The Enemy of the World

And that was The Enermy of the World.

Patrick Troughton is fantastic in his duel role as Salamander and the Doctor. The scene of the Doctor trying to find his way into imitating Salamander's accent after watching a single video is just brilliant. As the Doctor he gets to be funny, silly and occasionally serious and brave. Playing Salamander, he gets to be despotic, cruel and violent. After watching Troughton playing the Doctor for a year and a half, this would have been a chance to show the audience his brilliant range. I did notice the Salamander accent slip once or twice, but how little it did is remarkable given how many scenes there were where he started as the Doctor, slipped into pretending to be Salamander, then went back to being the Doctor. It's especially impressive given that these stories were filmed "as live" and retakes were only allowed for catastrophes (and those mostly of a technical nature - actors just had to muddle along as best as they could if they made a mistake).

Technically the episodes are beautifully remastered. This morning I saw some clips from before the cleaning up process began and the difference is incredible. The restoration team have done a brilliant job and deserve all the praise they can get. It looked wonderful on my laptop. The only technical issue I did notice is that the audio is about half a second behind the picture. In some scenes, particularly in the last couple of episodes characters were still speaking after their mouths had stopped moving (it's particularly noticable with Benik as the actor has a tendency to snap his mouth closed when he's finished speaking). But that is a minor issue and it really doesn't detract from the story at all.

Deborah Watling looks just gorgeous throughout (I want her hair!) and Frazer Hines in a kilt is just good for the soul. I'm definitely remembering my crush on the dashingly brave Jamie.

And now I'm torn. Do I save it for tomorrow? Or do I take my laptop up to bed with me, knowing that I can only watch maybe half of Web of Fear before I have to go to sleep? Will I even be able to stop once I start? Damn weekend working.

To hell with it - I might just watch the whole thing!