My Time with the Seventh Doctor

 

Twenty Fourth Season
By it's twenty fourth season, Doctor Who was in freefall. Feared cancelled, it was given one last bite of the cherry, and nobody else wanted the job (or the BBC wouldn't let anyone else have the job) other than John Nathan-Turner. His plans to go were put on hold and he carried on to make the show that he cared about.

Unfortunately, for many factors, one being new Script Editor and main cast, the show couldn't hit the ground running as it might have otherwise. Nobody knew how they wanted to play the Doctor, so it took the first appalling show to figure it out. Mel was given little to do beyond scream and hang about in a quarry. What we did get out of the show, was a more mild mannered buffoon that harkened at first back towards Patrick Troughton and there was a glimmer of hope.

The next story of Paradise Towers was far better, and helped flesh out this Doctor. Mel was more dynamic, but for all the great setting and story, the nuances were quite clunky and the baddies were lame.

Delta and the Bannermen helped cement the idea that the show was heading more towards the fantastical side of the comic book stories. It was an off the wall, stand alone concept that would have likely worked well on the page, but again, the show just didn't have the budget to convince us and the ending just deflates. We narrowly avoid a motorbiking welsh girl, but the concept for a rebellious companion has been cemented in the teams mind

The final show of the season, Dragonfire doesn't know what to do with itself. It takes the mythological concepts of folklore, the horrors of Alien, and then puts them on a supermarket planet with badly realised costumes and naff characters. Mel makes bizarre decisions and the explanation for Ace being there is almost as bad as ... because... The only redeeming feature is the way the bad guy melts at the end. If the high ups in the BBC were hoping for a re-invention of the show, this is pretty far from what they (or any of us) were expecting

Twenty Fifth Season
Finally having an idea of where they wanted to go, and how they wanted Sylvester's Doctor to be, the show finally begins making traction.  It's silver anniversary is starting strong with a decent (but not perfect) story from Ben Aaronovitch. Daleks shooting it out in London is a good sight to see and the return of Davros is better, but can anything top Ace beating one up with a baseball bat?

The Happiness Patrol is again, good idea and almost executed right this time. Harking on images of Thatcher's Britain, the only real thing that lets it down is the studio shooting for city streets. With the budget they had, it was the best they could do, but ultimately the slick black floor and rubbish go-carts detracted from a gritty noir feeling story.

Then we get to the silver anniversary story, aired on the same day, 25 years after An Unearthly Child. I wish it was a ground breaking story and as impactful as that first one. The reality though is that it is just the same plot as Remembrance, regurgitated and thrown together in a lot of nonsense with the vaguest hint that something more is going on. A shame as Cybermen are staples of the show but this is one of their worst outings.

The final outing of this season has yet more of the failings the others have. Good play on an idea, but the reasonings and finale are just put together with an "it'll do" approach which causes it to suffer.  We see more manipulation by the Doctor and things start to turn a little dark in his world.

Twenty Sixth Season

The final season starts with a story that brings the show into a new era with a UNIT full of foreign people. It also harks back to the past (both arthurian and 1970's) and lets go of both by giving the Brigadier a jolly good send off rather than turning him into a school teacher. The monster is probably the best one the show has ever made and despite the lame fireworks for weapons, it is an enjoyable watch, even though it also suffers from the nonsense past Seventh Doctor stories suffer from.

The next story is the first of a trilogy looking at Ace and it is gothic, and broody and great atmospherically. If only we could truly understand what's going on without having to google it! If it had come after Curse of Fenric, I think it would have worked a lot better, but as it is, it's one of the good shows, and finally we're getting promise of a return to good stories from the Doctor.

The Curse of Fenric should have stuck to parodying Dracula as it does well to capture the sinister feel of it, especially with a great job by Nicholas Parsons and the great soundtrack accompanying it. Ace's background story is fairly well done too. For me, it once more deflates in the ending with Fenric being less of a horrifying entity than he should have been and the least said about The Ancient One being a mutated human, the better. 

The end of an era then greets us. Survival. A return to suburban stories with fantastical elements. The first two episodes are halfway decent, promising something good going on, but the payoff is very much lacking because little or no thought had gone into it. The Master is there for almost no reason and Midge the bad boy is just lame. Ace almost turning savage is worth the watch, but that's about it. 

