History YMMV / DoctorWhoS5E4TheEnemyOfTheWorld

* VindicatedByHistory: ''Doctor Who'' has a lot of {{Missing Episode}}s which tend to get regarded as 'classics' simply because they can't be watched, but no-one really cared about this one-- it's a bit of an OutOfGenreExperience in that it's a spy story focusing on a human DiabolicalMastermind and with no monsters, and the recons made the story seem silly and difficult to follow (not helped by the fact that it's about a CriminalDoppelganger and ImpersonatingTheEvilTwin). Additionally, the only episode to survive in full was a comic-relief one with many deliberately-silly scenes. But when the whole thing was suddenly discovered in Nigeria, fans suddenly were able to see the surprisingly good action scenes in the first episode, and observe the character acting from Creator/PatrickTroughton that made the story make sense, and suddenly reappraised it as one of the best Troughton stories. Magazine/DoctorWhoMagazine pointed out that in their top 200 stories poll of 2009 it was the 30th rated story of the '60s, but in 2014 it was the 10th rated. In the most recent poll conducted by Doctor Who Magazine in 2023, "The Enemy of the World" was voted the seventh best Second Doctor story. Doubly interesting because [[Recap/DoctorWhoS5E5TheWebOfFear "The Web of Fear"]] had long been regarded as a Holy Grail missing episode, and its reputation actually declined (if only a little) once it was finally available to watch, with many reviews unfavourably comparing it to the surprising quality of this one. The only thing that keeps this story from becoming perfect is the ValuesDissonance surrounding the use of {{brownface}} as a plot device.
* VindicatedByReruns: For years this story was considered the odd one out of a season dominated by "[[MonsterOfTheWeek Monsters of the Week]]" and the "[[AllYourBaseAreBelongToUs Base Under Siege]]" plots. The only existing episode was part 3, a slow middle episode and one which didn't give an accurate picture of the entire serial. But that was all fans had to go on. Now, with all six episodes recovered, there has been a major fan reevaluation, and the story is considered fresh for its time in integrating political intrigue with ''Doctor Who''. ''[[Magazine/DoctorWhoMagazine DWM]]'' pointed out that in their top 200 stories poll of 2009 it was the 30th rated story of the 60s, but in 2014 it was the 10th rated. In the most recent poll conducted by Doctor Who Magazine in 2023, "The Enemy of the World" was voted the seventh highest rated Second Doctor story.

* VindicatedByReruns: For years this story was considered the odd one out of a season dominated by "[[MonsterOfTheWeek Monsters of the Week]]" and the "[[AllYourBaseAreBelongToUs Base Under Siege]]" plots. The only existing episode was part 3, a slow middle episode and one which didn't give an accurate picture of the entire serial. But that was all fans had to go on. Now, with all six episodes recovered, there has been a major fan reevaluation, and the story is considered fresh for its time in integrating political intrigue with ''Doctor Who''. ''[[Magazine/DoctorWhoMagazine DWM]]'' pointed out that in their top 200 stories poll of 2009 it was the 30th rated story of the 60s, but in 2014 it was the 10th rated.

* VindicatedByHistory: ''Doctor Who'' has a lot of {{Missing Episode}}s which tend to get regarded as 'classics' simply because they can't be watched, but no-one really cared about this one-- it's a bit of an OutOfGenreExperience in that it's a spy story focusing on a human DiabolicalMastermind and with no monsters, and the recons made the story seem silly and difficult to follow (not helped by the fact that it's about a CriminalDoppelganger and ImpersonatingTheEvilTwin). Additionally, the only episode to survive in full was a comic-relief one with many deliberately-silly scenes. But when the whole thing was suddenly discovered in Nigeria, fans suddenly were able to see the surprisingly good action scenes in the first episode, and observe the character acting from Creator/PatrickTroughton that made the story make sense, and suddenly reappraised it as one of the best Troughton stories. Magazine/DoctorWhoMagazine pointed out that in their top 200 stories poll of 2009 it was the 30th rated story of the '60s, but in 2014 it was the 10th rated. Doubly interesting because [[Recap/DoctorWhoS5E5TheWebOfFear "The Web of Fear"]] had long been regarded as a Holy Grail missing episode, and its reputation actually declined (if only a little) once it was finally available to watch, with many reviews unfavourably comparing it to the surprising quality of this one. The only thing that keeps this story from becoming perfect is the ValuesDissonance surrounding the use of {{brownface}} as a plot device.

* HarsherInHindsight: The last seen of Salamander, the Doctor's CriminalDoppelganger, is him screaming as he is thrown into the time vortex. [[spoiler:The last seen of the ''Second Doctor himself'' (as the series' lead, at least) also has him screaming as he disappears into some kind of vortex too.]]

