The Enemy of the World

“Me ? I’m the nicest possible person.”

Un chef d'œuvre. 

Whitaker se saisit de chaque ligne de dialogue et de chaque performance, pour raconter un monde de plus en plus complexe et étouffant. 

Son Salamander est en effet captivant. Mais même avec les combi’ moulantes et les coupes bizarres, il est surtout surprenant d’actualité.

Son monde est celui où un tyran prospère en effrayant les classes moyennes, et où la nature tue des millions de gens.   

Son monde est celui des Trump, des Le Pen, des Macron, et des Bolsonaro. 

Dieu ait pitié de nous. 

While the story is competently written throughout, it lacks for me a classic Doctor Who hook, which makes it interesting beyond being family drama from the 60s. In fact, very little about the story feels like Doctor Who at all beyond the characters being in it.
So, while it is enjoyable and competently made, I can't love it, only like it.

7/10

Well written and moves at a decent pace. Interesting ideas that are well realised. The acting is top-notch, with Patrick Troughton giving a master class. The costumes are great in the episode, with some neat variety and ideas.

This 1968 / 2018 epic is one of my favourites. The idea behind Salamander may be a blindingly obvious one, the ruthless, powerful megalomaniac who happens to have the exact appearance of our main protagonist, but they really pull this off. They evil high concept villainous plan has a logic to it and an epic sense of scale which we haven't seen since the dreadful The Dalek's Master Plan.

The volcano, blackmail and poison scenes, all in quick succession do a great job of showing off Salamander's evil credentials. I love the idea of someone controlling the world through manipulating weather and natural disasters. Jamie works so well as a character in this scenario, infiltrating the compound by "saving" Salamander's life. He is one of the best character's the show has ever seen.

The secret bunker has to be my favourite element of this story. The radiation suit and secret life is genuinely exciting, you wonder where Salamander could be off to. The fact he has a bunch of scientists locked up through trickery, unwittingly doing his evil dirty work - this is the factor that makes this story genius. You really feel for this band of "survivors" that believe a previous war has left the earth above radiated and ruined.

When the newspaper clipping is found by one of the underground scientists Salamander's lies begin to unravel. Salamander tries to do away with him, but he is discovered by another one of this story's heroes Astrid (who has a brilliant electric flirty moment with The Doctor in episode one that really has to be seen to be believed). She successfully convinces the underground people of Salamander's deceit which sets the dictator's downfall in motion.

Its great to see Patrick Troughton's two characters finally meet in the TARDIS at the end of the final episode. This is an exciting fight to witness, but it is perhaps the only part of the story which feels rushed, if this had been a little longer then the ending could be a little more satisfying.

In 2013, two missing stories were recovered by a missing films hunter called Phil Morris; one was complete, the other missing only one episode out of six. The complete one was Enemy of the World, a story featuring Patrick Troughton playing two characters: the Doctor himself and a ruthless dictator called Salamander.

The plot is a relatively simple one. The Doctor and his companions Jamie and Victoria arrive in the near future (2018), where the Doctor is mistaken for Salamander by a group of spies and is persuaded to use his uncanny resemblance to bring him down before he causes the end of the world through creating natural disasters. The first thing to note is this doesn't feel like a Doctor Who story; it is a strange entity as it feels more like a spy thriller. Salamander is more 'Bond villain' than one who usually appears in the show. Also, the story has a surprisingly dark ending where the TARDIS doors are opened and Salamander falls out into the time vortex.  It's a nice break from the usual but it never feels quite as engaging as a typical Doctor Who story.

The best thing to watch this serial for is Patrick Troughton in his dual role. Patrick Troughton does a fantastic job as both his incarnation of the Doctor and Salamander; it's amazing how he manages to make both characters different from each other even though he is having to juggle playing both. He slips effortlessly back into playing the Doctor after taking a turn at Salamander and vice versa. It feels like watching two different actors rather than just one; I think it is a shame the new series didn't attempt this in series 9 by having an episode set in Pompeii so Peter Capaldi could play both the Doctor and Caelicius because it would be interesting to see how the new series would handle it.

The settings and production work are also great.  The production values here are excellent. The serial feels expensive, especially with location filming on a beach and the stuff with the lift that goes underground to the people who believe a nuclear war has devastated the Earth. Everything feels like it cost more than other serials at the time and alongside that you can tell the production crew put in a lot of work.

Overall, The Enemy of the World isn't quite as engaging as your average Doctor Who story but it's still a recommended watch due to Patrick Troughton's fantastic dual performance and the impressively high production values. There is even a helicopter.

This might be my favourite Second Doctor story I've stumbled on thus far. I love the whole schtick with Troughton playing Salamander, Jaime is a lot of fun here and has some great moments with the Doctor, and the story is well done enough I found it held my attention from start to finish. Given the era and what the production was capable of at the time, I would say it is a fine work and excellent Second Doctor story. We owe a lot to Philip Morris for recovering these episodes, as it is a real treat to see Salamander in all his glory. Highly recommended for those seeking to enjoy a good Second Doctor adventure.

The fact this story was like hated before it was found astonishes me like the amount of reappraisal it has had is honestly so vindicating for the people who worked on it

I have no idea how it happened but in the middle of Doctor Who's most excruciatingly cookie-cutter season ever, we get an epic tale of international drama and espionage and it's the best thing ever. Among other things I'm a big fan of how it makes up for The Massacre by actually using the "Doctor doppelgänger" concept in an interesting way, with Salamander and the Doctor continually impersonating each other. The plot twist with Salamander's underground base is kind of ridiculous but I'm all for ridiculous plot twists in my Doctor Who.