So, for the higher ups, they missed the fact that the show was steadily improving, and put it back on hiatus, forever it seemed. The show which had given us much joy as a nation was over, and it went out with a whimper rather than a bang. 

The Doctor
Even before his supposed Masterplan, Andrew Cartmel had helped to shape a Doctor worth watching in my opinion.  As much as I do like Colin Baker, the constant rattiness and bitching with Perri was wearing mightily thin and we only got a glimpse of it towards his end. The Seventh Doctor is the antithesis to that and was a very welcome one.

Most will look at the latter seasons, which to be fair, is where the production team were taking the Doctor, Nothing wrong with that, and if you look back over my reviews, you'll see that I frequently like the darker episodes. What I remember though is the feeling of hopeful joy when it looked like we had a reasonable, clumsy buffoon style Doctor that mirrored some of the more pleasant traits that Patrick Troughton had. Regardless, many people will judge the Seventh Doctor's run on the stories they told and their poor execution, but it should be noted that despite that, he was a great Doctor.

Favourite Moment

Some people will find it cringeworthy, but I think the Doctor's heartfelt plea to Morgaine in Battlefield was somewhat moving. Often prone to melodrama, Sylvester McCoy turns this lecture into a sincere moment that tells us no matter how dark and manipulative his character gets, he's still on the right side, fighting for the good of us all.

Worst Moment

Possibly many to choose from - honourable shout out to the frantic escape chase in a motorised go-cart, or almost all of Delta and the Bannermen. The one that has to top it all is the literal cliff-hanger for no good reason!

Favourite Story

Remembrance of the Daleks

This story plays on the history of the show, and is by no means the best, but it adds good elements of its own. The Dalek civil war is a very interesting concept, the conversion of Davros to the Emperor, the hint that the Doctor came to Earth in 1963 for other reasons and if nothing else, the Special Weapons Dalek are all pretty cool!

Worst Story

Time and the Rani

The worst story, although there are some good contenders, has to be Time and the Rani.  It is just so tedious and frustrating to watch that you really have a hard time keeping your attention on the screen. 

Favourite Companion

Ace

Rebellious and angst filled. Ace is almost unlike any companion we've seen before. She is capable, and opinionated, but most of all, she has a good heart. Fleshed out far more than other companions, she is many a fan's favourite when it comes to their choice of companion.

Worst Companion

Mel

Someone has to be last, and sorry to poor Mel, she is the one this time. Despite the god-awful 80's costumes, I never particularly minded her as a companion. Especially around the Sixth Doctor, she was quite pro-active and intelligent. Unfortunately, as what happens with some companions, she was gradually reduced to running around and screaming a lot. Bonnie Langford knew this was the direction she was going and decided to jump, quick, going back to never never land to continue her tenure as Peter Pan in panto.

Survival

 

Three Episodes

Aired between 22nd November 1989 and 6th December 1989

Written by Rona Munro

Produced by John Nathan-Turner

Directed by Alan Wareing

Synopsis

The TARDIS lands in Perivale, home of Ace. They've come here because she wanted to catch up with her friends, but it turns out the further the go into the village, the more they find that people have been going missing.

Originally fearing that he would be bored, the Doctor soon latches onto the behaviours of a peculiar black cat that follows them around. 

He believes it is hunting like a jungle cat and becomes preoccupied with it's motives, even going so far as to buy some cat food from the corner shop to try and entice it closer so he can have a look.

Unknown to him, the cat is somehow controlled by a shadowy figure. It does indeed stalk humans, and selects victims intelligently, then as it attacks them, they disappear. This is the source of the missing people in the area.

Ace meanwhile cannot find her friends around, not even at the youth club where self defence classes are being run on a Sunday by a Sgt Patterson. She finds one solitary friend who say's with few exceptions, they've all disappeared. Ace wanders up to Horsenden hill, expecting to find them mucking about up there, but they're gone. As she sits at the playground, the black cat approaches her and suddenly, after a big flash of light, there is a humanoid Cheetah warrior, mounted on a horse. The Cheetah person chases Ace and teleports her to another planet.

The Doctor continues to try ensnaring the cat, but is thought to be a public nuisance, and Sgt Patterson, part of the local neighbourhood watch is sent to deal with him. 

