The Enemy of the World Episode 4

The one where we learn about an entire community kept in the dark beneath ground...

There's something rather wonderful about this story's two strong female characters coming to blows in Kent's office, even if their conversation is some way short of passing the Bechdel Test. In another context these two women could be leads in their own action adventure series. Imagine it: "Ferrier and Fariah", the bold new international espionage series from ITC! Of course, if it were to happen back in 1968 it'd probably have been called something crass like "Ebony and Ivory" or "Black and White", but regardless... wouldn't it have been amazing? And there's no doubt that Mary Peach and Carmen Munroe could have pulled it off magnificently!

We learn a little more about Fariah, who says that Salamander blackmailed her into becoming his servant. I share Kent's curiosity as to what exactly Fariah was being blackmailed about, but the Doctor rather wonderfully draws a veil over it all, saying: "Nobody's perfect." Poor Fariah. Whereas it seems Fedorin's misdeeds were engineered almost entirely by Salamander (and I do love the ambiguity of "nearly every one of those swindles"), whatever secrets lie in Fariah's past are all too true. One can only imagine what they were...

While Kent continues to rant and rave at the Doctor (which is pretty much all Bill Kerr's had to do for the last few episodes), Astrid gets involved in a shootout with Benik's men (and isn't that handsome Guard Captain (played by Elliott Cairnes) a big lad?), and employs a bit of fudged kung-fu too, tipping a further nod to The Avengers. When the office is under siege, our heroes escape down the ventilation shaft (how else?), but the saddest scene comes just after when the fleeing Fariah is gunned down in cold blood by a trigger-happy guard.

Fariah's demise is tragic, and I found it really rather upsetting. It's a sign of good writing and acting when a viewer feels something when a character is hurt or dies, but in this case, I felt it more harshly because of what Fariah represented: a strong black female character with opinions and a back-story, in a time when Doctor Who hardly ever diversified well. The fact that every black character since the start of Season 4 has died leaves a bitter taste, especially as a good few of them die needlessly, rather than heroically. At least Fariah manages to go down fighting, slipping in a hard slap across the face to the repulsive Benik before she slips away. Even the lovely Guard Captain seems affected by her death, having told off his man for shooting her, and then preventing Benik from shooting her a second time.

RIP Fariah. So there'll be no spin-off adventure series after all...

Halfway through the episode, something really rather remarkable happens. Salamander asks to be left alone in the records room, then proceeds to seal all the exits like a bunker, before summoning a bat-shit crazy transport capsule, climbing in, and shooting thousands of feet down into the bowels of the earth below! And that capsule is one helluva big prop too, used only briefly but taking plenty of time to slide out of the wall, tilt up, and let its dastardly occupant clamber inside (and all the while it's accompanied by an ear-gnawing buzz alarm!).

This is totally unexpected, and slams the story up another gear at precisely the point it needs it. And where does Salamander end up? Well, it seems that a community of people have been living slavishly below the surface of the earth for the past five years under the false impression that a terrible war has been waging on the surface, leaving the population decimated and the environment contaminated by radiation. And Salamander (who changes out of his flouncy bullfighter's outfit into a pair of bedraggled overalls) has been pretending to be their saviour, going alone onto the surface to fetch them food and provisions.

The audacity of the man is astounding! He's essentially been keeping these people as prisoners underground, getting them to artificially create monsoons, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions on the surface to destabilise the "enemies of truth and freedom" (oh, the irony!). He's actually been using them to bolster his "predictions" of natural disasters in order to take over the world, country by country, zone by zone. Now it all clicks into place, and the scale and consequence of his machinations is mind-boggling. Well done David Whitaker for coming up with one of the best Bond films ever!

"It's terrible up there you know, Swann," lies Salamander. "You've no idea." Later he adds: "Up there it's terrible still. War goes on and on and you never know when the air is clean or when it's poisoned." Salamander is an agent of fear, the most convincing megalomaniac the series has known so far (and I thought Professor Zaroff was a nutter).

The only downside to all this is that we meet Colin and Mary, two of the wettest characters ever to grace the series, as well as two of the poorest acted. Margaret Hickey (who sadly died of cancer in 2010 aged 65) isn't quite as bad as the abysmal Adam Verney, who delivers his lines as statements or proclamations, often looking into the middle-distance with about as much presence as a Rutan's sock. It's cod C-movie acting of the lowest order which makes the likes of Colin Douglas seem like Mark Rylance.

And the costumes... oh, the costumes! What are they wearing? Martin Baugh, what were you thinking after reaching such figure-hugging, rubbery heights in earlier episodes? These people are dressed like they're in a hippy commune, with pastel patterns and tie-dye pajamas which look silly on young people like Hickey and Verney, but utterly ridiculous and embarrassing on Christopher Burgess (Swann) and some of the more elderly extras. Dear oh dear...

And then we're treated to yet another rubbish cliffhanger, and this time it's probably one of the worst in Doctor Who history. Basically, a pair of shoes walks in. That's it. Before this episode was returned to the archives in 2013 and nobody could see it, books such as The Television Companion described the cliffhanger as: "Suddenly, Bruce enters with an armed guard and confronts the Doctor". This description is obviously based upon the scripts, and the reprise in episode 5, but in truth, nothing so exciting or revealing happens. Literally, two feet walk in. We don't see whose feet, and there's not even the usual "YOU!" from another character to beef up the moment. It's just a man walking in, and then it ends.

Awful. And a million viewers switched off between episodes!

First broadcast: January 13th, 1968

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: Salamander's descent into the underground shelter is a real WTF moment.
The Bad: I can forgive the poor thespian skills of Margaret Hickey and Adam Verney (it's really Barry Letts' fault for employing them), and I can forgive Martin Baugh for those awful hippy pajamas because of his sterling work earlier in the serial. But what I cannot forgive is Barry Letts for delivering an atrocious cliffhanger, one of the weakest in the series' history. It could have been so much better if he'd slipped in a shot of Bruce's face, so we knew what sort of danger they were in. Argh!
Overall score for episode: ★★★★★★★☆☆☆

NEXT TIME: Episode 5...

My reviews of this story's other episodes: Episode 1; Episode 2; Episode 3; Episode 5; Episode 6

Find out birth/death dates, career information, and facts and trivia about this story's cast and crew at the Doctor Who Cast & Crew site: http://doctorwhocastandcrew.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/the-enemy-of-world.html

The Enemy of the World is available on BBC DVD. Find it on Amazon - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Classic-Doctor-Who-Enemy-Special/dp/B079MQBNB7/.