Doctor Who: The Curse of Fenric

Part One



“I like looking at the sea. It makes me feel small.”

Translation subtitles. Crikey. That’s rare. The subtitles are pretty shoddy compared to the ones we saw in The Mind of Evil, but fortunately this is a much better story.

It’s the North Yorkshire coast, it’s the Second World War, and the Doctor and Ace are striding purposefully into a top secret military research complex. We begin with a brilliant set of scenes in which the Doctor effortlessly bluffs his way into everyone’s confidence as only this Doctor can, blatantly asking for two pens and using them to forge the signatures the Prime Minister and MI6 in front of everybody.

We meet Dr Judson, in a scene contrived to make Ace look clever, and then move on to the scary Miss Hardaker, her two cockney charges, and the Rev Wainwright, a mystifyingly fantastic performance from Nicholas Parsons. We also meet Millington, who has designed his office to mimic exactly that of his German counterpart. When I first watched this twenty years ago I initially thought he was supposed to be Hitler. He certainly has the hairstyle.

There’s loads of atmosphere- mist, Vikings, games of chess- to sustain us while we introduce the cast and before the plot can get started. And also something I noticed this time around; when the Doctor looks at Joseph Sundvik’s grave, you can clearly see that one of his daughters had the married name “Millington”…

With everything in place, Millington kick starts the plot by mystifyingly ordering Judson to use the Ultima machine to translate the inscriptions, in spite of the fact that there seem to be more pressing uses for it; there is a war on, you know. Also seemingly significant is the parallel between the Vikings described by the inscription and the Russians today, both intending to return to Norway with treasure. There’s also something beneath the water which killed half of the Russian party, and there’s a scene with Ace, Kathleen and her daughter Audrey which will pay off later.



Part Two



“I’m not an invalid, I’m a cripple. I’m also a genius, so shut up, the pair of you.”



More creepy stuff happens; new runes are inscribed in the crypt as the translation is read, while the Doctor and Ace discover a secret passage in the crypt. Millington, obsessed by Norse mythology in ways which for once, as we’ll see, actually relate the myth to elements of the story, is producing a strange green poison, a chemical weapon to be dropped on to German cities. Not only that, but the Russians are intended to steal the enigma machine, which will release the Ultima machine as soon as a certain word transmitted by British intelligence is translated: “love”. Blimey. That’s a bit hasty. Can’t they wait until the Cold War actually starts?

We also get a great scene showing the vicar to be losing his faith, and Jean and Phyllis get turned into vampires and lure a Russian soldier to his death in a scene which might, possible, just about have some sexual undertones. On a minor note, some old jar is found underneath the church,

That’s a lot happening for only episode two. And there’s an awful lot here that foreshadows the ending, most blatantly in Millington’s order for all chess sets to be burnt. Millington has also drawn a picture of that old jar. Gosh, do you reckon it might be important?

Miss Hardaker gets killed, which technically means that, old dragon though she may have been, she was in fact right all along.

It’s all kicking off now. There are Haemovores everywhere, the vicar’s having a particularly bad day, and that old flask has started glowing…



Part Three



“Just look for something… evil.”



Gosh, what a coincidence. This is Whitby, where Dracula came ashore in Bram Stoker’s novel, and there are sort-of vampires running around. What are the chances, eh?

We’re told the Haemovores are the inhabitants of the Earth in a polluted future and, in a slightly more domestic vein, that it was Millington who caused Judson’s accident twenty years ago. Meanwhile, the Doctor takes some time to realise that Ace has the flask. Oh, and the church is under siege by hordes of Haemovores. Almost forgot that one.

The Haemovores are defeated by faith- the Doctor’s in his fiends, as we can see by the fact that he’s mouthing the names of all those who have travelled with him. Sorin- well, his faith is in the revolution; he’s a true believer. Ace also clearly likes him and the script clearly intends him to be a good guy. And that’s the one problem I have with this story. Because he’s, like, a Stalinist. And you can’t just present a Stalinist character as a hero. Especially when you’re contrasting his character with that of Millington, shown being an utter git as he abandons two soldiers of the Motherland to their deaths.

Said commie then reveals himself and loudly asks to speak to Commander Millington. Somehow I suspect this may harm his ability to remain concealed. But from this point on things become darker. Kathleen receives a letter telling her that her husband has been killed, and Ace confronts the Doctor about his secretiveness. This scene is not really about what much of fandom seems to think it is; the Doctor’s manipulative side seems to have been much exaggerated compared with what we actually see on screen. Ace’s problem with the Doctor is simply that he’s been too preoccupied to tell her what’s going on.