Patterson tackles the Doctor, just as he's about to catch the cat, and they teleport to the strange planet also. It's a desolate place, with a blood red sky and filled with human bones. 

The pair wander for a short while and find a village of the Cheetah people. 

Within one of it's tents resides the person behind the abductions - The Master. He has somehow adopted animal characteristics, having now got yellow eyes and fangs. He explains that it's the effect of the planet they've been transported to - it has a "bewitching" effect. 

He says that the people who once ruled this planet had a mighty empire, but degenerated into animals and lost it all. At the moment, once you are on the planet, you cannot leave. Only the Cheetah people can do that. He found a way to tame them to his bidding by allowing them to hunt on Earth via the cat creating a dimensional bridge. 

The Master asks the Doctor to help him find a way off the planet. 

Ace meanwhile finds out what's happened to her friends. She meets Sheela and Midge, who are hiding and surviving in these wilds with a guy from the town called Derek. 

They are apprehensive about attacking the Cheetah people to get the upper hand and their attempts to capture one fails. They do say the Cheetah's are not violent unless you run though or they're hungry. They love to hunt.

Ace convinces the group to move out and they soon find the Doctor and Patterson who grabbed a horse and ran away from the Master's village. The Doctor is in the midst of explaining everything when a Milkman is teleported to the local site. He is obviously panicked and runs, prompting the  Cheetah's to hunt him and kill him. The others run and / or fight despite the Doctor yelling at them to stop. 

The group are separated and Ace manages to wound one of them. Midge on the other hand, finds an injured one and kills it, awakening the hunting instinct within himself and turning more animal-like.

Ace finds the wounded Cheetah, but unlike Midge, does not kill it. She finds out it's name is Karra, and tends its wounds instead before going off to find the group.

Once back together, the Doctor explains that the only way off the planet is for one of them to turn into a Cheetah person, because it will give them the ability to teleport. They can then use this to get back before the victim is fully transformed. It's not a prospect the Doctor wants to see at all though. 

The group do witness this however, as the Master finds and subjugates Midge who is animalistic. 

He uses Midge to transport him back to Earth and expects the Doctor and the rest to rot on the planet.

They fear the worst, but when Karra returns, recovered from her wounds, Ace is seen to have developed an affinity with her, and now has yellow eyes herself. 

She abandons the group to go hunting with Kara, but the Doctor finds her and convinces her to come back. She agrees to use her newfound Cheetah powers to teleport them all back to Earth. Sheela and Derek are both elated to be back and run off to their families. Sgt Patterson however cannot accept what he's been through and dismisses it as a crazy dream before going off back to the youth club and his defence classes.

Ace wants to go home, but the Doctor says they still have to deal with Midge and the Master. They ultimately track them down to the defence classes, where the Master has used Midge to enslave all the students and kill Patterson as he retuned there. 

From the club, they go to Horsenden Hill, where the Master has set up a final showdown with the Doctor. 

The Doctor gets on a motorbike and goes head to head with Midge, playing chicken.

The bikes collide and explode, injuring Midge badly. The other students, now half-Cheetah, kill Midge as the weakest link. 

Things look bad for Ace, but Kara turn up and starts killing students. The Master fatally wounds her and she turns back into a human woman. Other Cheetah's turn up and take her back to her home planet.

The Doctor is alive, but the Master has fled. He runs back to the TARDIS, finding the Master trying to pick the lock. 

They fight and the Master, now losing control to his hunting instincts, teleports them back to the Cheetah planet. They fight on the ground as the planet rages around them, the endless violence causing it to self-destruct. The Doctor also begins to succumb to the hunting energy, but in a final moment of clarity, rejects the urge to bash the Master's head in with a skull, declaring that "if we fight like animals, we'll die like animals!". 

The Master however rejects the notion, gets the upper hand and is about to hit the Doctor. The Doctor teleports away back to Earth as the Cheetah planet destroys itself, leaving the Master behind.

Having returned to Earth, the Doctor goes back to Horsenden hill and finds Ace there, her Cheetah powers having left her thanks to the world blowing up. He comforts her saying Kara will be part of her forever, but she can move on. 

