Harry -
From the opening images of foggy beaches and a sunken viking ship, "The Curse of Fenric" immerses us in the cinematic style that was a hallmark of the Andrew Cartmel era of Doctor Who.
Sarah -
If there's one thing Fenric has going on, it's loads of atmosphere. From the first shot, Fenric feels very different than your average Doctor Who story.
Harry -
I liked the slow buildup in part one. In between cuts of the Red Army soldiers landing on the beach and that image of the sunken ship, the TARDIS lands at a secret WWII naval base. Ace has dressed for the period, and the Doctor has cranked his "enigma" setting on high.
Sarah -
Mysterious Doctor is turned up to 11 in this story. From the moment they emerge from the TARDIS, we know something is going on.
Harry -
The Doctor is stamping about with "that look" on his face. Something is definitely up and it's not just the murky Soviet activity on the beach.
Sarah -
This isn't the first story where the Doctor knows more than Ace and doesn't tell her what's going on, but it is the story where Ace reaches her breaking point.
Harry -
Her furious confrontation with the Doctor near the end of the story is electric.
Sarah -
Still that's yet to come. For now, I love Ace's outfit, especially her snood. I learned from the info-text that it was custom-made by the costume designer's mother. Sophie had to wear hair extensions to fill it out, but I can't think of anyone else rocking the look like Ace!
Harry -
As always, the Doctor marches right into the place as if they own it. There, they meet Dr. Judson, a codebreaker who cracks German messages on the Ultima machine, a supercomputer. The base commander is Millington, an emotionless man who lurks in an office filled with Nazi paraphernalia. Millington is also obsessed with local viking lore. Actually, obsessed is too kind a word. He believes that Judson will help him translate runic messages found under a local church -- messages that will give him access to ancient powers derived from an entity called Fenric.
Sarah -
Dr. Judson's character was inspired by Alan Turing and writer Ian Briggs has said he used Judson's disability in place of Turing's homosexuality. He wanted to suggest that Judson and Millington had a past sexual relationship. The story certainly suggests secrets in their past, but of course none of that was explicit in 1989.
Harry -
It's no wonder the Doctor's got "that look" -- he's got to deal with Soviet invaders, a lunatic base captain, a malevolent entity from the depths of time, and we haven't even touched on the Haemovores yet. These monstrosities lurk beneath the waters at Maiden's Point, the vampiric creations of an even larger monstrosity from Earth's future. The Ancient One is supposedly the last living creature from a future Earth destroyed by chemical pollution, thrown back in time by Fenric. Wow, that's a lot to take in. This is definitely one of those stories that improves with repeat watchings.
Sarah -
I had to watch it twice and enjoyed it so much more the second time around. A nice touch I noticed on second viewing was that the Haemovores had an assortment of costumes to illustrate that they were from different times in history. I completely missed that the first time.
Harry -
That was neat.
Once all of the menaces have been introduced, the story picks up speed. Despite being somewhat of a runaround for the Doctor and Ace as they pick up one clue after another, there's always a feeling of dread urgency to the piece.
Sarah -
Unlike some stories in Doctor Who history, the previous episode recaps are very brief. There's just no time.
Harry -
One amusing side note is that each of the cliffhangers ended with closeups of Sylvester's face, but he held himself in check and they didn't have the wild-eyed intensity of a Colin Baker closeup.
Sarah -
That's such a hallmark of the 80s, but Syl was wise to not attempt Colin levels of intensity.
Harry -
On the surface "The Curse of Fenric" a multi-villain horror thriller, but beneath that Briggs looked at the morality of war, the power of faith, and so much viking lore. We see the Doctor in all-out manipulative mode. We learn some more of Ace's backstory. There's so much to chew on, it's one of the best written stories we've seen for some time.
Sarah -
It's such an amazingly multi-layered story. My only regret is the twelve minutes of footage that didn't make it to the screen. We chose to watch the original broadcast version, but there's also a Director's Cut, which was assembled by Mark Ayres from Nicholas Mallett's notes and includes ten minutes of new footage. Have you watched it? I want to, but felt I should wait until after our discussion.
Harry -
I remember watching the "movie" version when I first bought the DVD, but now I want to watch it again!
I have to point out a couple of guest performances in particular. Everyone is really delivering here, but Janet Henfrey as the wonderfully named Miss Hardaker put in a brilliant couple of scenes. You wicked, wicked children, haha!
Sarah -
I adored her performance! I always think of her as Mrs. Bale on As Time Goes By and couldn't help waiting for Miss Hardaker to give us the Shipping Forecast.
Harry -
And if you blinked you might have missed her, but there was Anne Reid as Judson's nurse. She's attacked by Haemovores at the end of the story, but she'd come back as a Plasmavore years later in the New Who story "Smith and Jones". Henfrey would return to do another turn as a Hardaker-esque character in "Mummy on the Orient Express".
