The Curse of Fenric Part Four

The one where Ace learns who the baby really is...

What I'm getting from this critical review of the story - after decades of watching it thinking I'm understanding it all - is that the Doctor hasn't necessarily fought "Fenric" before. Fenric is just Millington's interpretation of evil, and as the Doctor says in part 3, "evil has no name". It seems to me that evil has simply chosen to manifest itself in this way on this particular occasion, using Norse mythology as an amusing cover, but the adversary the Doctor played chess with in the shadow dimensions, and trapped there for 17 centuries, was not Fenric as such. It was evil. The Doctor played chess with evil.

He says elsewhere in this episode, as he tries to remember where the pieces were left on the chess board, that it took place "so long ago", suggesting it wasn't his seventh self which did all this. It's an interesting take on things, and I'm not convinced it was meant this way by writer Ian Briggs, but I quite like the theory that Fenric isn't the Doctor's ancient enemy. Pure evil is his enemy, and this time around it's called Fenric.

Looking up Fenric on TARDIS Wiki tells me I'm not quite right, and that Fenric is one sentient force of evil as old as time itself (there are others, such as The Web Planet's Animus and the Celestial Toymaker). Fenric is one example of pure evil, given a name in differing circumstances, such as the Wolf, the Hunger, or Aboo-Fenran.

Back to the story, and Millington orders the Doctor, Ace and Sorin to be executed for treason. Bates freely agrees, without question, and our heroes are lined up against a wall in the pouring rain facing a firing squad (echoes of The War Games here). This is the point where chaos breaks out, and gallops unrelentingly through the rest of the episode until the climax. Director Nicholas Mallett conjures an atmosphere of utter confusion and panic as the Russians attack the British, grenades explode and guns are fired. Amid the carnage, the Doctor, Ace and Sorin scamper to safety in scenes like few others in classic Doctor Who.

The Doctor must find a chess set to finish the game he started all those centuries ago. He set Fenric a challenge to outwit him, which he failed to do, but now the evil is back, freed from its flask and ready for a rematch. The Doctor and Ace head for Millington's office, only to find his chess set's been booby-trapped with both toxic gas and explosives. The Doctor and Ace flee the building, which blows up in their wake as they tumble into a bunker of sandbags. This is so action-packed it's hard to believe this is the same programme known unfairly for wobbly sets and dodgy production values.

After fondly wiping mud from each other's faces, they head for Kathleen's cabin, as Ace knows she has a chess set in her suitcase (Perkins missed that one!). Ace stays behind to comfort Kathleen and Audrey, and the two women barricade themselves in against the furious storm. There's a spine-tingling moment where Ace remembers the old haunted house from her childhood, aka Gabriel Chase, linking directly back to Ghost Light. The Curse of Fenric was supposed to be shown first in Season 26, followed by Ghost Light, so this would have neatly presaged the Victorian three-parter, but I still think it works. The events of Ghost Light would still be on Ace's mind, and I think the mention works equally as a continuity reference as it would a portent.

The memories are shattered when the Haemovores smash their way through the window, and the girls have to escape through another. The scene of Ace, Kathleen and Audrey running for the jeep in the pouring rain, the monsters pursuing in the distance, is so well shot, and the panic rises as Ace tells Kathleen what to do. "Go to London. My Nan'll look after you... She lives in Streatham, 17 Old Terrace!" Of course, she has no idea that what she's actually doing is sending her grandmother to her future home, where she will bring Audrey up as a Londoner, and where Audrey will... well, let's not get ahead of ourselves.

Particular mention here for Mark Ayres' score. I've always found his discordant piano flourish as Kathleen drives off really effective. I only wish they had the time to film the Haemovore jumping onto the bonnet of the jeep as she drove off, as in the original script.

Elsewhere, evil is getting its revenge. Casualties include the gaggle of female radio operators who are turned into blood-thirsty vampires, who in turn devour poor Sergeant Leigh. And then there's Miss Frosty Knickers herself, Nurse Crane, who Fenric pays a personal visit to in order to avenge the late Dr Judson. "You've looked after me all these years," he tells the terrified nurse as Haemovores advance on her. "Almost a mother, treating me like a child, humiliating me." He gestures for the monsters to attack, and the evil look Dinsdale Landen gives to camera, that huge gleeful grin as Crane is devoured, is chilling.

Landen gives a marvellous performance as Fenric. Because he's spent three episodes in a wheelchair, it's odd to see him walking about, and the way he blinks his eyes uncomfortably gives him a weird, unsettling edge (actually just the contact lenses itching him). When Tomek Bork takes over the part, he makes Fenric more traditionally evil, but Landen's take is the more disturbing, commenting on how "when it comes to death, quantity is so much more satisfying than quality", and barking at Millington not to interrupt him when he's eulogising.

Everyone's dying. Commander Millington is shot by Vershinin, who teams up with Captain Bates as pawns of opposing armies. This (let's face it, mildly homoerotic) comradeship inspires Ace to realise what the winning chess move is - that the pawns don't fight one another, but work together instead. But why does she rush off to share this dangerous information with Fenric? When she last saw Fenric he was in the form of Judson, but this time, because she sees it's Sorin, she can't wait to spill the beans.

And so Fenric wins. All that's left is for the Doctor to kneel before Fenric before he sends forth the Ancient One to pour the deadly poisons into the oceans, creating a chemically polluted future and destroying mankind. But the Doctor refuses to kneel, so Fenric threatens Ace's life.

It's a Big Scene, with some Big Revelations. Doctor Who back then wasn't used to telling sweeping series arcs like it is today, but this was the biggest ace up Season 26's sleeve. Fenric reveals that Audrey will grow up and, in 1973, give birth to a baby girl. That baby is called Dorothy, aka Ace. "The baby is your mother," sneers Fenric. "The mother you hate." You can imagine Ace's world collapsing as he says it.