Ace asks about the Master, but the Doctor says "who knows". He asks her where she wants to go now, and she tells him she'd like to go home, hinting that the TARDIS is now her home.

The Doctor smiles and as they walk off into the sunset, he ponders that "there are worlds out there where the sky is burning, the seas sleep and the rivers dream; people made of smoke and cities made of song. Somewhere, there's danger, somewhere, there's injustice, and somewhere, the tea's getting cold. Come on, Ace. We've got work to do!" 

Together, they walk off into the sunset, back to the TARDIS for another adventure.

Trivia

• The author of this story was recruited from a BBC writers workshop. The original title she came up for this story was cat-flap. Whilst taken in an abstract concept, it makes logical sense (time portals for cats to go through) it was felt to be a bit crap so it was changed, first to "Survival of the Fittest", then just "Survival"

• The show had two guest stars - comedy duo Hale and pace as the shopkeepers

• This was one of the few stories in Doctor Who to be shot totally on location

• The famous stunt performer Eddie Kidd did the motorbike crash scene. Eventually, he would move on to jumping busses on a bike

• The location filming was so hot, it was unbearable for the cast wearing normal clothing. In between takes, they'd strip down to summer wear and sun bathe. Imagine how hot the Cheetah People actors were! Not surprising then, that one of the Cheetah extras stripped off to their underwear and walked off the set, never to be seen again

• The original script had the Doctor and the Master returning from the cat planet during their battle. As part of this, the Master was to say that the Doctor had evolved beyond being a Time Lord. John Nathan-Turner felt this was too explicit and at odds with what had been revealed before about him

• The yellow contact lenses back then were really painful to wear and made the cast's eyes run

• The closing remarks were hastily written by Script Editor Andrew Cartmel when they knew that show was cancelled

• We know that the BBC higher ups had despised the show for a long time. However, as the show had escaped before, the cancellation was supposed to be just a postponement for a year or two, but ended up going on longer. Either that, or that was the pill that was given to the production crew to make it easier to swallow. Regardless, this was the last full length Doctor Who story to be filmed in England and shown on British TV until 2004, ending it's original, continuous 26 year reign. We don't talk about "Dimensions in Time" as a serious episode, as it was spliced together with East Enders and is more a lame comedy than anything else.

The Review

So this is it. The last of the classic era episodes. Survival perhaps earns a sense of nostalgia because of that and many would see it as special and maybe give it more kudos than it deserves.  

On the positive, it is a pleasant return to some of my favourite tropes, such as setting a fantastical story in the suburban Britain of the day, a time we've not fully seen since Resurrection of the Daleks, or The Android Invasion. The concept of the sidekick almost being possessed and taken over by primal urges is pretty good too. Despite Rona's original thoughts of the Cheetah people being like us, just with yellow eyes and fangs, I personally think they did an okay job with the monsters this time. Yes, it's likely the faux fur that kids play with that forms the costumes, but if you're modelling a monster on a Cheetah, these look pretty spot on. 

The disappointment therefore comes in the sloppy execution of the concept once more. The fact that the Master is trapped on the planet is alright, but there's no real.. good reason why he's there, or why he's still messing around once he's escaped the Cheetah planet. He just hangs around, ready to be beaten. The crap with Midge is just awfully executed, and the ending is ... meh.  If you watch it in sequence too, yet another story about Ace so close together has me yawning. 

I guess when it comes down to it, the ideas the story plays with - survival of the fittest, and fighting the urge to be primal and savage are all good basis for stories about personal struggle, and whilst the show is in the Cheetah planet, it handles them well. It just all falls apart towards the end when it matters most, by half hearted efforts to spin it out for another 24 mins and to put a named villain in it for the sake of it.  Survival is worth a watch, but as I said at the start, probably more for nostalgia reasons than anything else.

Rating

5 out of 10

Re-Watchability Factor

5 out of 10 

Watch this if you liked...

• Inferno

• The Time Warrior

• New Earth (Doctor Who, Series 1)

• Gridlock (Doctor Who, Series 3)

The Curse of Fenric

 

Four episodes

Aired between 25th October 1989 and 15th November 1989

Written by Ian Briggs

Produced by John Nathan Turner

Directed by Nicholas Mallett

Synopsis

On the Northumberland coast, in the 1940's, a series of dinghy's floats towards shore, carrying with them a bunch of Soviet Commando's, led by Captain Sorin.  A strange mist envelopes them and most of the soviets never make it to shore, leaving Sorin's boat alone.

