The Curse of Fenric Part Two

The one where the chains of Fenric shatter...

A fine example of the hotch-potch way The Curse of Fenric is edited/ sequenced is the fact Dr Judson's recital of the Wainwright translation bridges two episodes. He starts reading it toward the end of part 1 but doesn't get to finish until part 2, making it seem like he's been reading it all week! Placing the entire recital in one or the other episode, and not both, would have been far better.

Part 2 is far more satisfying than part 1, but I'm still left with a glut of unanswered questions. Why does a whole new set of Viking inscriptions burn into existence when Judson reads the translations? It looks good, but why does it happen? Why does the corpse of the dead Russian beneath the water come back to life? Again, it looks good, but why does it happen? What becomes of him? Does he turn into a Haemovore?

And that's just the beginning... The Doctor tells the Russians that they'll be walking into a trap if they attack the naval base. How does he know that? Why does Dr Judson not notice that there's some new inscriptions that weren't there yesterday? Why does the Doctor ask Judson where Ace is when he knows full well that he left her at the church? How are the Viking inscriptions a logic diagram for a computer, and how does Ace know this?

Why does the Doctor suddenly want to speak to Jean and Phyllis, who he hardly knows and have barely figured at all in his experiences so far? Why do the vampiric Jean and Phyllis have it in for poor Reverend Wainwright (unless they're just being vindictive)? On and on my questions go, but now they're out of the way I can concentrate on some specifics.

The Doctor and Ace return to the church (again!) to take a closer look at the inscriptions, which is when they discover there are some new ones. They also happen across a secret research laboratory behind the walls of the crypt, and are given a guided tour by Commander Millington (not sure why he's so welcoming, even if he does have a pistol in his hand). Millington has set up the lab beneath the church because it was built on the site of Viking graves, where an ancient evil was buried centuries ago. Dribbling out of one wall is a green goo, a "natural source of lethal poisons" apparently. Where is this coming from? Is it seeping out of the ancient Viking graves? Is this the evil that was buried there? Ace intuitively calls the goo "the curse of Fenric", even though nobody's mentioned Fenric or a curse in her presence (it's mentioned in the translations, but she hasn't read them).

The Doctor mentions the well of Hvergelmir, the Great Ash Tree (aka Yggdrasil) and Norse mythology, and all this spurred the 13-year-old me to race to the library to research the subject. I'd already soaked up Arthurian legend thanks to Battlefield, and now I was lapping up Norse mythology too. Doctor Who was still educating as well as entertaining right to the end!

Fenric aka Fenrir or Fenris was a wolf in Norse mythology, the son of Loki, who consumed the god Odin at Ragnarok, the battle at the end of all things. The word Ragnarok was removed from Ian Briggs' script for The Curse of Fenric to avoid confusion with those statuesque Gods in The Greatest Show in the Galaxy, but it's always fun to try and make it all work together, even if it was unintended. However, so far, the story hasn't bothered to tell us who or what Fenric is.

Millington agrees to show the Doctor everything, but insists no girls are allowed, which winds Ace up tremendously! She stays behind to find out why Wainwright's suddenly gone all gloomy, allowing us to spend time with Nicholas Parsons and his beautifully gentle and considered performance. There's one scene where the vicar is delivering a lonely sermon to an empty church, citing from 1: Corinthians 13:13, and this is coupled with a scene in the pews with Ace. Parsons delivers his lines so thoughtfully and truthfully, you really do believe he is a man of the cloth. But this clergyman is doubting his faith. The horrors of World War Two have taken their toll on his belief in there being good in the world. German bombs dropping on British cities he can take, but he cannot understand British bombs destroying German cities. His faith is insecure, demonstrated when the vampiric Jean and Phyllis prey on him in the churchyard. It's not the Bible he holds aloft which fends off evil, it's the belief of the person holding it. And, as Phyllis goads, Wainwright stopped believing when the bombs started falling.

What a beautiful character moment for Parsons and Sophie Aldred, who plays the tender scene perfectly, almost in awe of the vicar's honesty. "The future's not so bad," she tries to reassure him. "Have faith in me." Being from the future, Ace knows that some good comes from war (NATO, for a start). But is it enough to restore Wainwright's faith?

Meanwhile, Millington is telling all his secrets to the Doctor. The scene where the commander mercilessly gasses a cage of doves to demonstrate the power of the toxin is both beautiful and horrible. Mark Ayres' score is tremendous, building on the impact of what Millington is doing and saying. Sylvester McCoy demonstrates the Doctor's disgust perfectly. He hears that the British plan to let the Russians steal the Ultima machine. Then, when they're using it to decrypt British cyphers, they'll include a keyword in a cypher which will trigger a self-destruct mechanism, taking out Moscow in the explosion. "And the word is?" enquires the appalled Doctor. "What else could it be, Doctor? Love." It's sickening, and all the more powerful because "love" was the word Wainwright was left searching for at the end of his sermon (1: Corinthians 13:13).

The episode is full of magical moments like this. There's the moment when Kathleen innocently asks the Doctor if he has any family, and he replies "I don't know" very darkly (this feels very post-Time War, but obviously isn't). There's the scene where the vampiric Jean and Phyllis tempt Prozorov into the water, and he's pulled under the surface by a bunch of emerging creatures with clawing hands and flaking flesh. Then there's Jean and Phyllis's revenge on the gargoyle Miss Hardaker, and the subsequent discovery of her corpse by the Doctor and Ace (that endlessly grinding stylus is wonderfully emotive).

The episode draws to a climax as the chains of Fenric shatter, and various horrific monsters rise from the sea. This is the third time Doctor Who's had monsters come out of the ocean (after The Sea Devils and Full Circle), and it's such an effective shot. These Haemovores are truly repulsive monsters, caked with barnacles and weird suckers, reflecting their vampiric nature. I love the fact they are dressed in different period costumes - there's Medieval and Tudor, a Twenties flapper and even a modern milkman - and that the Ultima machine's ticker tape gives them names: Sigvald, Hakon, Fridrek, Wulstan, Eadric, Emma...

"You're too late, Doctor!" Millington declares as our hero tries to cut the power to the machine. The Doctor looks genuinely scared and upset as the credits come in, as if he knows he's out of his depth. What's irksome is that the viewer isn't being told why this is all happening, we're not having the dangers properly explained to us. It appears that things are getting dangerous, and so we have to accept that they are. We don't know why or how or who or what, we just know it is. Anyway, when walking cadavers with rotting flesh rise from the depths of the ocean to bring death and destruction upon mankind, it goes without saying that things are getting dicey.

First broadcast: November 1st, 1989

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: Millington demonstrating the toxin to the Doctor.
The Bad: I don't understand why the Doctor needs to speak to Jean and Phyllis.
Overall score for episode: ★★★★★★★★★☆

Ace says "Professor": 101

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.

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