Naturally, I let out a huge cheer at the line “Evil! Evil since the dawn of time!” At last we get to hear about Fenric, our mysterious big bad. He’s an old enemy of the Doctor, who has been trapped inside that flask for ages. Er, ok. Perhaps we don’t actually get to hear all that much.

We then get quite an extraordinary scene. Essentially it consists of Ace distracting a guard by flirting with him, but it’s all highly metaphorical; clearly none of the dialogue here is meant as a literal reflection of what is said. This seems to be intended as a kind of sexual awakening for Ace (“Professor, I’m not a little girl any more”), but I’m not sure it entirely works; for all the cleverness of the metaphorical dialogue, it doesn’t seem to be saying anything beyond “Look! Here are some sexual undertones of an unspecified kind”.

Oh, and if you hadn’t already guessed there were sexual undercurrents here there’s a sign at Maiden’s Point telling you to beware of undercurrents!

The Doctor frees Sorin, and the Judson gets possessed by Fenric. Oh dear…



Part Four



“Don’t interrupt me when I’m eulogising!”

Fenric has been trapped for seventeen centuries in the “Shadow Dimensions”, apparently. Gosh. He must be a bit cross, then.

The Doctor, Ace and Sorin are about to be executed for treason, and unfortunately the weather’s rotten. Fortunately, the firing squad is interrupted, but unfortunately the rain carries on. The Doctor then rushes off to, er, set up a chessboard, while the Great Haemovore makes himself known. He’s also known as the “Great Serpent”, apparently, so we get an allusion to the Midgard Serpent to go with the earlier allusions to Yggdrasil. This is more actual Norse mythology that we got with the Gods of Ragnarok in Greatest Show, to put it mildly.

The Doctor almost defeats Fenric by, er, repeating his trick of seventeen centuries earlier by setting him a chess puzzle he can’t solve. But rather unfortunately Ace rather ruins it all by telling Fenric the solution: for the pawns of both sides to join together, as the British and Russian soldiers are doing. Er, that wasn’t a legal move the last time I checked.

Ace briefly alludes to Gabriel Chase, but that experience is nothing compared to what she’s about to experience. Fenric’s “wolves”, descendents of all the original Viking settlers, include Millington (shot); Judson; Sorin (now possessed); the Great Haemovore; and even Ace. This is where the “undercurrents” really start to get dangerous.

It turns out that the baby Audrey is in fact Ace’s mother, and that she’s just created her own future. But still, Ace has faith in the Doctor. Until the Doctor demolishes that face by stating that he’s seen Fenric’s hand in many things recently, such as the chess set in Lady Peinforte’s study. But the big revelation here is that the time storm that took Ace to Iceworld in the first place was Fenric’s doing, and the Doctor knew this all along, only tolerating “emotional cripple” Ace’s presence because of it. This devastates Ace.

Crucially, though, the Doctor doesn’t mean any of it, has a very good reason for saying what he does, and doesn’t do anything wrong here. Earlier, he persuaded the Great Haemovore that to follow Fenric would be to create the very future he comes from, a doomed and apocalyptic future which he does not wish to come to pass. (And, incidentally, when we’re told that the Great Haemovore was brought back in a “Time Storm”, that’s a bit of a clue as to what happened to Ace in Dragonfire a few minutes before it’s revealed.) The Doctor destroys Ace’s faith in him; the Great Haemovore is able to act; and the Great Haemovore kills Fenric. Very neat.

Crucially, a line is symbolically drawn under this is the final scene as Ace goes for a swim, symbolically cleansing herself. There’ll be no more “dangerous undercurrents”.



Wow. That was brilliant. A moody, atmospheric thriller with moments of high excitement and a lot going on under the surface. 5/5.

Doctor Who: Paradise Towers

Part One



“Are these old ladies annoying you?”

“No!”

“Are you annoying these old ladies?”

The very first scene makes it clear that the incidental music’s going to be awful, but very quickly it’s also clear that this is going to be far better than Time and the Rani. Instantly the dialogue is much better, and Sylvester McCoy is now playing a different and more Doctorish figure. Gone are the malapropisms and gullibility, in are some intriguingly Troughtonesque qualities- this Doctor is an unprepossessing figure but we’re left in no doubt as to the sharpness of his mind.

I’m amused by the caretakers- yes, they’re an obvious dig at the kind of bureaucracy you find when complaining about parking tickets (yes, I have bitter experience of said purgatorial incidents), what with the “little Hitler” moustaches and hilarious salutes. But I’m seeing another cultural reference here. Apologies to those in other lands who will be mystified by the reference, especially as it’s the second time I’ve mentioned it in the Marathon, but the magazine programme That’s Life, with its odd mix of brilliantly puerile humour and consumer affairs, was pretty much at the height of its popularity when this was broadcast. And it popularised the idea of the “jobsworth”- the stubborn official, usually in a peaked cap, who hides behind rules and regulations. I suspect it’s a rather heavy influence here.