Sarah -
I love when Doctor Who actors return to the series -- no matter how long it takes. Anne Reid is another actress I adore seeing in anything. If you've not seen Last Tango in Halifax, you really should. She's incredible.
Harry -
As Millington presses Judson to crack the final code to release Fenric's power, the Haemovores emerge from the sea and begin a slow rampage. The soldiers, the priest, Miss Hardaker, no one is safe.
Sarah -
And the only thing that can save them is their faith. The Doctor manages to save Rev. Wainwright the first time the Haemovores approach him, but not so much the second time. The British bombing of German cities caused Wainwright to lose his faith and he can't fake it.
The Doctor thwarts the Haemovores with his faith in his companions, chanting their names to stop the attack. Unfortunately, I didn't realize what he was saying until the second viewing, when I had the info-text turned on. The first time, it just sounded shrill.
Harry -
After following him around blindly for three episodes, Ace has finally had enough. She knows the Doctor knows more than he's letting on, and demands answers. I loved this scene! The Doctor relents and explains who and what Fenric is... just as the Ultima machine cracks the final code. The Doctor and Ace rush into the computer room too late to stop the entity from possessing Judson's body and delivering that spine-tingling line: "We play the contest again, time lord."
Sarah -
Now THAT'S what I call a cliffhanger! If I had to wait an entire week for the next episode, I would have lost my mind! (My PBS station showed the omnibus versions, so cliffhangers didn't figure in my original viewings.)
Harry -
The story ramps up another gear in part four as everything threatens to slip out of the Doctor's control. We learn that he trapped Fenric in the "shadow dimensions" 1,700 years in the past and now the entity wants to exact revenge. It's up to the Doctor to finish the chess match that they have been playing over the aeons.
Millington, almost willfully blind to what's happening around him, has our friends hauled outside before a firing squad. Fortunately, Sorin's troops save them with a rapid rescue. Millington cracks and is left to wander around the base, raving about Fenric and his powers.
With the Doctor temporarily out of Judson's grasp, Fenric goes on a killing rampage of his own. There was another chilling moment when he directed the Haemovores to kill Nurse Crane and walked away absolutely beaming with delight. He then gives the Ancient One the task of releasing the poison gas and killing all life on Earth. Fortunately, the Doctor talks him out of it. The Ancient One instead seizes Fenric (who has taken possession of Sorin's body) and destroys the both of them with the gas.
Sarah -
Turns out the Ancient One isn't half-bad after all!
In the end, Fenric is really Ace's story and Sophie shines throughout. As she tells the Doctor, she's not a little girl anymore. She begins to develop a relationship with Comrade Sorin and uses her womanly charms to to seduce and distract a young soldier to help the Doctor. Poor Ace never gets to keep a romantic interest, does she?
Harry -
That's another hallmark of both the Cartmel and Virgin New Adventures eras: Ace's perpetual revolving door of friends and love interests. It's amazing she put up with so much.
Sarah -
Her scenes with Kathleen and Baby Audrey are lovely. She's immediately drawn to the novelty of a baby when she sees Audrey, but repulsed when she learns the baby's name is the same as her hated mother. Her developing friendship with Kathleen continues the tradition of giving Ace a gal pal and softens her feelings towards the baby. She takes them both under her wing and helps them escape the base, which makes it even more devastating when she discovers Kathleen is her grandmother and Baby Audrey is her mother. That is some timey-wimey stuff right there!
Harry -
Fenric delivering the news through Sorin's body was especially cruel.
Sarah -
The most brutal scene is the moment when the Doctor has to make Ace lose her faith in him so that the Ancient One can destroy Fenric. This is still one of the most painful moments in Doctor Who history for me. The Doctor derides her as social misfit and emotional cripple and claims he knew all along that Fenric had planted Ace in the TARDIS. Poor Ace is shattered and reduced to a crying puddle on the floor. It's heartbreaking.
Harry -
After letting the Doctor completely brutalize Ace's psyche, it would have been grossly unjust for the producers to simply end the story with Fenric's destruction. Thankfully, there was enough time at the end for the Doctor to patch things up with Ace. But I don't think she'll ever quite trust him again.
I haven't felt that much relief at the end of a Doctor Who story for some time. The threat of Fenric was genuine and scary. I'll say it again, everyone acted the hell out of this one, the production was top notch and the pacing was perfect. We all could have used a refreshing swim after this one... but maybe not at Maiden's Point.
Sarah -
Ace performs her own baptism, diving into the now-safe waters. It's a lovely moment.
Harry -
It's a shame the show was picking up steam again, with only one story left in the season.
Sarah -
Best Line: "I'm not a little girl anymore."
Favorite Moment: Ace diving into the water. It's a relief that it's all over!
Lasting Image: The Haemovores rising from the water.
8/10
Harry -
Best Line: "We play the contest again, time lord."
Favourite Moment: Fenric escapes and takes possession of Judson's body.
Lasting Image: Judson possessed.
8/10
Our marathon continues with Story #155 - Survival...
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