: Thank you. You're doing so well impersonating me, I thought I might return the compliment.
DOCTOR: And Giles Kent?
SALAMANDER: Unfortunately, he didn't survive the explosion.
DOCTOR: We're going to put you outside, Salamander. No friends, no safety, nothing. You'll run, but they'll catch up with you.
DOCTOR: No!
SALAMANDER: And now I'm going to kill you.
JAMIE: No, you don't.
VICTORIA: Oh, Doctor!
DOCTOR: Victoria! Jamie! Hold onto something! Jamie! Oh!

There's a lot of "one character played by a double with his back to the screen" during this sequence, with Peter Diamond substituting for the second Patrick Troughton, but there's one memorable face to face confrontation:

This is the image that the BBC Website chose to represent the episode when they did their Telesnap photo novel of the story. It also nicely turns the concept of the story, the Doctor impersonating Salamander, on it's head with Salamander impersonating the Doctor. But this meeting, which we've been building up to for 6 episodes, is over so quickly. Barry Letts had intended for there to be more shots with Patrick Troughton in view twice. However due to a film camera jam and Letts using an outdated technique, which he fully accepted responsibility for in his book, this one shot was all they got! Between the Doctor entering the Tardis and Salamander leaving it is a gap of just 45 seconds! And following the all we see is Salamander falling through the Vortex, that's it, end of episode. No reminder of the peril that the Doctor and co are in, nothing.

What's odd is this is then picked up and resolved in the first 2 minutes of the next episode. If you check Enemy of the World 6 is 21:41 long, at the lower end of the running times for a Doctor Who episode (my thanks to Sean for bringing this to my attention when we were watching the episode on iTunes). In fact it's the shortest episode of Doctor Who so far, the first to be sub 22 minutes. Web of Fear 1, by contrast, is 24:53 at the upper end of the 25 minute time slot (a few episodes before now have gone over). If you took the first scene off Web of Fear, which runs from 0:29 to 2:16 which I make 1:47 long, you end up with Enemy 6 last 23:28 and ending on a nice resolution and Web 1 running to 23:06 and not suffering the intrusion of the previous story. (If anyone wants to make a cut of these episodes in this way I'd be interested in seeing it!)

I'd always resented the section of Enemy of the World resolution in Web of Fear 1 and now I see Enemy of the World 6 it seems to me like it's more natural home is here. Yes I know Doctor Who was more serial in style in the 60s but generally the form for an episode is the last episode of the previous story has some form of "looking forward" to the next one like the Radiation Meter in Unearthly Child 4 or the Tardis being stolen in Faceless Ones 6, not resolving the story in the opening minutes of the next one. I could accept the intrusion a bit more if we'd cut back to the Tardis console room at the end of this episode to show that the Doctor, Jamie and Victoria are still in peril. As it is it feels like "Salamander's out of the Tardis, problem solved" especially in light of the specially shot trailer that follows showing The Doctor in London Underground tunnels warning children at home that their parents may find the next story, The Web of Fear, frightening!

So Enemy of the World.....

Pros:

Episode 1: location shooting and helicopter shots
Episode 4: mad plot twist and Salamander's entrance to the tunnel
Episode 6: The Doctor & Salamander confrontation
Top work throughout from Patrick Troughton, playing two roles, and all the guest stars especially Colin Douglas as the hard, but ultimately just, security officer Bruce.
Attempting to do something different, a Bond/Spy story, with the Who format

Cons:

Episode 3, so long the sole survivor, is dreadful.
The story and this episode breaks down geographically.
The ending, especially the confrontation, is rushed.
By having Patrick Troughton playing two roles either the Doctor or Salamander is absent for long periods. This is compounded by Jamie and Victoria both being absent for an episode and then being missing for a large part of the final one.
No Monsters!

It's hard to decide. I want to get past the story's lack of Monsters and how dreadful episode 3 has seemed for many years. Like Underwater Menace 3 it's picked up by being able to see it in context a bit. If we'd had episode 1, or 4, all along the story would have had a better pre recovery reputation. Now seen as a whole the flaws are more obvious, especially in this final episode. This story is really yo-yoing in my opinions every time I experience it! The last time I listened to it on audio I loved it, the first time I saw it I was brought down by how dreadful the continuity in the last episode was. That's got even worse this time out but I enjoyed the story as a whole a lot more.

A couple of changes behind the scenes happen at the end of this story. Innes Lloyd departs the producer's role. Never happy with science fiction he was more than willing to vacate his seat for Peter Bryant. Despite his feelings about the show Lloyd did a top job, producing many memorable stories and introducing several important elements to the series. It's also the last story overseen by Head of Drama Sydney Newman, who'd helped create the series. After leaving his post he returned to his native Canada.

Enemy of the World was novelised by Ian Marter in 1981 during a period when few Hartnell and Troughton stories were being produced by Target Books. It's television author David Whitaker had started work on it but died before much could be produced.

The Soundtrack was released on CD in 2002 with narration by Fraser Hines. Unlike the stories either side of it, it can be currently had for pennies. The soundtrack to the aforementioned Web of Fear trailer is included as a bonus. The Enemy of the World soundtrack was reissued as part of Doctor Who: The Lost TV Episodes Volume 5 (1967-1969) shortly before the episodes were recovered.