There are also the Kangs, who may be played a bit to stage school-ish to really convince, but are great in that they seem to have come straight from the pages of Halo Jones or the like- in fact, the influence of 2000 AD feels very strong. We have different groups- Kangs, red and blue; caretakers; and the old ones or “rezzies”. It’s all very urban and studio-bound, and it’s the kind of allegorical sci-fi that shouldn’t really be judged as realism. This is such a refreshing change. It seems like ages since I started wishing for something new to replace the Saward nihilist agenda, and at last it seems to be here. It feels as though a new generation has taken over, one which takes its cultural cues as much from comics as cinema.



Part Two



“Scaredy cat! Scaredy cat! Scaredy cat!”

I’ll admit the sets look very cheap and aren’t always realising the script very well, and the costumes don’t feel quite in tune either, but the script is carrying the story well enough for this not to be as big a problem as it could have been. This may feel very fresh and new, but in contrast to the more “traditional” Time and the Rani, which nevertheless utterly failed to characterise the new Doctor successfully at all, here we have the magnificent scene with the Doctor deceiving the caretakers to let him go by quoting the rulebook. Not only is this brilliantly and fundamentally Doctorish, it also manages to define this Doctor as very different from his predecessor. Suddenly, Sylvester McCoy is the Doctor.

The incidental music still isn’t very good, but it now occurs to me what it reminds me of; the music to late ‘80s console games, especially Revenge of Shinobi on the Sega. That’s just me, right?

I’m not sure what to say about the performances- the Kangs, and especially Pex, while not badly acted, don’t seem to match the type of story, and sadly Bonnie Langford feels out of place in this environment, fond as I am of her and the character she plays. But I think Clive Merrison is spot on and, for all the criticisms of his “over-acting”, Richard Briers is fantastic, giving a broad performance entirely appropriate for the character. The Caretaker is a character I can easily imagine turning up in Judge Dredd or Tharg’s Future Shocks, which is a good sign.



Part Three



“But… blue Kangs have won!”

There’s another great moment for the new Doctor is his confrontation with the Chief Caretaker early in the episode; from a position of being interrogated in a chair with a light being shone into his eyes he manages to gradually reverse the roles, ending the scene by shining the lamp at the Chief Caretaker, a very Troughtonesque thing to do.

Oh, and it’s a bit shocking to see a DVD being played in an episode of Doctor Who broadcast in 1987! This is the part where it’s most clear that this is supposed to be at least partly a comment on the phenomenon of tower blocks (via J.G. Ballard, of course), something not really borne out in the rather unimaginative corridor sets.



Part Four



“We’re very sorry for what we did and we won’t do it again.”

For the first time in a while we get a well-structured and satisfying final episode which wraps everything up nicely. And I’m beginning to notice that each episode starts with a quick outside shot, a nice touch. On the other hand, I could have done without Mel screaming in the swimming pool. And where did her swimming costume come from, anyway?

Mainly, though, we finish up with good stuff. Richard Briers plays the possessed Chief Caretaker very well indeed, and Pex’s sacrifice is pleasingly redemptive. Best of all, we finish up with a feat notably not achieved by the previous story; a new Doctor we can be enthusiastic about.



I should emphasise the bad things a bit more than I have been; the general poorness of the costumes, sets, and the general studio-bound claustrophobia. But the script makes up for it all, really- fresh, new, creative, and giving the impression that a new generation has taken over. I was going to only give it a 4, but what the hell… 5/5.

Doctor Who: The Trial of a Time Lord Parts One to Four: The Mysterious Planet

Part One

“I intend to adumbrate two typical instances from separate epistopic interfaces of the spectrum.”

It gives me a warm fuzzy glow, all the ambiguity about the story title. Reminds me of the early Hartnells. (Although, as we’ll see, this reminds me mainly of The Krotons.) And I for one will be taking neither side in the debate as I’m rather fond of shades of grey.

Anyway, the story starts with the most fantastic special effects sequence we have yet seen- something which looks like, yet cannot be, CGI. And while we’ll see nothing as mind-blowing as this for the rest of the four episodes, the production values seem pretty impressive to me, whatever may have been going on behind the scenes. 

The Doctor (now with a red cravat) is put on trial by a bunch of Time Lords in a fairly obvious metaphor for off-screen events- actually a brilliant idea in principle, and something which mostly works very well, at least for these four episodes. This trial is also the last time we’ll ever see many of what have become the essential trappings of Time Lord society- robes, Chancellery Guards and the like.