Their target seemingly is a top secret British naval base that the Doctor and Ace just be happening to visit. The pair of them after landing in the TARDIS, stroll around the base and are strangely not detained for some time (until the commanders of the base realise they are not the Soviets whom they were expecting and laying a trap for). The Doctor and Ace are subsequently mobbed by soldiers, but the Doctor bluffs his way through them, saying he's from the Dept. of Defence and here to see Professor Jusdon about his invention. 

Flummoxed, the guards let him pass, buying him enough time to meet the wheelchair bound Professor, compliment him on the invention of the machine that cracks German cyphers and forging his own credentials to allow him and Ace to remain on the base. Judson invites them to go to the local church where he is working on an ancient cypher he hasn't been able to crack yet.

Back with the Soviets, they find a survivor from one of the dinghy's, but it looks like he's been mauled by some kind of beast.  

They flounder on the beach for the remainder of the night, looking for their sealed orders which were lost with the others, and keeping a watch for these miserable beasts.

The next day, the Doctor and Ace go to the church where they meet Rev. Wainwright, Mrs Hardaker - a local fuddy duddy, and two girls evacuated from London and under her care - Phillis and Jean. Ace quickly makes friends with the girls and agrees to meet them for a walk on the beach at Maiden's Point later. With that, they go to find Prof. Judson and his cypher. 

In conversation with Judson and Rev. Wainwright, the pair learn of an old Viking Curse that says Evil was once buried there and that Judson is attempting to use his ULTIMA machine to decipher the inscriptions. It's not long before the Doctor teases out of Wainwright that his grandfather had already deciphered the words and they spoke of a bunch of Vikings who were cursed when they were carrying an oriental treasure to Norway and all died at Maiden's Point.

Meanwhile, despite being forbidden to go to Maiden's Point by Mrs Hardaker, the girls go and meet Ace. They walk around and intend to go in the water, but Ace declines and leaves them to it. Not long after, a mysterious monster claims them, dragging them below.

The Doctor and Ace go back to the base, meet a radio operator called Kathleen who keeps her baby under her desk. The baby's name is Audrey, which is the same name as Ace's estranged mother. They explore a bit more then head back to Maiden's Point, only to be confronted by the Soviet's. 

From finding their sealed orders and the dead soldier, the Doctor is sure they're here to steal the ULTIMA machine but that something monstrous is here too. He gets Sorin to admit a frontal attack would be suicidal and he admits another of their number has been killed, found with some strange object in his hand. 

Meanwhile, Judson is still deciphering the text which speaks of a great battle and the end of the world. It seems that the base commander, Millington, is very interested in this and instructs Judson to use the ULTIMA machine to decipher the rest. 

The Doctor and Ace convince Sorin not to kill them and they return to the crypt, finding themselves confronted at gunpoint by Millington. He takes them through secret passages in the church which lead to men mining toxic substances from the rockface which will apparently be used in chemical weapons against the Nazi's to end the war.  The Doctor notes a similarity to venom from snakes in Norse mythology. Impressed, Millington takes the Doctor with him, leaving Ace behind. Ace speaks to Wainwright who knows about the plans and thus feels a loss of faith in humanity and the sacredness of the church as a result. She realises that the inscriptions on the wall are set up just like a logic diagram and goes and tells Judson this so he can correctly decipher them.

At the base, Millington shows that the toxin has been already stored in a bunch of shells and a vial of it has been booby trapped in the ULTIMA machine for the Soviets to take.

Whilst this is happening, Jean and Phyliss emerge from the water as monsters. 

They start luring Soviet soldiers to their death, kill the stuck-up Mrs Hardaker, then go for the faithless Rev. Wainwright. The Doctor and Ace find them just in time and the Doctor drives them away with a show of faith. 

The Doctor says as long as the descriptions are not deciphered, all's fine. Ace is horrified and tells him what she gave Judson. As they rush to stop the ULTIMA, the machine cranks out deciphered words and a host of monstrous vampires rise from the sea. 

