So that unexpected visitor was Donald Bruce. But Bruce, it turns out, is less dedicated to Salamander than he is to justice, so the Doctor is able to convince Bruce to let him impersonate Salamander so that they can gain proof of Salamander's wrongdoing. Meanwhile, Salamander himself is still down in the bunker, when the leader of the people down there, Swann, finds a scrap of newspaper from last year, proving to Swann that the world above isn't as devastated as Salamander led them to believe. Salamander tells him that it's only half a life being lived by the survivors of the nuclear war, but Swann insists on going to the surface with Salamander, so Salamander grudgingly agrees to take him.
We also get the return of Jamie and Victoria (both on vacation during the last episode), getting ready to be interrogated by Benik -- who's particularly slimy during this episode. "I'm looking forward to questioning them," he says at one point. "I have a feeling they're going to be stubborn. So much more interesting when our prisoners are stubborn." And then, when he's actually interrogating Jamie and Victoria, Jamie says, "You must have been a nasty little boy."
-- to which Benik replies with a nasty smile, "Oh, I was. But I had a very enjoyable childhood."
Finally, we get some fun interplay with Troughton playing the Doctor playing Salamander, as he "interrogates" Jamie and Victoria to demonstrate to Bruce that Salamander isn't the white knight he pretends to be, while Kent fakes his own death, allowing him to escape from Bruce's guards while Astrid also runs away -- only to find Swann, dying from a blow administered by Salamander...
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Salamander confronts the Doctor. (The Enemy of the World
Episode 6) ©BBC |
Episode 6 wraps it all up. The dying Swann tells Astrid to free the people living in the bunker, to expose Salamander's lies. Meanwhile, Benik is suspicious of "Salamander", but he inadvertently gives up the evidence that demonstrates to Bruce that Salamander does indeed have something to hide, and so he's ready to trust the Doctor and bring in his own people to conduct a more thorough investigation. (Although the Benik subplot is odd here -- he seems to be clearly suspicious of "Salamander" when he's in the office with Bruce, Jamie, and Victoria, but then he seems to believe that no, that was Salamander. But
then he becomes even more suspicious of Bruce, as he's seen authorizing Jamie and Victoria's release, yet in the next scene is seen working alongside Bruce trying to break into the Records Room. That's followed up by Benik suddenly losing his nerve and trying to run away -- maybe he realizes Salamander is finished, but it's not at all clear. Were scenes explaining all this flip-flopping cut for time? The episode certainly ends abruptly...) And Kent makes his way in to expose his true colors: he doesn't want to stop Salamander, he wants to replace him. But when it all goes wrong, he's willing to blow everything up to kill Salamander and destroy the evidence. Meanwhile Astrid is trying to evacuate the people from the bunker (once she gets them to trust her and believe that there was in fact no nuclear war), so when Kent blows up the bunker it causes some problems. But Kent is shot down by Salamander, who then makes his way, dazed, to the TARDIS, where Jamie mistakes him for the Doctor. But then the real Doctor shows up, they have a quick tussle, and then Salamander starts the TARDIS with the doors open and is sucked out into space...
Before it was recovered,
The Enemy of the World had a pretty low reputation -- there are no monsters, it seems badly edited, and the script is designed to keep the Doctor out of the action for as long as possible. But when you can actually watch it, the editing issues generally disappear (in fact, you see that in many cases, Letts is deliberately switching from one scene to another to underline a point made in the previous scene), you see just how good Troughton is, and you can appreciate the care that's gone into Whitaker's script. It's also nice to get a Bond-style thriller to make a change from the monster stories, such that it really does set this story apart. It's a story that stands up quite well, and I would be quite surprised if it didn't go up in people's estimations now that they can actually see it.