7.11: The Curse of Fenric

In which I finally have childhood memories of broadcast Doctor Who.

Broadcast: October-November 1989

Watched: February 2021

The Curse of Fenric, Part One

A favourite. The first story I ever saw any bit of live (I remember the vampires walking out of the water; we were in a hotel in Buxton, of all places). One I know so well I’ve paradoxically never thought that hard about it, but the idea of banging together the enigma machine, a viking curse and Dracula is mental and very pleasingly Doctor Who isn’t it?

Anyway, it’s still top. The opening scenes in Russian! The Doctor’s duffle coat! The sense that we’re watching him and Ace have the second half of an argument about clothes! The way they act like they own the place, to the point of faking a letter while Anne Reid watches! All accompanied by some brilliantly sinister music!

The way Millington looks a bit like Hitler and sits around worrying about vikings in a replica of his office is brilliant. So is Nicholas Parsons, who plays it entirely straight. The East End girls are quite annoying.

Putting the Doctor and Ace in shared quarters is a bit odd. So is the idea of the Doctor having a bed, come to that.

Ace cooing over a baby is weird. When she announces that she hates its name and shoves it back at its mother, Kathleen would be well within her rights to punch her.

The Curse of Fenric, Part Two

Only just dawned on me that the British plot the Doctor is so horrified by is... what he did in Remembrance. That’s brilliant. So is the fact that it’s British atrocities that Wainright is struggling with (although I only just realised my video was an extended version; the regular version cuts his sermon off at “The greatest of these is...” so it’s no longer clear what’s upsetting him).

No wonder Judson hates Nurse Crane, the way she drags him out of the cellar against his will is infuriating. 

The Doctor’s ability to detect minor architectural changes from the air is bizarre.

I love that the clue the girls have been turned is that they’ve let their hair down. It’s kind of hilarious that the old woman turns out to have been right in her hysterical warnings that their souls are damned. 

Sort of interesting how this story really can’t decide if it thinks vampires are sexy: “Only when played by young women”, apparently.

Oh – also, I like that the thing that stuffs the Doctor here is that he under-estimated Ace’s intelligence.

The Curse of Fenric, Part Three

“Splendid work, Perkins, splendid work. Now put them back together again.”

This story does a very good job of escalating – deals with the four act problem by making part three basically non stop action.

The faith stuff is really well done. Sorin being saved by his belief in a revolution that the audience knows is corrupted. Wainwright dying simply because he wants to test his faith.

Some problems: why Ace has chosen this moment to reconsider her position on marriage unclear. Unless... oh god, Sorin’s twice her age. The scene where she attempts to act sexy is hideous.

Millington’s descent into madness is horribly compelling. The story he tells about sacrificing men to save the ship is parallel almost instantly by the letter telling Dudman her husband’s dead.

Also, why would descendants of vikings have Scandi surnames? Vikings predate surnames. I’m not sure Sylv can sell the “Evil from the dawn of time” speech. Also, why is an army captain on a naval base? But all this is churlish because it’s great.

One other thing – the cliffhanger is “Judson’s eyes have gone weird!” Which means that’s the final cliffhanger in both the last two stories

The Curse of Fenric, Part Four

“Don't interrupt me when I’m eulogising.”

Loooot of explosions in this one – looks quite high budget for old Who.

It’s weird how un-present the war actually feels in, I think, the old show’s only WW2 story. In some ways it’d make more sense if it was set on an actual Nazi base (Millington’s Germanic belief system, the Russians as the enemy) but I can see why the show didn’t want to go there.

The story of Doctor in the desert, carving chess pieces to trick Fenric with, is the most trickster-ish the character ever gets – it’s like that bit at the start of The Witch’s Familiar, a Doctor Who story *within* the fiction. Nonetheless: that is not how you play chess. The Doctor is cheating.

Ace talking about Gabriel Chase is obviously intended as foreshadowing for a story that got moved forward in the running order. Which is strange because in some ways this feels like the season finale, finally explaining Ace’s origins. Weird that it hadn’t really occurred to me before that “Oh I accidentally created a time storm with a chemistry set” is *mental*. Stuff you encounter as a child, even fictional stuff, you sometimes just accept with analysis.

Why does Ace hate her mother? Is it meant to be an abuse thing, or a teenage angst thing? And WTF does the chess set in Lady Peinforte’s study have to do with anything?

The “kill her” bit is truly shocking, to the extent I found it quite emotional, which I wasn’t expecting.

I like the parallel between Ace and the Ancient One, both creating their own future. The difference here is that the latter knows beforehand so can choose not to. Is the implication that the future described here never happens then?

The wrens do sort of look like they’re lined up waiting to get turned by vampires. I’d forgotten that Fenric just disposes of the haemovores halfway through because he no longer needs them. The evil bastard.

Thinking about it more, as much as I love this one, I’m not sure it’s really that coherent. There are a lot of ideas in here – stuff about destiny and faith and letting go of the past – but I’m not sure they actually connect.

Also if it’s 1100 years since someone found the flask, pretty much everyone in Europe is a wolf of Fenric by now.