The wall in the crypt smashes open, revealing a glowing urn and Millington declares that the Doctor is too late and once the chains of Fenric shatter, all the dark power will be his. He explains that the vampires are actually mutated humans from the far future called Haemovores. He's content for the Doctor and Ace to wander about because he's convinced there's nothing they can do.

Ace checks on Kathleen and the baby, making sure they're alright as they try to stop the Haemovores.  They return to the church and Ace finds the urn, putting it in her backpack without realising it's what they're looking for. Rev. Wainwright explores the records, finding that the curse of Fenric passed down through generation to generation of kids from the Vikings. The bunch of them are assaulted by Haemovores but the Doctor's faith and Sorin's wooden stakes help drive them off.  

The Doctor explains that faith creates a psychic barrier that they cannot pass, and it doesn't need to be a crucifix.

The Doctor orders them all to the base, but Sorin goes back to find his men, saying his faith in the revolution will protect him. He gives Ace his scarf and goes.

The Doctor and co get back to the base, but are ultimately captured by Millington and the urn is taken from them. 

Sorin gets his men and goes to the base. He sees that Ace and the rest are captured and tells his men to wait whilst he tries to parlay. Millington is not interested and places Sorin under arrest. 

Ace becomes fed up as the Doctor seems to know exactly what's going on and isn't telling her. He relents and explains that an ancient evil that's existed since the dawn of time is trapped in the urn. Fenric is just one name for it. Once the inscriptions are completely deciphered, the urn will break and the evil will be free to find a body. They've got to stop it before that happens. 

Together, Ace and the Doctor come up with a plan to free Sorin and they race to the ULTIMA room. As this happens, the Haemovores break through from the church and kill the Reverend. 

The urn breaks and shoots out green energy, hitting Judson, turning him into Fenric. He gloats over the Doctor and then teleports away.

Millington, upset about it all and more than slightly insane, orders the Doctor, Ace and Sorin shot for treason. They are lined up but before they can be executed, Sorin's men attack and allow them to escape. 

Meanwhile, Fenric appears to the Haemovores and orders them to summon "the ancient one". 

With things looking bad, the Doctor tells Ace they need to find a chess set. It turns out this is how the Doctor trapped Fenric in the first place, beating him at the game with the stake being trapped. They eventually find a set held by Kathleen as Millington's one in his office was rigged to explode if tampered with.

Fenric plans with Millington to use the toxin to kill all the Earth. The Haemovores return with the Ancient One and begin attacking the soldiers and women on the base. 

The Doctor goes with the set to confront Fenric whilst Ace gets Kathleen and baby Audrey out into the jeep and helps them escape. Kathleen gives Ace a picture of Audrey as thanks and goes to find the place in Perrivale where Ace directs them to.

Back in the base, Fenric orders the Ancient One to take the toxin into the ocean and release it. He also orders it to kill the other Haemovores as they've served their purpose. The creature does the latter, but the Doctor shows up before it can leave and challenges Fenric to a chess problem. Fenric is held in confusion, trying to solve the puzzle, allowing the Doctor to find and talk to The Ancient One. It is a creature from the far future, once human but now horribly mutated and evolved from a time when evolution and pollution ran to their ultimate ends and destroyed the Earth. 

He explains that what Fenric is asking is for the Ancient One to be the one that kick-starts that future by releasing the toxins.

Sorin turns up and confronts Judson / Fenric. He says that Sorin has been manipulated as he is a descendant of the Vikings - one of the Wolves of Fenric. Sorin kills Fenric, but is only possessed in turn. 

Ace turns up but thinks Sorin is human and blabs the solution to the chess problem. Fenric gloats, saying how he's manipulated everyone, especially all the descendants into being in this position at this time. Ace is one of the descendants, and it was Fenric who created the Time Storm that took her to Ice World. The baby she saved WAS her own mother and she just secured her future to help Fenric solve the problems.

Fenric orders them dead, but the Ancient One is held back by her faith in the Doctor to get them out of this. 

Fenric says he might kill them with the toxin anyway and the Doctor shows little sympathy, explaining that he knew Fenric was behind everything all along, pointing out the time storm and the chess game in Lady Peinforte's study (see Silver Nemesis). Ace breaks down at his uncaring attitude and this releases the Ancient One. Instead of killing them however, it takes Fenric and traps them in a chamber, releasing the toxin and destroying them both. 