* HarsherInHindsight: The last seen of Salamander, the Doctor's CriminalDoppelganger, is him screaming as he is thrown into the time vortex. The last seen of the ''Second Doctor himself'' (as the series' lead, at least) also has him screaming as he disappears into some kind of vortex too.

** The world of 2018 has passenger rockets, robot harvesters, earthquake machines, and satellites for creating artificial daylight. Those of us watching in real-life 2018 or afterwards sadly don't.

* TheWoobie: Any decent person under Salamander, especially those thirty-odd people in the shelter.

** George Pravda plays a ReasonableAuthorityFigure, while Milton Johns plays a cowardly bully. In "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS14E3TheDeadlyAssassin The Deadly Assassin]]", Pravda would play Castellan Spandrell, who helps out the Doctor in his investigating the Master's plot, while in that story's sequel "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS15E6TheInvasionOfTime The Invasion of Time]]", Johns would play Spandrell's replacment, Kellner ,who turns out to be TheQuisling.

* FairForItsDay: The story features a strong, sympathetic, vulnerable and relatively three dimensional black female character (played by an actually black woman rather than by a white woman in makeup) who gets to be tragic and kicks ass, but also includes the Doctor putting on [[{{Brownface}} brown face paint]] to pass as a Mexican villain [[WhatTheHellIsThatAccent with a South African accent]].

* HarsherInHindsight: The line by the Doctor about people making nice things and others coming along and destroying it, cue the destruction of ''Doctor Who'' stories. (Including this one, though thankfully it's no longer missing).

* HarsherInHindsight:
** The line by the Doctor about people making nice things and others coming along and destroying it, cue the destruction of ''Doctor Who'' stories. (Including this one, though thankfully it's no longer missing).

* MagnificentBastard: Ramon Salamander. A public benefactor for his own ends, he was consolidating power by engineering tectonic disasters. He did so by herding some people into a giant fallout shelter under the pretext of avoiding a war, and telling them the survivors were so warped it would be a mercy to kill them. Also, his supposed arch-nemesis was actually TheDragon (and TheStarscream). When his plans went aft a-gley, he used his resemblance to the Doctor to get into the TARDIS (His cover did not last, of course).

* VindicatedByHistory: ''Doctor Who'' has a lot of {{Missing Episode}}s which tend to get regarded as 'classics' simply because they can't be watched, but no-one really cared about this one-- it's a bit of an OutOfGenreExperience in that it's a spy story focusing on a human DiabolicalMastermind and with no monsters, and the recons made the story seem silly and difficult to follow (not helped by the fact that it's about a CriminalDoppelganger and ImpersonatingTheEvilTwin). Additionally, the only episode to survive in full was a comic-relief one with many deliberately-silly scenes. But when the whole thing was suddenly discovered in Nigeria, fans suddenly were able to see the surprisingly good action scenes in the first episode, and observe the character acting from Creator/PatrickTroughton that made the story make sense, and suddenly reappraised it as one of the best Troughton stories. Magazine/DoctorWhoMagazine pointed out that in their top 200 stories poll of 2009 it was the 30th rated story of the '60s, but in 2014 it was the 10th rated. Doubly interesting because [[Recap/DoctorWhoS5E5TheWebOfFear "The Web of Fear"]] had long been regarded as a Holy Grail missing episode, and its reputation actually declined (if only a little) once it was finally available to watch, with many reviews unfavourably comparing it to the surprising quality of this one. The only thing that keeps this story from becoming an outright SacredCow is the ValuesDissonance surrounding the use of {{brownface}} as a plot device.

* VindicatedByHistory: ''Doctor Who'' has a lot of {{Missing Episode}}s which tend to get regarded as 'classics' simply because they can't be watched, but no-one really cared about this one - it's a bit of an OutOfGenreExperience in that it's a spy story focusing on a human DiabolicalMastermind and with no monsters, and the recons made the story seem silly and difficult to follow (not helped by the fact that it's about a CriminalDoppelganger and ImpersonatingTheEvilTwin). Additionally, the only episode to survive in full was a comic-relief one with many deliberately-silly scenes. But when the whole thing was suddenly discovered in Nigeria, fans suddenly were able to see the surprisingly good action scenes in the first episode, and observe the character acting from Creator/PatrickTroughton that made the story make sense, and suddenly reappraised it as one of the best Troughton stories. Magazine/DoctorWhoMagazine pointed out that in their top 200 stories poll of 2009 it was the 30th rated story of the '60s, but in 2014 it was the 10th rated. Doubly interesting because [[Recap/DoctorWhoS5E5TheWebOfFear "The Web of Fear"]] had long been regarded as a Holy Grail missing episode, and its reputation actually declined (if only a little) once it was finally available to watch, with many reviews unfavourably comparing it to the surprising quality of this one. The only thing that keeps this story from becoming an outright SacredCow is the ValuesDissonance surrounding the use of {{brownface}} as a plot device.
* VindicatedByReruns: For years this story was considered the odd one out of a season dominated by "[[MonsterOfTheWeek Monsters of the Week]]" and the "[[AllYourBaseAreBelongToUs Base Under Siege]]" plots. The only existing episode was part 3, a slow middle episode and one which didn't give an accurate picture of the entire serial. But that was all fans had to go on. Now, with all six episodes recovered, there has been a major fan reevaluation, and the story is considered fresh for its time in integrating political intrigue with Doctor Who. ''[[Magazine/DoctorWhoMagazine DWM]]'' pointed out that in their top 200 stories poll of 2009 it was the 30th rated story of the 60s, but in 2014 it was the 10th rated.

