From MadCap's Couch - Doctor Who: "The Curse of Fenric"

Excuse me, do you have a moment to talk about our lord and savior Ug-Qualtoth?

Alrighty, a little bit of a notice before we start. Generally in the past, the Horror Month TV reviews have been Supernatural. We will have a Supernatural episode up for this month. However, I decided that I'm going to change it up a little this time as the title of this post may have clued you in to. Rather than going with just one series - I'm going to skip around the various series that I've reviewed and pick a spooky episode from each one. So, given that there are five Tuesdays in this October, I have decided to review at least one episode from:

• Doctor Who
• Quantum Leap
• Supernatural (duh)
• Sliders
• ...and one other special thing, which may come from any of those series or something else entirely!

Everybody got that? Good! Then we can get on with this episode (the penultimate one of the entire classic show), one of my favorite episodes of not only the Sylvester McCoy era (which we've touched on before), but of all of Doctor Who in its entirety.

The Curse of Fenric!

Seriously, this is honestly one of the best episodes of the entire show. Old or new.

...no, really. I'm not even kidding.

Part One

If you recall from my review of Remembrance of the Daleks, classic Doctor Who was serialized into multiple parts of anywhere from 25 to 45 minutes. In the case of the McCoy era, all of his stories were serialized in four such parts. The number of parts for an episode and per season varied wildly between 1963 and 1989. If you'd like a more in-depth look as to why that is, I'd recommend checking out Diamanda Hagan's Guide to Classic Who. She goes over it significantly better than I ever could and I think we have given our subject more than a little ado, so... let us get into it.

Part One begins with the McCoy opening credits, some of if not the first set of opening credits ever on television to use CGI. After that, a company of Russian soldiers on a pontoon boat row toward a cliff, one proclaiming "We're almost there!". Soon enough, they make their way to the shore and are making camp.

The Doctor and Ace arrive at a supposed top-secret naval base, where Ace insists that this can't possibly be a top secret naval base because "you don't just stroll in!" The Doctor looks rather offended. Ace's belief is proven right when a bunch of Royal Marines show up to put them at gunpoint. The Doctor fast-talks his way through them, getting directions to the office of a Dr. Judson.

On the beach, the Russians resolve to speak only English (saving money on the subtitles) and find one of their comrades in a catatonic state, veins bulging from his neck, unable to tell them where the sealed orders that they're looking for can be found.

Arriving in the wheelchair-bound Dr. Judson's office, the Doctor once more fast-talks his way into the man's good graces, even having Ace show off her knowledge of his logic puzzle. The base commander arrives to find that the Doctor has a letter from the War Office... which the Time Lord forged himself within about five minutes, evidently thanks to his knowledge of old Winston.

On the beach again, the Russian commander chides his men for believing in "Armenian substitions", sending one to investigate the area. We get an ominous shot of the bow of a Viking ship and then return to the beach to find a soldier having found and opening a packet of sealed orders, which contain a picture of Dr. Judson. As he moves to join his fellows again, something is stalking him... and he manages to get away from it... until he doesn't...

The next morning, Vicar Wainwright is saved from the British equivalent of a Karen by the Doctor. While he takes the Doctor to go meet with Judson in the crypt, Ace befriends and chats with two young women who have evacuated from London due to the bombings.

In an office somewhere, complete with a Nazi man, a mustachio'd man in a British uniform stares at a chess set thoughtfully. This is Commander Millington, who is not a Nazi, but we don't find that until much later.

In the crypt, the Vicar drops some exposition about a superstition about the crypt - namely that evil had been buried there long ago. Deeper within, Judson has uncovered some Viking runes which he is enthusiastically working on translating. Ace mentions she heard some kind of machinery in the crypt, but the Doctor dismisses it. Outside, the Doctor notes that the dirt in front of one of the graves has subsided... after it had been dug. When Ace mentions she's to meet her two new friends at Maiden's Point, the Doctor resolves to go with her.

Back with British Karen, she is warning the two young women off from going to Maiden's Point. She tells them of tales of young women who went to that place with evil in their hearts, girls that were damned forever, and that you can still hear the screams from the cliffs. On the beach, the Doctor and Ace find the Russian sealed orders. The Doctor, in the traditional way they do in their seventh incarnation, is planning three steps ahead and resolves to go back to the church - but warns Ace to not go into the water.

While Millington and Judson talk briefly about the code breaking, the Doctor meets with Vicar Wainwright, who gives him a book that contains translations made by the Vicar's grandfather, the former Vicar. As Ace refuses to go swimming (she has a fear of water, we'll get back into that later), the Doctor reads from the book and learns that the Vikings that settled the area did indeed believe themselves to be under a terrible curse for stealing a great treasure.

