Image of the Fendahl Part Three

The one where Max begins to summon the ancient power of the Fendahl...

Leela to the rescue! For the first time this story, Leela makes it to the priory proper, and instinct tells her the Doctor is in trouble, and she finds him wracked with pain clutching Eustace the skull. She kicks the Doctor's chair from under him, making him fall on top of her in a heap on the ground. If this was Doctor Who as written by Steven Moffat, the sight of the Doctor lying nose to nose on top of his sexy, scantily-clad companion would result in some kind of distasteful, perhaps even inappropriate, lewd comment or suggestion. Thankfully, this is written by Chris Boucher, and the only allusion made is to the Doctor's weight.

The Doctor says that the skull is the Fendahl, an ancient entity which absorbs the life force of those around it. "It eats life itself." And down in the priory cellars, mad Max has poor Thea tied up and drugged, intending to use her as the physical medium through which the Fendahl will manifest. Max refers to "the ancient power of this place", suggesting the house itself has something to do with the Fendahl, but as far as I can work out, it doesn't. Fendelman's time scanner awoke the power, but that power is not "of this place" as such, is it? Either way, Max's ambition is to control the supreme power of the ancients. "I shall be a god!" he announces, all crazy-eyed. Scott Fredericks has the perfect glare for a villain.

Now that Max has full-on become the bad guy, some of the other characters go by the wayside sadly, including poor Thea Ransome. She may well be the focal point for Max's entire plan, but Wanda Ventham is getting next to nothing to do except lie on her back in a comatose state (easy money, I suppose). Both Adam and Fendelman are tied up, the former still able to fire witty jibes at an increasingly wound-up Max. But their part in the story is essentially over, demonstrated by how easily it is for Max to murder Fendelman.

It's a shame, because these characters could have been written much more actively. Adam Colby has all the hallmarks of being an action hero figure, while Fendelman's knowledge and intelligence could also be put into play more effectively. As it is, he merely serves to explain to the audience what Max's plan is, hinting that he and his Fendelman ancestors have been pawns through the generations in order to get the Fendahl to this point of revival. Denis Lill gives a fine parting performance ("Mankind has been USED!"), until Max shoots him in the head (thankfully off-screen, but there'd surely be much more mess than a little trickle of blood?). The Fendelmans have basically been manipulated through time, rather like Fenric and his wolves.

The Doctor meets Martha Tyler at the cottage, bringing her out of her state of psychic shock by purposefully getting the recipe for fruit cake wrong! Daphne Heard continues to outshine anyone she shares a scene with (including Tom Baker), gifted as she is with some cracking dialogue and a fascinating face! "When did I ask you to tea?" she demands of the Doctor, instantly showing that she's in charge.

Martha has second sight, which is down to the fact she's lived all her life in the same cottage, located near the woods which are reputedly haunted. The reason the woods are haunted - in fact, the reason anywhere is haunted - is that there's a time fissure close by, a hole in time, and one that's being worsened by Fendelman's time scanner experiments. This explains the strange occurrences in the woods, where hikers get hunted and killed by an unseen force, and the Doctor found he couldn't move his legs, as if in a living nightmare. Oddly, the Doctor asks Martha if what she sensed in her mind had a human shape. She says it didn't, but after he's gone, she tells Jack it was a woman. Why would Martha lie?

The Doctor and Leela then take half an episode to go gallivanting in the TARDIS on a wild goose chase to the non-existent Fifth Planet. It took too long for them to get actively involved in the plot in the first place, so removing them from the action in part 3 just makes writer Chris Boucher's pacing issues more obvious. There's no reason for them to go off in the TARDIS except to stretch the story out long enough to get to the finale in part 4. The fact the TARDIS lands so far away from the priory means the Doctor and Leela have to walk (not hurry) to the priory from afar, when the TARDIS could have materialised in the house itself to save time.

And isn't the "new" TARDIS interior looking battered? There's a scene where Leela is asleep on the floor - there's no logic to her having suddenly fallen asleep on the floor of the control room, slumped awkwardly and uncomfortably as if she's fainted - and you can see what bad shape the set is in. It's chipped with rough edges, it needs a good lick of paint, the roundels are filthy, and the time rotor wobbles loosely. This previously fine set is a shadow of its former self. I think back to how beautiful and awesome it looked in the Hartnell era, and despair at its poor treatment in the 1970s (more so Tom's era).

Things are hotting up at the priory as Max counts down the 100 hours of time scanner use needed to revive the Fendahl. 'Tis Lammas Eve (July 31st), as Martha states, although Jack doesn't hold with all that superstition. "Most round here do," she retorts, "and when most believe, that do make it true." I bloody love Martha Tyler, I want her to stay on.

In the priory, the sound of the thrumming time scanner in the cellar echoes through the fabric of the house, and as the lights inexplicably dim, Martha says: "Summat's comin'!" The Doctor and Leela join the Tylers in the house, but they're transfixed by the approach of a terrible creature, slithering and squelching along the corridor toward them like some huge hooded rattlesnake monster. The giant Fendahl is a stunning prop, and any penile likeness it has is surely unintended. It's a real screw-your-face-up WTF monster, whichever way you look at it.

First broadcast: November 12th, 1977

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: Scott Fredericks makes for a wonderful, wild-eyed villain. He has very striking eyes, and knows how to use them. "I look forward to your terror, Colby."
The Bad: The TARDIS trip to the Fifth Planet. A waste of time.
Overall score for episode: ★★★★★★★☆☆☆

"Would you like a jelly baby?" tally: 10

NEXT TIME: Part Four...

My reviews of this story's other episodes: Part One; Part Two; Part Four

Find out birth/death dates, career information, and facts and trivia about this story's cast and crew at the Doctor Who Cast & Crew site: https://doctorwhocastandcrew.blogspot.com/2014/07/image-of-fendahl.html

Image of the Fendahl is available on BBC DVD. Find it on Amazon - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Who-Image-Fendahl-DVD/dp/B001UHNXMY