While searching Africa for missing episodes Philip Morris discovered copies of Enemy of the World 1-6 and Web of Fear 1, 2 & 4-6 at a television station in the Nigerian city of Jos. It hasn't yet been revealed exactly when he found it but a report in Doctor Who Magazine 486 has Morris talking about a church being blown up in the city while he was there. Enemy of the World thus becomes the second complete Troughton story in season 4, after Tomb of the Cybermen's 1992 recovery. It's also only the second complete Troughton 6 parter, after Seeds of Death as well as being the seventh complete Troughton story overall. Power of the Daleks, The Faceless One, The Abominable Snowmen, The Ice Warriors, The Web of Fear, Fury from the Deep, The Wheel in Space and The Space Pirates all have one or more missing missing episodes. Paul Vanezies of the Restoration Team had his hands on episodes 1-5 on 28th April 2013, episode 6 having been looked at previously. Peter Crocker started work on the picture restoration on 2nd June 2013 and delivered it on the 7th August. After much rumour the recovery, along with that of Web of Fear, was announced at a press conference on 10th October 2013 news of which was embargoed till midnight when the episodes were released on iTunes.

The Enemy of the World was released on DVD on Monday 25th November 2013, 2 days after Doctor who's 50th anniversary. Many Doctor Who fans, although pleased to have the story on DVD, were disappointed at the release. The DVD lacked many of the special features that have been standard on other releases: No commentary, information text, photo gallery and no features on the making of the story or cast & crew interviews. Despite campaigning the BBC are yet to issue a special edition DVD correcting these omissions.

Fantom Films has sought to plug one of the gaps by issuing commentaries for both Enemy of the World and Web of Fear. The Who Talk Enemy of the World commentary features the following contributors:

EPISODE ONE: Deborah Watling
EPISODE TWO: Mary Peach
EPISODE THREE: Carmen Munroe & Bill Lyons
EPISODE FOUR: Carmen Munroe
EPISODE FIVE: Milton Johns & Mary Peach
EPISODE SIX: Milton Johns & Sylvia James

All six episodes are moderated by Toby Hadoke.

Next up I get to spend six weeks talking about two of my favourite subjects at once: Doctor Who *AND* the London Underground. Be here next Saturday as we WATCH Web of Fear Part 1.

190 The Enemy of the World: Episode Five

EPISODE: The Enemy of the World: Episode Five
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 190
STORY NUMBER: 040
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 20 January 1968
WRITER: David Whitaker
DIRECTOR: Barry Letts
SCRIPT EDITOR: Peter Bryant
PRODUCER: Innes Lloyd
RATINGS: 6.9 million viewers
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - The Enemy of the World
TELESNAPS: The Enemy of the World: Episode Five

"Why not me? WHY NOT ME???? Salamander, take me with you! TAKE ME WITH YOU!!"

Bruce steps into the caravan and this time he does not fall for The Doctor pretending to be Salamander. They tell Bruce they have evidence on Salamander. He tells them that Farriah is dead. Benik is holding the unconscious Jamie & Victoria at the research centre. The Doctor talks Bruce into taking him to the research centre to get evidence. In the Underground base Colin is wanting to go outside. Swann finds a scrap of newspaper stuck to a crate "holiday liner sinks with the loss of many lives" He knows they have been lied to about the war. He accuses Salamander of being a murderer and forces Salamander to take him to the surface. When Salamander announces Swann is coming with him to the surface Colin is distraught that it wasn't him who was chosen. Benik interrogates Jamie and Victoria but is interrupted by "Salamander" and sent away. This turns out to be the Doctor. Salamander takes Swann into the tunnels above the base, but Swann wants to go to the surface. Astrid distracts the guards and flees allowing Kent to escape. While outside she hears cries for help and finds the injured Swann lying in a tunnel mouth. She asks him what has happened and he says he was attacked by a man named Salamander.

I'm still bowled over as to how Salamander's pulled this deception off especially as it comes crashing down so easily here from two different directions. Swann's discovery of Salamander's duplicity leads to him stepping outside for a while so he can be disposed of. Has this happened before? Here's Colin & Mary in episode 4:

MARY: Are you going to ask him?
COLIN: You bet I am. He'll take me, too.
MARY: Colin, I couldn't sleep a wink last night thinking about you making the trip. None of the others have come back.
COLIN: Don't stop me now. I've got to see the surface, Mary, I've got to.

Did the other people see through Salamander's lies and have to be taken to the surface to be disposed of?

Then there's Bruce. all through the story he's come over as a very hard man. When confronted with mounting information that indicates something isn't right with Salamander he does something about it. Bravo!

Appearing throughout the story as Donald Bruce is Colin Douglas. Douglas will return to the program 10 years later as Reuben in Horror of Fang Rock. Despite me only knowing him from Doctor Who his his imdb entry shows him to have been a very busy television actor in the 60s and 70s! I'll need to dig out my The Sweeney DVDs as he has a repeat role as the Flying Squad Commander in that appearing in Ringer and Contact Breaker. I know for certain I saw all the episodes of God's Wonderful Railway as a child so I would have seen him as George Grant in Fire on the Line, the final Second World War set segment of the production. I found an episode on YouTube and instantly recognised him!