The two girls go swimming seemingly without incident, but find a sort of jeweled thing that they say feels "electric" when they try and touch it. After the pair leave it and narrowly avoid being sniped by one of the Russian soldiers, who heads down to retrieve the item and ends up tossing it into the water.

As Judson reads the translation, ominous as it is, a decidedly inhuman hand grabs the thing its claws and we cut to another shot of the Viking ship... with the body of the Russian soldier from earlier left draped across the bow.

The Doctor and Ace pop into the room where several women are working on breaking the German radio transmissions, where Ace finds a baby and immediately bonds with it like a... well, like a mother to a child. At least until she learns that the baby's name... is Audrey. The Doctor remains non-committal, but clearly knows something.

Millington comes in and, clearly displeased, tells the woman who has been tending to the baby that she has twenty-four hours. Ace, despite her issues with the name, is not pleased and has to be taken out by the Doctor. He pulls her over to Millington's office, where the Doctor explains that Millington has merely created a recreation of the Nazi intelligence office, wanting to think as the enemy thinks... save for a portrait from his school days, from which we learn that Judson and Millington went to school together.

Millington who, when Judson reads the translation to him, is convinced that the end of days is now... and that the first step is the Wolves of Fenric coming back for their treasure...

On the beach, the Doctor and Ace find a dead Russian soldier with one of the pieces of treasure... and several live ones without them, who put them at gunpoint, ending Part One.

I thought Tinkerbell did well in the first official Disney/Marvel crossover...

Part Two

Part Two begins with the Doctor and Ace being taken to the Russian Commander, a Captain Sorin, by his men.

Judson continues to read the translation, speaking of the Curse of Fenric. As he does so, runes within the church begin to light up. Beneath the waves, the Russian soldier who had been stuck to the bow suddenly opens his eyes.

On the beach, the Doctor attempts to question the wounded Russian soldier, getting the man to be coherent enough to hand over another piece of the treasure. He eventually convinces them to let them go, or more of their men are going to die.

Judson, having been pulled from the crypt by his assistant, is ordered by Millington to use his machine - the ULTIMA device - to translate the runes. While this happens, the Doctor and Ace return to the church to find it... different, or so the Doctor says. When they get into the crypt proper, they find the runes that were lit up - older than the others in the crypt and, more to the point, ones that were not there the night before. Looking for clues, the Doctor finds the muzzle of Millington's pistol as his answer.

The Vicar gives a brief sermon to an empty church about Corinthians 13:11-13, although he hesitates and we cut away before he ends the "and the greatest of these is love" quote.

The Doctor and Ace are brought to the basement beneath the church, where Millington reveals his plan to end the war - gas that will packed into bombs that he plans to use destroy the Nazis once and for all. Where does this gas come from? The world serpent... apparently, Millington is a Norse mythology nut and believes that the Doctor will help him in his cause.

Upstairs, Ace is left with the Vicar at Commander Millington's insistence and the pair talk about the nature of belief. Millington claims to be unsure about his faith in the future, Ace encouraging him to have faith in the future. And faith in her.

Judson and Millington reveal that they know the Russian's orders to steal their ULTIMA and reveal their own Trojan horse - a bomb holding the gas within. In the basement, Millington demonstrates the use of his gas on some caged doves, telling him that the ultimate plan is for the Russians to take the ULTIMA and have them use it. Judson has programmed the bomb within to detonate when a particular word - love - is translated. The Doctor is horrified by this... and given some of the frankly terrifying things the Doctor gets up to (in just this story alone: spoiler alert!), that is not a statement that can be made lightly.

Elsewhere in the crypt, two workers find a broken bit of brickwork after it glows and drops a vase of some kind. They leave it and continue their work.

Back at Maiden's Point, after British Karen has told them off again, Ace's two refugee friends go back to Maiden's Point for a swim. Both scream as they disappear into the mist...

Back in his office, Millington instructs his immediate subordinate to cut off all outside communications. He also orders every chess set in the complex to be found and burned. No exceptions.

We get a shade of the Cartmel masterplan in a bit where, when Audrey's guardian questions him about his family, the Doctor is very cryptic about their status. While looking for Ace, he pops back into Judson's office just in time to find him translating the runes with his ULTIMA. The message? "Let the chains of Fenric shatter"...

On the beach, the refugee girls are looking decidedly less human - their hands with the long, stringy Nosferatu fingers and their faces looking so very pale. They lure a Russian soldier into the water, and a bunch of blue-green barnacle-covered things with those same fingers pull them down into the water.