The Doctor drags Ace out of the stores as they explode and teary eyed, he explains to Ace that he didn't mean what he said, he just had to break her faith in him. 

A short time later, Ace and the Doctor visit Maiden's Point. Ace looks at the photo of her mother, sad and angry that she cannot love her own mother. 

She dives into the water that she was once afraid of and comes back much happier after a swim, hinting that she's faced her trauma in more than one way and let it all go.

Together, they walk back to the TARDIS.

Trivia

• The subtitles used for the Russians at the start of the story are the first time different language titles have been used since The Mind of Evil in 1971

• This is an easy one, but worth noting - Ian Briggs based the character of Professor Judson and the ULTIMA machine on real life WW2 codebreaker, Alan Turing and his machine used to break the Enigma code. Alan Turing was a supressed gay man, and in the story, it looks like there's overtones of it between Judson and Millington, but it's more to do with their childhood friendship and guilt over Millington causing Judson's paralysis from an accident

• In this story, Ace mentions an old house in Perivale - it was supposed to be foreshadowing for Ghost Light, but the way the production ran, Ghost Light ended up being show prior to this story.

• Two of the Heamovore's were actually Sylvester McCoy's kids who'd made a trip to the set and were offered the chance to take part

• Supposedly in the original script, Ace was meant to hint that she'd lost her virginity and that Sabalom Glitz was the man who helped her do it. Yuk! Needless to say, it was felt inappropriate for this to be in so they cut it

• The original setting for the story was the 1970's but Andrew Cartmel thought it was too recent, so went for the war instead

• Little known fact - Christopher Eccleston and Peter Capaldi were both considered for the role of Rev. Wainwright

• Finally, for a little sauciness, Sophie Aldred's costume came complete with stockings and suspenders. As she's descending the church tower on her rope ladder, her bottoms accidentally get pulled up and she leaves little to the imagination!

The Review

The Curse of Fenric is as mesmerising as it is frustrating. Like so many of the Seventh Doctor's stories, and the latter Fourth Doctor ones, this story shows a good concept and has some of the trappings of a good horror story really tied down well - the vampires in a northern town, the presence of an ancient evil and the foreboding of a great clash of wills, but it is somehow all deflated in the execution of it.

If this was 1973, I would perhaps be applauding this stuff - the Ancient One is a lot better than Alpha Centauri in special effects terms for certain, but yet, it's still lackluster and I can't help but feel that the creature is less fleshed out and bumbling, almost childish in appearance. Put next to this season's best effort - The Destroyer, this creature just comes across as infantile and does much to destroy the horror that's been built up over the last four episodes. The rest of the Heamovore's are no better, just look at the mouths of the two that attack Ace at the church tower - where are the fangs and menacing walks?

The way the story works is confusing too, with the Doctor and Ace able to come and go back and forth from the church to the top secret military base, even when Millington has threatened them - it just destroys all immersion for me. 

So, given all of that, is it dreadful?  No. For all it's blunderings, this story has some gems worth the effort to watch, such as a surprisingly good performance by Nicholas Parsons, the performance of Judson and the angsty tension of the Doctor and Ace's relationship.  Beyond that, in parts, the show does alright in capturing a bit of a horror atmosphere - Jean and Phillis aren't the best, but they're ok, and the music goes a long way to make up for the rest of the shortfalls.  

In summary, a good story poorly executed (even the extended edition) but worth a watch once in a long while.

Rating

6 out of 10

Re-Watchability Factor

4 out of 10

Watch this if you liked...

• The Celestial Toymaker

• The Faceless Ones 

• The Sea Devils

Ghost Light

 

Three episodes

Aired between 4th October 1989 and 18th October 1989

Written by Marc Platt

Produced by John Nathan-Turner

Directed by Alan Wareing

Synopsis

The TARDIS lands in an old Victorian mansion. It gives Ace the creeps as she has "a thing" about haunted houses after she snuck in one at Perivale when she was a delinquent.  