* VindicatedByHistory: ''Doctor Who'' has a lot of {{Missing Episode}}s which tend to get regarded as 'classics' simply because they can't be watched, but no-one really cared about this one - it's a bit of an OutOfGenreExperience in that it's a spy story focusing on a human DiabolicalMastermind and with no monsters, and the recons made the story seem silly and difficult to follow (not helped by the fact that it's about a CriminalDoppelganger and ImpersonatingTheEvilTwin). Additionally, the only episode to survive in full was a comic-relief one with many deliberately-silly scenes. But when the whole thing was suddenly discovered in Nigeria, fans suddenly were able to see the surprisingly good action scenes in the first episode, and observe the character acting from Creator/PatrickTroughton that made the story make sense, and suddenly reappraised it as one of the best Troughton stories. Magazine/DoctorWhoMagazine pointed out that in their top 200 stories poll of 2009 it was the 30th rated story of the '60s, but in 2014 it was the 10th rated. Doubly interesting because [[Recap/DoctorWhoS5E5TheWebOfFear "The Web of Fear"]] had long been regarded as a Holy Grail missing episode, and its reputation actually declined (if only a little) once it was finally available to watch, with many reviews unfavourably comparing it to the surprising quality of this one .

* VindicatedByHistory: ''Doctor Who'' has a lot of {{Missing Episode}}s which tend to get regarded as 'classics' simply because they can't be watched, but no-one really cared about this one - it's a bit of an OutOfGenreExperience in that it's a spy story focusing on a human DiabolicalMastermind and with no monsters, and the recons made the story seem silly and difficult to follow (not helped by the fact that it's about a CriminalDoppelganger and ImpersonatingTheEvilTwin). Additionally, the only episode to survive in full was a comic-relief one with many deliberately-silly scenes. But when the whole thing was suddenly discovered in Nigeria, fans suddenly were able to see the surprisingly good action scenes in the first episode, and observe the character acting from Creator/PatrickTroughton that made the story make sense, and suddenly reappraised it as one of the best Troughton stories. Magazine/DoctorWhoMagazine pointed out that in their top 200 stories poll of 2009 it was the 30th rated story of the '60s, but in 2014 it was the 10th rated.

* HeReallyCanAct: This story has possibly the most concentrated display of Patrick Troughton's acting ability during his run. He not only portrays both The Doctor and Salamander, but over the course of the story both characters pose as each other at points. Troughton manages to play the impersonations as clumsy enough that the viewer is always aware of who is who, but also good enough that you can believe the characters are seriously trying to fool others.

* HarsherInHindsight:
** The line by the Doctor about people making nice things and others coming along and destroying it, cue the destruction of ''Doctor Who'' stories. (Including this one, though thankfully it's no longer missing).
** Salamander forcing the underground people to stay in a cave “for their own safety” becomes this when, a few years after the date the episode takes place on, there was a [[UsefulNotes/Covid19Pandemic very real reason]] to stay indoors.

* HarsherInHindsight: The line by the Doctor about people making nice things and others coming along and destroying it, cue the destruction of ''Doctor Who'' stories. (Including this one, though thankfully it's no longer missing).
* Salamander forcing the underground people to stay in a cave “for their own safety” becomes this when, a few years after the date the episode takes place on, there was a [[UsefulNotes/Covid19Pandemic very real reason]] to stay indoors.

* HilariousInHindsight: It's mentioned that the people in the bunker went underground five years prior to the events of the story. The story is set in 2018, meaning they went down there in 2013, the same year the episodes were recovered.

* FairForItsDay: The story features a strong, sympathetic, vulnerable and relatively three dimensional black female character (played by an actually black woman rather than by a white woman in makeup) who gets to be tragic and kicks ass, but also includes the Doctor putting on brown face paint to pass as a Mexican [[WhatTheHellIsThatAccent with a South African accent]].