The Doctor goes to check in on Ace's friends while Ace is left with Judson. After being chided off, she suggests to him that the runes aren't a puzzle in the way he's trying to solve them - but a logic puzzle. She suggests using a computer, which Judson excitedly has his assistant - Crane - take him to.

British Karen gets offed by the two monster girls and the Doctor and Ace arrive later to find her completely drained of blood. The pair quickly pop out to save Vicar Wainwright from being the next victim of the two girls, who taunt him about his fear... not of German bombs falling, but of British bombs falling on German cities and killing German children... and they promise to return.

Leaving the Doctor is trying to formulate a plan and says that so long as Judson doesn't translate the runes, then they'll be alright. Ace reveals she gave him the tip to solve it... and they rush to stop things before it's too late.

A cavalcade of the creatures - mutated vampires in various modes of dress going all the way back to the Elizabethan era - begins rising from the water at Maiden's Point, stalking menacingly toward the shore.

The Doctor, Ace, and the Vicar bust into Judson's office to stop them, only to find that ULTIMA is operating at four times normal speed and the power cannot be shut off. Part Two ends with Millington proclaiming that the Doctor is too late...

Я пришел сюда, чтобы надрать задницу и пожевать жевательную резинку, а у меня кончилась жевательная резинка!

Part Three

Part Three kicks off with Millington ordering reinforcements be sent to help bolster their defenses, only to be reminded that he ordered communications be cut off... and the British military are apparently surprisingly efficient about that sort of thing.

The Doctor explains to Ace and the Vicar that these creatures aren't vampires - they are Haemovores, creatures that humans will evolve into in the far far far future and have an insatiable need for blood. Ace goes to check on baby Audrey while the Russian soldiers retrieve their fallen comrade and narrowly avoid the armies of the damned stalking toward them.

In Millington's office, he and Judson debate the nature of the curse. Judson, being a scientist, believes it to be superstitious poppycock, but Millington is almost driven insane by the thought of taking the power of Fenric for themselves.

The Doctor tasks the Vicar with looking into who the descendants of the original Vikings who settled the area are while the Doctor and Ace snoop around the crypt. Ace finds the vase from earlier and puts it away in her pack. The Vicar learns of several descendants of the Vikings... just in time for us to learn why the graves were subsided in Part One, more vampires are rising from them. They attack the church, Ace escaping out onto the roof and getting a rope ladder out of her bag of tricks to get away... into the waiting arms of some Haemovores...

The Russians begin moving in on the church while Ace struggles to escape... and the Russians surprisingly come to her rescue!

Back in the church, swarmed by the vampires, the Doctor encourages the Vicar to use faith. He begins mouthing something to them and - whatever it is (I tried reading his lips a few times and got "Ian", "Barbara", though that could just be me projecting a bit) causes an angelic chant to be heard and the Haemovores to flee, holding their heads as if in pain. The Doctor explains, once they're all locked up in the basement, that it was the use of faith. The legend about vampires being repelled by crucifixes come from the use of faith, not the actual object itself. It creates a psychic force that can repel them, and the Doctor's psychic force must be pretty damn strong by that account.

Sorin refuses to leave his men behind and prepares to brave the insanity saying, "If I fail, I fail." The Doctor questions him on if his faith is so strong. His response? "If we meet again, you will have your answer."

Bad. ASS.

Man, I sure hope nothing bad happens to him!

We also get an oddly tender moment where Sorin gives Ace a favor - a white scarf he was wearing before - and tells her to be careful. Kind of makes me wonder if a scene got cut where something more was being developed, but never mind.

In the crypt, Ace puts some Nitro-9 to use to blow open a doorway that had been sealed (the Doctor chiding her for it as they duck in). She prepares to try and open the vase - or rather, a flask - to use as another carrier for more Nitro-9, which the Doctor instead identifies as the treasure they've been looking for.

Upstairs, Sorin is able to use his Soviet Union pin as his symbol of Truth Faith, repelling the vampires and walking through them like they're nothing to the point where they willingly leave him be. 

The Doctor, Ace, and the Vicar arrive at the other end of the tunnels. They are met by Millington, who confiscates the flask and the book and seals the two redshirts in the crypt with the Haemovores, much to the outrage of our heroes.

Sorin attempts to entreat with Millington and only gets captured for his trouble, though his men are able to escape thanks to his code phrase. Millington proudly tells the Doctor that everything's under control, the Doctor reminds him that the Haemovores have been welding metal under the water with their bare hands... an iron door isn't going to stop them.

