Full Notes: The Curse of Fenric

Is this Doctor Who's most overrated story?

Plot Summary

Finishing a chess game he began long ago, the Doctor and Ace confront an ancient evil at a top-secret naval base under siege by blood-craving creatures.

Notable for:

• Part 2 of the unofficial “Ace trilogy,” featuring Ace’s grandmother/mother.

• Shot entirely on location, at the request of director Nicholas Mallett.

• Original titles: The Wolves of Fenric and before that, Wolf-Time.

• First use of subtitles since The Mind of Evil.

• Ian Briggs based Dr. Judson on Alan Turing. He originally wanted to suggest that Judson and Millington were gay, but this didn’t make it into the final script.

• Ace mentioning Perivale was going to originally foreshadow Ghost Light, since the broadcast order hadn’t been chosen at shooting.

Pete commentary:

• Oh my, do those subtitles look bad. Not starting on the right foot. At least they fix them in the special edition.

• Since I’m already getting into it, I have to get this off my chest: The production quality on this story — and, as I recall, this entire season — is poor, perhaps the poorest in all of Doctor Who. It’s not just that the budget was slashed and they really were making the show on something like £5 an episode. It’s that the whole thing looks amateurish: The direction is sloppy, the editing is clumsy, the sound is echoey. It hurts to say this, but, the great cast aside, it feels like the people making the show on a technical level simply don’t know what they’re doing. Doctor Who has always been challenged with regard to budget and time, but at least it felt like there was a team of professionals making it. It’s no exaggeration to say that The Curse of Fenric looks like a fan-made adventure.

• On a positive note, the WWII setting is a great choice, and kicking it off with some interesting spy stuff — the Russians rowing covertly into Britain — is an excellent tease.

• Following that, Judson and his Ultima machine is a very Doctor Who thing to incorporate. Smart idea.

• That said, there are a few too many things thrown at you in episode 1. You’ve got WWII, but there’s enough going on with the creature POV and the underwater shots to know it’s not a pure historical. There’s Judson and the machine. The “Nazi” commander. The Russians. Some weird history with Maiden’s Point that has the schoolmarm mistress spooked. A curse that has its roots in Norse legends. Some kind of chemical weapon that can bring about a doomsday scenario. Something to do with Ace’s past. It’s just too much to keep in your head at once, and the awkward dialogue doesn’t help.

• It has to be said: For a story that’s supposed to be really creepy, it certainly is brightly lit throughout.

• The whole swimming thing is very weird. The Doctor’s coat — indeed, how everyone dresses — implies it’s a cold time of year, and Nurse Crane even comments how cold it is (although she’s talking about the crypt, so maybe it’s only underground). Also, various people go into the water fully clothed for no reason.

• Especially: The girls acting as sirens calling to the soldier to come in is VERY strange — they seem to be almost controlling him, not just tempting him. The dialogue is unnecessary and just kind of dumb. And if they’re tempting him, why would he be tempted by a couple of strangely behaving girls, fully clothed, with claw-like fingernails gesturing at him? How hard up do you have to be for that to be tempting?

• Protecting yourself from the vampires with faith is an interesting story choice. It’s not uncommon in fiction like this, and it allows for great scenes like the one where Wainwright gathers enough faith to do it, but the monsters shake his faith enough to break through. It also offers this very uneven story a bit of a backdoor: Since this clearly establishes the stakes aren’t completely physical, you can squint and ALMOST forgive the poor direction since the real conflict is happening on a psychic plane.

• Also detracting from the action and drama is the music. It’s very action-Sylvester McCoy music, but this episode in particular really calls for something more creepy and old-school. It’s like they just reused what they could from Battlefield. I honestly would have preferred silence in many scenes.

• The “move” of having the white and black pawns team up almost works as an interesting twist, except it’s utter nonsense. It’s essentially saying the only winning move is to play a different game. Which can be OK, but then you need rules to the “meta” game that’s happening. Where this works is Nightmare in Silver (strangely) since you know that, besides the chess game, the Doctor needs to destroy the cybernetic implants. Here, it’s less clear, because it seems to imply the pawns teaming up is somehow a legal move. It’s not; chess has clear rules, and it’s simply illegal for white pieces to capture other white pieces, or “refuse” to take other pawns.

• The bit where Ace asks about her grandmother’s “boyfriend” is pretty good, although it feels like almost the same point that Remembrance of the Daleks makes — contrasting modern morality with the more “primitive” morality of the past. If that was the point, I think it works better in the previous story. Here I don’t think society has reached a consensus that single parenthood/having children outside of marriage is a thing that should be casually accepted, although there’s no doubt there’s less of a stigma.

• Why don’t the soldiers try shooting the haemovores as soon as they see them advancing on them at the beach?

• The cliffhanger to episode 3 is really good. Judson standing up, with yellow eyes, and referring to the Doctor as “Time Lord” — definitely makes you sit up.

• It seems like a tactical blunder for the Ancient One to kill the other haemovores before Fenric has decisively won. However, points for the bleak deaths of Jean and Phyllis.

• It’s sad the Ancient One can barely move. The costume isn’t too bad. Between this monster and the Destroyer in Battlefield, the practical effects guys really leveled up their game.

