The Enemy Of The World Special Edition DVD

The Enemy Of The World Special Edition DVD

From our point of view, 'The Enemy Of The World' has actually been discovered twice. The recovery of the complete set of 16mm film recordings in Nigeria made the news headlines in 2013 and I think we can all remember how excited we were. Toby Hadoke's bubbling enthusiasm on the Breakfast News sofa was something I could well identify with!

But several years down the line, the Special Edition of this story makes it to DVD and our copy was delivered yesterday. At least according to the email that Lisa received. However, there was no sign of it having made it through the letter box, and it wasn't on the front door step, as can sometimes happen.

So we had our own small Missing Episodes mystery to solve. There was a copy of 'The Enemy Of The World' awaiting discovery in Poole and the hunt was on to track it down!

The road layout round our way can be a trifle confusing, we admit. We live in a row of odd numbers (with no number 13 for, we presume, superstitious reasons) and we're at Number Eleven. However, our road branches off another one and our street sign is opposite  the Number Eleven in the other street - diagrams are available on request...

At least one friend who came to visit us nearly ended up knocking on the wrong door, so we always end up giving over-complicated directions just in case.

It was a faint possibility, but The Other Number Eleven might just have ended up with our copy of 'Enemy', so Lisa donned her Episode Hunting Coat and went to investigate. She didn't actually ask "Excuse me, but have you got any previously missing episodes of 'Doctor Who'?" but now I've thought of it I can't get the image out of my head.

As it happened, this was exactly the right place to look and we could not resist making a small video about our success.

If you've got the original release, is the Special Edition worth getting?

Absolutely, yes! As always happens, technology has marched on and the episodes themselves look and sound better than ever. With added audio commentary and production notes, the release is already ahead of its 2013 incarnation.

But full marks also for the contents of Disc Two - copies of the scripts and 'Radio Times' listings make for very interesting reading.

Ed Stradling and Toby Hadoke (with very fluffy clip microphone) have made 'Treasures Lost And Found' which is a 60-minute documentary with the aim of uncovering new information about the story. This is highly absorbing and ends on a lovely note which we will not spoil. And applause also for the framing device of a set of '3-2-1' style clues, which always scores points with us.

'Remembering Deborah Watling' is also a lovely piece of work and is a fitting tribute to someone we always loved seeing at conventions. Frazer Hines' innuendo-laden banter with her was the stuff of legend but she always came out on top.

The actual discovery of the story and the subsequent restoration work involved feature in 'Recovering The Past' and 'Restoring Doctor Who' and for completists, Jon Pertwee's links from the old VHS release 'The Troughton Years' are present and correct.

As expected, this is a very welcome addition to our DVD collection - hats off to everyone involved in allowing us to see a story that at one point seemed lost forever.

Fingers crossed for the future!

(By Andrew Trowbridge)