Ace lays into the Doctor for not letting her in on anything, having worked out that the Doctor knows everything about what's going on. She's right, of course. The Doctor gives an explanation about dark and evil forces that are converging and will rise once more, forces that they have to stop. Fenric is a primordial evil from before the universe, something that is the closest to true evil that exists in all of creation. They have to get the flask, it's the only way that they may be able to stop him. Ace hits upon the idea of seducing the guard away from Sorin so they can jailbreak him, succeeding in doing so long enough for the Doctor to successfully spring the man from a holding cell. The Doctor informs the two that they have to stop Fenric before he finds a body...

The Haemovores bust out, and the Vicar is there to greet them - packing two barrels of True Faith via the Bible... for a few seconds, until it ends up failing and he gets eaten.

...best two out of three, Vicar?

All this time, ULTIMA has been putting out Viking names at lightning speed. A discharge of energy knocks Judson out of his chair just as the Doctor, Ace, and Sorin arrive. Millington begins to speak frantically about how the gods have lost the final battle and the chains of Fenric will shatter, leading Ace to proclaim that he is the body that Fenric has found. Over the Doctor's shoulder, however, Judson stands up and opens his eyes to reveal yellow eyes not unlike a certain Yellow-Eyed Demon from another series I've covered. His first words?

"We play the contest again... Time Lord."

"Have you seen this child?"

Part Four

The final segment of The Curse of Fenric begins with a short recap of the last few minutes of Part Three, Fenric expositing that the Doctor trapped him "seventeen centuries ago", but now he's free and the preparations are complete. He then escapes, returning to the Haemovores and saying he was only expecting one of them. He orders them to fetch him the Ancient One, as there is much to do...

The Doctor, Ace, and Sorin are put before a firing squad at Millington's orders... only to once again be saved by the Russians! As the Russians and the British duke it out, the Doctor reveals to Ace that the game he played against Fenric is simple - a game of chess. They just need to find the chess set, and Ace recalls the one from Millington's office, the pair heading off with Sorin to go after it.

As Fenric prepares in the bomb room, the Doctor and Ace avoid not one but two bombs in Millington's office. The second, unfortunately, destroys the chess set. They are still able to get the book, and Ace recalls the woman who was taking care of Audrey earlier - Dudman - as one of the names. She also had a chess set, which the two quickly go to get from her.

Sorin and his last man are witness to several soldiers being killed by the Haemovores and Millington's poison. In the basement, Millington finally realizes what is happening when Fenric spells it out for him - there's enough poison in that room to corrupt the entire Earth... forever.

With their forces decimated, the remaining British and Russian soldiers agree to a truce. We get another scene between Sorin and Ace where he's rather sweet on her, giving her a real Soviet pin after seeing her fake one on her jacket. Ace stays with Dudman and Ace after the Doctor gets the chess set, the Doctor warning her not to leave the hut.

Fenric smiles with glee as he has two Haemovores kill Judson's assistant, Crane. The Doctor sets up the chess set in bomb room. Ace mentions the events of an earlier episode - Ghost Light (a story for another day) - and Dudman questions why someone would bring a child into a world like this. The philosophy has to wait, though, as the Haemovores bust in. Ace manages to get Dudman to an army van, getting a picture of Aubrey from her before she escapes. She tells her to go to London to her Nan's home, knowing that she'll take them in.

Fenric has the Ancient One kill the other Haemovores in a terrifyingly over the top fashion, the two refugee girls dying and crumbling to dust just before they could kill Ace. Fenric arrives to answer the Doctor's call to face the Game, the Doctor stepping away to speak to the Ancient One and trying to sway him to his side. This act, he says, will be the beginning of the end of the Ancient One's world in the far future.

Ace arrives to find Fenric losing his mind trying to figure out the Doctor's puzzle. However, Ace doesn't know it until she finds a British and a Russian soldier standing over the body of Millington... and figures out that the pawns working together is the move!

Sorin enages Fenric, revealing that his grandmother was English as the reason why he was chosen for this particular mission. Fenric tells Sorin that he, too, has been touched by the Curse of Fenric... and we cut away just as Sorin is about to kill him only to return to Ace coming and revealing to a hunched over Sorin at the chess board the winning movie. He in turn turns around to reveal those yellow eyes - Sorin is gone, Fenric has taken him over. Fenric then reveals to Ace what has been hinted at over the last few parts. She, Dr. Judson, Commander Millington, and Sorin were all descended from the Vikings who buried the flask and were effected by the Curse - the Wolves of Fenric.

