Image of the Fendahl Part Two

The one where we find out who the real bad guy is...

I just love the liminal atmosphere of this story, the feeling that there's something terrible lurking around the corner, on the fringe of this reality and another. There's a definite supernatural feel to the story, in that there seems to be something creeping around of a nightmarish, otherworldly quality which could be explained away as ghosts. The scene where something unseen slowly squelches its way toward the kitchen door as Mitchell watches is so well done. And then the door bursts open, and you don't see a thing, until George Spenton-Foster cuts away and we soon hear Mitchell's agonised screams in the distance. When Thea and Adam find him, he is dead, the same way as the hiker - with a mysterious blister on his neck (is this ever explained?).

Thea collapses (she's good at that) but before Adam can respond, the Doctor strides in and commands: "Don't touch her!" Within micro-seconds, Tom Baker is in charge. But sadly, not for very long, because he has very little to do in this episode, and has minimal involvement with the real story. It's like a Doctor-lite episode.

It's frustrating that the Doctor's barely involved, but I find that his presence isn't really missed, because Chris Boucher's characters and story seem able to skip along quite well without him. I find all of Boucher's characterisations engrossing (in The Face of Evil and particularly The Robots of Death), and he comes up with some cracking plots, even if they're based heavily on someone else's.

The Doctor's principal scene in this episode involves a spot of info-dumping, as he explains that the little rattlesnake-like creatures fizzing away on the prone Thea are embryo fendahleen, creatures from Time Lord mythology which he believed perished when the Fifth Planet broke up 12 million years ago. At this point, my brain goes ding! ding! as I note the link between fendahleen and Dr Fendelman (as does the Doctor). What is odd though, is that if the fendahleen are supposed to be mythical, why is the Doctor not questioning their appearance here? Baker gets some classic doom-laden dialogue (reminiscent of something very similar in Horror of Fang Rock) where he warns: "There are four thousand million people here on your planet, and if I'm right, within a year there'll be just one left alive. Just one."

Which translates how desperately serious the situation is, so it's doubly annoying that soon after this the Doctor is locked up in a box room. It's also surprising that Adam doesn't refer to the creatures he saw writhing over Thea at all, he seems to forget all about them, as if it never happened.

There is an ongoing debate about who unlocks the box room door to let the Doctor out. It can't be Leela (she's at the Tylers') and it can't be Adam or Thea (their scenes either side follow directly on). It's unlikely to be Fendelman, as he's the one that locked him up, which just leaves Stael. Max does say later in the episode that the Doctor has escaped, which may be a hint that it was he who let him out, but it doesn't really explain why. There are more fanciful explanations in fandom though. After the events of The Name of the Doctor - where Clara basically plonks herself everywhere in the Doctor's timestream, popping up in every adventure - it's altogether possible that she's the one to let him out. I favour Leakey the dog, who hasn't been seen since part 1, but is still lurking around somewhere...!

Meanwhile, Leela spends the entire episode hanging out at Ma Tyler's cottage, where she has another run-in with the suspicious Ted Moss. Leela and Ted really do not get on, but it's understandable why. Leela started it by accosting him in the woods with a knife, and then he fires a shotgun at her when she approaches the cottage. There's no love lost between she and he, and Louise Jameson and Edward Evans play the brittle tension so well. "I'll see you later," threatens a departing Ted, to which Leela replies: "Get some practice first!"

Leela spends the episode befriending the amiable Jack Tyler, who has already decided something strange is going on and that his gran is mixed up in it somehow. His gran is the remarkable Martha Tyler, a woman brought up in the "old ways" and their superstitions. Daphne Heard is fantastic as Martha, her wild staring eyes and archaic turn of phrase giving so much character. She's perfectly cast. The scene where Spenton-Foster closes in on her haunted face as she tells Leela and Jack what's happened to her is compelling. "I seen it. In my mind. Dark. Great dark. It called me. In my mind, it called me. Hungry. It were hungry for my soul!"

So while the Doctor wastes time in a box room, and Leela gets to know the Tyler family, the real action lies with the guest characters (I say action, but I mean exposition). Fendelman explains the truth of his experiments to an incredulous Adam. Fendelman claims that Eustace is actually the skull of an extra-terrestrial which came to Earth 12 million years ago, long before mankind as we know it existed. The alien died, and at the point of death there was an an enormous surge of power, "an in-pouring of energy". Fendelman believes that energy remains stored within the neural relay etched on the skull, and an x-ray confirms that the circuit takes the form of a pentagram. The power still lies within the skull, and all that's needed is to reactivate the circuit.

Fascinating stuff. Fendelman believes that releasing the stored energy will act as a signal that there is intelligence on Earth. Fendelman ponders: "At last, mankind will meet it's...", interrupted by Adam's "Next of kin?" Fendelman plans to summon the alien race from which he believes all humans are descended. The skull seems to be linked to Thea Ransome, who wanders around clutching her temples and looking anxious for most of the episode. Thea believes that everything that's happened has been planned by her, at least subconsciously. Is Thea an alien incognito?

We also discover that Max is a bad guy in this episode, played with disturbing intensity by Scott Fredericks, with his hard stare and embittered sneer. He's been very much a side character so far, but when he chats with Ted Moss about being the head of a coven of 12, and then knocks Thea out with chloroform, it's pretty much confirmed that he's a bad 'un (it's always the quiet ones you have to watch). Intriguingly, Ted prefers that the coven should be made up of 13. "A place must be left for the one that kills," says Max. Sinister...

The cliffhanger sees the Doctor gripped in contortions of pain by a glowing Eustace. Serves him right for offering a jelly baby, but giving a liquorice allsort.

First broadcast: November 5th, 1977

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: The scene where a terrifying presence approaches the kitchen door, and subsequently kills Mitchell.
The Bad: The Doctor and Leela are an inactive presence in this story, which is a shame.
Overall score for episode: ★★★★★★★★☆☆

"Would you like a jelly baby?" tally: 10 - The Doctor offers Eustace a jelly baby, but it's actually a liquorice allsort.

NEXT TIME: Part Three...

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