His 1967 self however looks and sounds like the actor Rupert Vansittart who was General Asquith in Aliens of London and World War Three. Compare and contrast for yourself. The same pompous manner that Bruce has is familiar in a lot of Vansittart's recent roles.

And on the other hand there's Milton Johns' Benik. He is very nasty and sinister during this episode, it's a top performance so you can see why they got Johns in to do the Who Talk Enemy of the World commentary for this episode!

BENIK: So you've brought them? Good. Any trouble?
CAPTAIN: No, a light drug saw to that.
BENIK: Let me know the moment they wake up.
CAPTAIN: Yes, sir.
BENIK: I'm looking forward to questioning them. I have a feeling they're going to be stubborn. It's so much more interesting when our prisoners are stubborn.

The nastiness comes out especially in the sequence where he interrogates Jamie & Victoria, summed up by this exchange:

JAMIE: You must have been a nasty little boy.
BENIK: Oh I was. But I had a very enjoyable childhood.

Pulling Victoria's hair to get her and Jamie to reveal information shows him up to be the very worst sort of playground bully!. Fortunately Victoria is saved further pain by the arrival of Bruce and Salamander, actually the Doctor!

So there's plenty happening here and this episode rolls along nicely and you can feel things warming up for the story's conclusion.

According to Barry Letts in his autobiography Who And Me this episode had to be re-written after it was discovered there were no scenes featuring guest star Mary Peach who plays Astrid. Barry had a usually reliable memory, but I'm trying to picture how this episode would have worked without Peach's Astrid in it as her distracting of the guard on the caravan and discovery of the injured Swann forms the climax of what we see on-screen this week. A brief location shot of her hiding from a guard, presumably filmed close to Climping Beach near Littlehampton, helps set these scene nicely for that sequence,

Remember Fraser Hines' cousin, Ian Hines, appearing as a guard, and Barry Letts' nephew as Benik's sergeant in earlier episodes? Well in this and the next episode we have David Troughton, son of Patrick, also as a guard. He'll be back in a bit part in The War Games plus a starring role as King Peladon in the Curse of Peladon. He famously was Doctor Bob Buzzard in A Very Peculiar Practice (which has finally got a complete DVD release at long last) with Fifth Doctor Peter Davison before returning as Professor Hobbes in the 2008 New Series episode Midnight. One of my favourite actors he can do an excellent impression of his late father which he does to good effect narrating several of the Target audiobook readings. IMDB (and every other Who publication I've read) reckons this is his first Doctor Who appearance but my friend Ralph heard David Troughton speak at a recent convention where he claims to appear in episode 1 of this story as one of the thugs on the beach, specifically the one that jumps Jamie!

Other actors in this episode who I've been unable to find include Valerie Taylor as a Shelterer who was a Parisian Woman in The Massacre episode 1: The War of God and Blair Stewart who was a test dummy in The Dominators: Episode 1.

OK back to our geography. There's a tunnel leading from the shelter to the surface. The tunnel comes out near to where Kent's caravan is located: Astrid stumbles across Swann who can't have got far from the entrance in that state. The tunnel doesn't seem to be at a huge incline yet we know the shelter is some way bellow ground - maybe it comes off a level that the travel capsule can stop at closer to the surface?

In fact you can see the travel capsule in the back of this shot (There was already a poor quality telesnap that we didn't realise had the travel capsule in), and Swann make a point of asking what's directly above them, so the level closer to the surface theory is a good one.

And speaking of poor quality telesnaps....

SALAMANDER: Now what's the matter, huh?
SWANN: What's this? What is this?
SALAMANDER: What?
SWANN: Newspaper. It's a piece of newspaper.
SALAMANDER: So?
SWANN: Well, go on, look at it. Read it. Last year's date. Look at the bit of headline there. There!

Here's the blurry telesnap of the piece of paper Swann found that's confounded Who fans for years by being too out of focus to see the date! Fortunately the recovered episode reveals all:

The date on the paper, said to be "last year's date" is Friday August 16th 2017, which clearly dates the story to 2018, the same as the year on the plate in Astrid's helicopter in episode 1. Publicity at the time put the story "50 years in the future" and Lance Parkin's History of the Universe dates the story to 2017, 50 years after the first episode was broadcast. Close, it's 50 years after *most* of the story was broadcast: the first two episodes are in 1967 but the remaining four are in 1968!

There's only one small problem with the date on the paper: 16th August 2017 is a Wednesday!

Another thought: if it's approaching the 5th anniversary of them descending to the shelter in 2018 then they'd have been hiding down now in 2013 when this episode was found!

More power panels!

The panel on the left in Salamander's office in the shelter is new. We saw the one on the right in the previous episode, here the Danger warning at the top left is very clear.

We get quite a good look at this one over two different shots this episode and a pretty clear look at the other one we saw last episode too while everyone is walking around!