More to the point, Ace has ensured her own future. Audrey, the baby who has her mother's name... is her mother, the mother she despises in the future. She has ensured her own existence, all according to Fenric's plan. With his release assured, Fenric orders the Ancient One to kill the pair of them. However, the Ancient One is unable to even touch Ace. She has faith in the Doctor... total faith, and the psychic force is too strong. Faced with this, Fenric offers the Doctor a choice - kneel before him, or Ace dies.

The Doctor's response?

"Kill her."

Fenric is amused and Ace is distraught as the Doctor reveals that he knew all about Fenric's machinations and about his hand in what happened to Ace. Ace didn't cause an explosion that transported her from Earth in the 1980s to Iceworld (the planet where the Doctor found her on, story for another time), Fenric did it. All throughout Season 26, Andrew Cartmel had left hints as to Fenric's involvement in a few stories, one specifically mentioned here from Silver Nemesis with a chess set. The Doctor cruelly berates and demeans Ace, telling Fenric that he essentially used her for a pawn... and this breaks Ace's faith in a very brutal way. However, the Ancient One was apparently swayed by the Doctor's words and locks himself with Fenric in the demonstration chamber from earlier, using the gas to kill them both as the chess set burns...

On the surface, the Doctor tries to comfort Ace, telling her that the things he said were not true. At Maiden's Point, Ace wonders why she can't stop hating her mother, even though she was able to love the baby (not knowing that it was her mother). The Doctor tells her that love and hate are more closely related than most would believe, and can be quite frightening when left trapped. Ace leaps into the water, swimming to the shore, telling the Doctor that she's not afraid anymore. As the two leave, the two pass a sign warning of Dangerous Undercurrents, which the Doctor happily says isn't the case anymore. The two laugh as they leave for the TARDIS...

The Curse of Fenric is an episode that a review just can't do justice to. It's the culmination of the Seventh Doctor's chessmaster nature (onscreen, anyway) and is tied deeply into the personal life of the then companion Ace in a way that really wasn't done in Doctor Who up until that point. In a way, the Fenric storyline with Ace is a precursor to a lot of what we've seen in the Revived Series with how companions and their personal stories are treated. Before Ace, the companions were basically around for the Doctor explain things to so that we had an excuse for exposition. That didn't mean they didn't have specific characteristics and the like, but they were basically there to be an audience surrogate and not much else.

Ace introduced a depth to companions that hadn't been seen as the companions' lives would become plots within themselves going forward, both for great good and for great, terrible evil.

The episode itself, though, is brilliant without that connection. A mystery built around something from the Doctor's past, a chilling foe who you can feel the presence of from almost the very first shot of the first episode, and an escalation of threat over the course of the episode to where it feels (rightly so) like the destruction of Earth would be only the beginning. Add in frankly fantastic music by composer Mark Ayres, some questions of morality and faith in the face of great and terrible evil, and some sterling performances from not only Sylvester McCoy and Sophie Auldred, but also Dinsdale Landen and Tomek Bork (who respectively played Dr. Judson and Sorin as well as two aspects of Fenric), and it makes one hell of an episode.

The design of the Haemovores is fantastic and actually manages to look properly scary while not being hilariously cheesy like it easily could have gone. The scene where the entire mass of them are rising from the water at Maiden's Point and showing off the garb from various points in human history shows us that they've been doing this for a long, long time. As someone who has more than a little bit of megalohydrothalassophobia, it's a bit chilling in particular for me at wondering just what might be slinking around beneath the surface. I'm not 100% sure what made them decide to have the haemovores be from the far future of Earth, but it's Doctor Who. Things like an ancient evil trapped inside a flask in a Viking crypt having a legion of vampires from the future at their command isn't completely ridiculous, especially when you consider where vampires came from in Doctor Who lore.

...I know I've said it a few times in this episode, but it's a story for another day.

In the end, with all the horrific elements, this story ends how I like a lot of my horror to end: the heroes end up triumphing over evil. Not just the evil from without, but the evil from within as well as Ace conquers her fear of water and maybe, just maybe, lets go of her hatred of her mother. If only just a little.

The pacing of the episode is absolutely pitch perfect. I know I mentioned the two scenes that seemed a bit odd where Sorin and Ace were clearly forming some kind of connection and scenes were cut, but there isn't a scene in any of the four parts that shouldn't be there. This may be the benefit of the episode being in four twenty-five minute parts, but it did mean that everything that happened did so and nothing was too long or too short with explanations given masterfully for the things going on.

But our journey of horror has only just begun! Come back tomorrow for the first "What If?" of Horror Month 2023 and, as for the TV reviews... well, I think it's time for a leap...

See you then!