But Ace has one more trick up her sleeve, and that is her mentor, her father figure, her professor. "The Doctor never fails," she insists, holding back Ingiga with the psychic force created by her faith in the Doctor. "I've got faith in him. Complete faith... I believe in you, Professor."

The moment the Doctor says "Kill her" is shattering, both for Ace and the viewer. What is he saying? It turns out the Doctor has to say some pretty nasty things to Ace in order to break her faith in him and release Ingiga from the psychic force, enabling him to overcome Fenric. But the words he chooses, oh those words! They are utterly crushing for the poor girl: "I knew she carried the evil inside her," he tells Fenric. "Do you think I'd have chosen a social misfit if I hadn't known? She couldn't even pass her chemistry exams at school, and yet she manages to create a time storm in her bedroom... She's an emotional cripple. I wouldn't waste my time on her unless I had to use her somehow."

If someone said that to you - if they spoke of you in such a way as to completely destroy any self-confidence you had - you'd be as crushed as poor Ace is. It's not just anybody saying this about her - it's not her mum or dad, it's not her probation officer or schoolteacher - it's the Doctor, her Professor. The man she adores, respects and idolises. It was a brave thing to include this highly emotional scene in Doctor Who, but shows just how mature some of the McCoy era's storytelling had become. The production team had the courage and talent to know they could pull this off, an underlying arc spanning three seasons, taking in Dragonfire and Silver Nemesis along the way.

To be honest, going on the quality of Dragonfire's scripts, I never knew Ian Briggs had it in him, but I'm pleasantly surprised.

The Doctor drags the emotionally crushed Ace out of the hut before it explodes, and they collapse onto a conveniently placed tarpaulin afloat in a sea of mud. He manages to convince her that none of what he said was true, and that he had to break her faith in him to release the Ancient One. She seems to believe him, and after having a quick dip in the North Sea appears to be cleansed of all anxieties. "I'm not scared now," grins a sodden Ace as she joins the Doctor on the beach. It's a less than satisfying ending to such an apocalyptically resonant story, but at least Doctor Who was trying, something it had started doing so well after years of stagnation.

How is Fenric defeated? I'm not sure. Ingiga pushes Sorin into the gas chamber and releases the toxic gas, which must surely suffocate Sorin, but can't possibly kill Fenric, aka evil itself. Fenric cannot be dead, because you cannot kill evil. I mean, if the Big Bang couldn't kill him, a poisonous green gas ain't gonna do it. Fenric would rear his ugly head again in numerous spin-off yarns, including the Big Finish audios (2012's Gods and Monsters, with a deliciously Silver Nemesis style portent in 2009's The Magic Mousetrap) and the comic strips (The Wolves of Winter).

Quickies:

• Nicholas Mallett incorporates the unpredictable British weather into the narrative really well, using rain machines to add to the chaos of violence and horror.
• "Mum, I'm sorry!" screams Ace as she thinks she's about to be executed. How heart-breaking is that? Ace harbours guilt for what happened between her and her mother (the act of arson she committed at Gabriel Chase in 1983 probably drove a rift between them, leading to probation officers and acting out at school), and at the moment of imminent death, she seeks forgiveness. Surely this is why the Doctor next takes her to Perivale, back home, perhaps to be reconciled?
• Ingiga's a big boy, isn't he? It's a wonderful design, if a little bulky, but I do think it's a shame the Ancient One decides to kill off all the Haemovores as soon as he turns up. Why not let them continue their rampage? After all, when it comes to death, quantity is so much more satisfying than quality...
• Ace acknowledged the baby shared the same name as her mum in part 1, but did she never know her mother's maiden name was Dudman? Why did the penny not drop then? Did she not know her Nan's surname?
• I got my pad and pen out and tried to track the Wolves of Fenric back, and it kinda works. Joseph Sundvik married Florence and they had four daughters (Sarah, Martha, Jane and Clara), one of whom married a man named Wilson. They named their daughter Emily, who married a man called Sorin, and their child gave birth to the future Captain Sorin. I love that Briggs really thought this through, and that it comes out pretty intact on screen. The Millingtons, Wainwrights, Dudmans and Judsons (the latter two a corruption of the same root name?) must have stemmed from the other three Sundvik daughters.

The Curse of Fenric is an intensely mature story, perhaps one of the most adult stories Doctor Who's classic series told. You can tell a lot of thought and effort has gone into it, both in the writing and the production, although it does suffer a bit in the editing (as do most McCoy stories). People tend to know things they shouldn't, or couldn't, and assumptions are made by the narrative that have no basis within the script. But it's a solid, entertaining, emotionally draining and powerfully told story, light years ahead of the Children's BBC treatment of Battlefield, and shows yet again how strong Doctor Who was as it faced the axe. Doctor Who had not been this consistently strong since the Tom Baker era. It had come so far, and had so much to give. It had a cracking couple of leads, a production team with enthusiasm and vision, and the courage to try new things and take new paths.

But in reality, Doctor Who was fighting for survival...

First broadcast: November 15th, 1989

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: The Doctor breaking Ace's faith in him is heart-breaking.
The Bad: Fenric is destroyed rather too easily for my liking.
Overall score for episode: ★★★★★★★★★★ (story average: 9 out of 10)

Ace says "Professor": 106 - just the one, tragic use: "I believe in you, Professor."

NEXT TIME: Survival...

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

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.

The Curse of Fenric is available on BBC DVD. Find it on Amazon - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Who-Curse-Fenric-Sylvester/dp/B01I076IXW