Lynda Bellingham and Michael Jayston are great as the Inquisitor and Valeyard respectively, which is quite a relief as the story absolutely needs them to be. The Doctor has, of course, been deposed as president, and in the interests of providing a more dramatic narrative he insists on defending himself in spite of having had no chance to do any preparation whatsoever, which is hardly fair. He has no real idea what he’s supposed to be defending himself against either but as the charges against him seem to constantly change arbitrarily throughout the story this hardly seems to matter.

That’s the framing sequence dealt with; the four-parter proper is another good ‘un from Robert Holmes, crammed with great ideas and great dialogue. We have the planet Ravolox in the far future, a planet suspiciously similar to Earth. We have a relationship between the Doctor and Peri where they’re back to being friends, a relief after certain recent stories where their relationship has been decidedly awkward to watch. And we have the fantastic Glitz and Dibber, the, ahem, Holmesian double act at its finest. Their dialogue is fab; the whole riff on the prison psychiatrist is a joy.

The whole script sparkles, with Holmes seemingly in a much lighter mood than he has seemed to be in of late. The postmodern wit is back (“Ancient life on Ravolox by Doctor-“), and so are the great ideas. The Doctor and Peri discover what seem to be the ruins of Marble Arch, and it seems that this could almost be Earth except it’s two million miles out of place, instantly a great concept. And it’s a nice touch that the whole thing is laid out like something that was once a tube station, and its inhabitants call it “Marb Station”. I’m enjoying this hugely, which is more than can be said for the Doctor: “Can’t we just have the edited highlights?”

On top of this we have the village, with Joan Sims as Katryca doing an impressive female version of Brian Blessed. I love her reaction to Glitz’s story- she’s clearly no fool. We also get Balazar and his books, another top comedy moment. And just when you think it’s peaked already, here’s Tom Chadbon…

Part Two

“These bars remind me of home.”

The early courtroom scenes in this episode suddenly make it very clear; Holmes is writing for the Tom Baker Doctor, isn’t he? In fact, it’s mere minutes after this thought occurs to me that the jelly babies come out. And I can’t think of any better way of writing for Colin Baker’ Doctor. Certainly the early wobbles over the character’s instability seem to be long gone by this point, although Colin’s performance seems to wobble a bit at the “I always like to do the unexpected” line.

The Immortal has two human underlings who, much as they remind me of David and Tony from The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin, I shall henceforth refer to as Gonds for obvious reasons.

It’s another damn fine episode, with a bit more plot fed out to us amongst all the fun; Drathro and his “secrets” are to do with some “Sleepers” from Andromeda. Drathro’s power comes from a Black Light converter which relies on an aerial in Katryca’s village. An aerial which Dibber blows up, meaning that Marb station is soon going to blow up. Oops.

We also get another mention of Saward’s Speelsnapes, and some great character stuff. Drathro knows perfectly well that there’s rain falling outside and that the solar flares’ effects have been much exaggerated, but continues to ration water because that’s what the plan says, inflexible as any machine. A more sinister example of the same mindset, and the most disturbing aspect of the story, is the “culling” of “work units" above the set quota in spite of the fact this is completely unnecessary.

Part Three

“They are out of control, outside the plan.”

Holmes puts into the Inquisitor’s mouth some ironic commentary on recent off-screen-developments: “Valeyard, I would appreciate it if these brutal and repetitious scenes were kept to a minimum.” I’m tempted to see in this not only the obvious reference to criticism of the previous season but also a nod to the truncated length of this season, although sadly I think that may be a temptation too far. Still, more great dialogue.

It’s confirmed; Ravolox is Earth. And there’s now a race against time to avert a big bang. We get some postmodernism and political commentary too, though; the Matrix scenes are censored, something that can hardly fail to conjure up either recent criticism of the programme’s violence or government cover-ups. Mind you, Glitz and Dibber are blatantly talking about the Matrix.

Part Four

“Oh, the Black Light, yeah. We’ve got so much of that, sometimes we can hardly see.”

The Doctor is frustrated by his failure to persuade the solipsistic Drathro that, as he’s going to die anyway, he might as well allow everyone else to survive. But Drathro insists that “The work units exist only to serve me. Without me they would have no function.” This is a disturbingly accurate prediction of modern management practices…

Fortunately, Glitz’s “low cunning” proves to be more persuasive than the Doctor’s moral arguments and so catastrophe is averted. But still unsolved are three questions; why has Earth been moved two million years through space, and by whom? What are the “secrets” of the Sleepers? And what exactly was the point of the Valeyard showing us all that?

Well, that was great, Holmes at his best. And at this stage at least the trial scenes are fine. 5/5.