• Episode 4 almost redeems the whole story. You finally have a mastermind to pit the Doctor against, loads of people die, and there’s a pretty good emotional conflict between the Doctor and Ace to give the climax some interesting flavor. It also nicely ties together a bunch of stuff from previous episodes — the main one being the casual time travel of Ace and Lady Peinforte in previous seasons. It’s all part of Fenric’s plan to destroy the world, although don’t ask why sending a medieval woman to 1988 to fight Cybermen advances that plan in the slightest.

• The final bit with Ace diving in the water, now less fearful and in a sense “cleansed,” works. I like that they don’t spend too much time on it, showing instead of telling.

What did Pete’s family think?

• Grace thought the whole thing was weird throughout. Even Ace in episode 3 where she’s tempting the guard: “Being strange will lure him away?” she asked.

Four Questions to Doomsday - Pete

1. Why did the Randomizer take us here? Finally responding to my request for more McCoy. Temptation to go to episodes that tie up loose ends and alter continuity, just like the 60th anniversary specials did.
   
   Curiously, this is story 157 in our Codex. The Magician’s Apprentice / The Witch’s Familiar is 257.

2. What if the evil plot had succeeded? You have to presume the Ancient One isn’t persuaded by the Doctor’s argument and instead sides with Fenric. It kills Ace, then the Doctor. After regeneration, the McGann Doctor fights to save whatever humans he can as the chemical weapons spread from Northumbria.

3. Where's the Clara splinter? She runs the hobby shop in town, ensuring a healthy variety of chess sets are around, especially ones sourced from the Nordic countries.

4. Dalek, Ogron, Professor Hayter, Viscount Banger, Fixed Point in Time, or Lady Cassandra? My instinct is to grade McCoy stories on a curve, but ultimately I don’t think I can consider this a good episode of Doctor Who, as much as many of the ideas are pretty good. Prof Hayter strikes again!

Chris commentary:

• Descendants? Everyone should be a descendent of the early Viking settlers! Most common ancestor now thought to be 1000 AD. 

• Why is the Doctor going to the naval base in the first place? 

• Such a mess, such a mess in every possible way. The lost tape of the close-ups in Fenric's final battle. The chess problem itself. Judson's disability as a stand-in for his homosexuality. Ace being deflowered by Sabalom Glitz. Ugh, ugh, ugh. 

• The Haemovores adopt the same hands-based position as in Plan 9 from Outer Space, which says a lot. Worst movie ever. And why not just call them Vampires? 

• The gas really doesn't seem too dangerous when the Doctor and Ace can survive it so easily. So where's the threat? 

• So, Fenric "made a jigsaw of the Doctor's history" – or at least Dragonfire and Silver Nemesis. But so what? What's the point? Did anyone notice? Does anyone care?

• Why isn't the TARDIS translating, ffs? 

• "From now on, everything in English" is such an eye-roll. 

• This is really irritating as a North-Easterner. The location has got nothing to do with Whitby, where Dracula was set … or anything, really. And they have what, one or two actors with a vaguely northern accent? Insulting. 

• I don't buy the Doctor's Maciavellian turn – McCoy is just too nice and cuddly an actor, so you want to forgive him. Also, just … why? Hadn't we already tried evil asshole Doctor with Colin Baker? How the hell is this going to save the show?

• The Cartmel Masterplan? Shmasterplan. Is it just "the Doctor has a lot of ancient villains and knows more/is older than you think?" Meh. 

• JNT phoning it in, because he hadn't been allowed to leave. He tried to relaunch at midseason, gave journalists an advance screening … and then it dropped out of the TV charts altogether. 

• The Russians aren't immediately obvious as Russians. Did Briggs think we were just supposed to recognize the names from Chekov? 

• I mean why not just call it the bloody Wolves of Fenric? Why remove the Ragnorak reference just because it clashes with a previous serial? At these low audience figures, who's going to care or remember? 

• Audrey being Ace's actual mum is so obvious a mile away. 

• The Doctor doesn't remember his family but he's chanting Susan's name?

• Wainwright could have been Eccleston or Capaldi. But it went to Parsons after the director … saw him in panto. 

• Let's talk about the feeling of being lost in a Who story (and not in a good way). It can even affect fans sometimes. 

• OK, the psychic barrier thing may be the one part I quite like, in as much as it doesn't matter what you believe, just that you believe it. But I'm lost in understanding why the Doctor has to break Ace's belief? 

• Ace's flirting with the soldier is absolute cringe. 

• 1 Corinthians as if it's a spoiler/cliffhanger … with no payoff 

• The fact that this keeps rising up the DWM rankings makes me feel estranged from fandom, a rare feeling 

• Apparently JNT is OK with actual Nazi lovers inside the UK war effort, whereas he wasn't OK with neo Nazis in Silver Nemesis 

• The subsidence of the grave thing makes no sense since the last one was interred in 1898, 45 years earlier! 

• Miss Hardaker, like a lot of the characters, is such a damn cliche. And the moral is … she was right about Maiden's Point? 

• Even Briggs himself says "obviously there are things that don't work terribly well, things in the script that aren't clear, but overall it was a decent idea" … even Cartmel didn't like the hemovore costumes … so why do so many people think this is a stone-cold classic? 

• I think part of the reason I'm mad is that this isn't even allowed to be bad-funny. It's bad-dreary.