   

They explore and find a snuff box. A Victorian gentleman turns up and confirms that "atrocities" have happened in this house and he came here looking for Redvers Fenn-Cooper. The snuff box is the first evidence he's found of him being in the mansion. He's allegedly being held captive by the owner of the house - Josiah Samuel Smith.  It soon transpires that the man is in fact Fenn-Cooper himself and he's gone insane. 

Out of nowhere, maids who seem to know him turn up and march him away.  A very strange Neanderthal butler called Nimrod instructs the Doctor and Ace to the drawing room, saying Mr Smith is expecting them.

Once in the drawing room, they meet a young lady, Gwendoline, who is staying with her uncle Josiah. They have another visitor - the Reverend Matthews, who has shown up at the house to have it out with Smith over his outlandish theories of evolution that he published in a book recently.  The Reverend mistakes the Doctor for Smith and gives him an earful before Josiah turns up. 

He instructs Gwendoline and Ace to change for dinner, whilst he converses with the gentlemen.  They don't get far before they hear Fenn-Cooper screaming from upstairs.  They all rush to find him, cowering from a bright light coming from his snuff box.  

Nimrod forces them out of the room and tells them to leave him to the house staff.

In all the commotion, the Doctor and Ace miss the fact that Josiah instructs the Reverend to be chloroformed and taken away.

As they get back to the hall, Ace discovers that the mansion is in fact Gabriel Chase, the same building she sneaked into when she was 13.  She runs off in a huff and gets into the basement where she sees a strange room with clear alien technology and green skinned monsters in dinner suits. 

A gravelly voice calls out for them to get her.  Nimrod turns up and helps her escape them.

Meanwhile, the Doctor watches curiously as Gwendoline examines her uncles collection of insects.  In the bottom drawer is a Policeman, presumably in suspended animation. 

She says he's all the way from Java, and that the Reverend will be leaving for there soon. She also says her father was sent there by her uncle after he saw what was in the cellar.  Growing concerned, the Doctor tries to find Ace but is held captive by the staff who suddenly have revolvers.

Back in the cellar, Ace gets a bit overzealous with the stick and threatens to smash an oval panel with glowing light.  Nimrod doesn't like this and proclaims that "the sleeping one must not be woken". He struggles with her and she breaks the pane, setting off alarms all over the mansion.  In the confusion, the Doctor grabs a gun and holds it to Josiah's head, forcing him to take him to the cellar.  

Seeing the danger, the Doctor stabilises the streaming smoke from the hole Ace made, and recognises the green skinned monsters as past skins of Josiah Smith, left with rudimentary abilities to move and act.  Smith grabs the gun and orders the Doctor to repair the ship, but he unleashes the steam and gets Smith in the blast.  Together, Ace and the Doctor flee, bringing with them Nimrod and the incapacitated Josiah Smith as a retched creature is released from a cell in the ship.   

Once out of the cellar, Smith is taken by the maids to the upstairs. The Doctor says they won't see him until nightfall.  With that, they retire to rest.

During the day, the injured form of Josiah Smith starts to evolve, peeling and removing his husked skin.  

The Reverend Matthews wakes up, and starts lambasting Smith once more, but is soon put in a perilous position as he begins inexplicably devolving into a monkey.  

Gwendoline turns up and using chloroform, sends the Reverend to "Java".

Ace is woken at dusk by a human maid and given breakfast.  

When she arrives downstairs, she sees that the Doctor has awoken the Inspector McKenzie from the drawer who apparently came here three years ago to inspect the disappearance of George Pritchard, Gwendline's father.

The Doctor suggests some theories as to what's going on. He reckons that there are two creatures in the basement, the one in the cell and the one in the glass. He thinks the one in the glass is the master that Smith has kept subdued, asleep because he fears it.  Redvers Fenn-Cooper saw it and lost his mind, and Nimrod worships it.

They go to the attic to speed things along.  The Doctor winds the clock forwards to midnight and the occupants of the house come to life.  They subdue Ace, the Doctor and the Inspector and a newly evolved Josiah Smith shows himself, bringing them all back downstairs.  

He doesn't count on the fact that the Doctor has made a deal with the creature called "control" from the cell though. It has released the master from it's sleep and it indicates that it has brought it up from the cellar.  Smith tries to stop the creature called "light", but is blown back by an electrical charge.  With a blaze of light, the creature emerges.

The creature turns up in a glowing humanoid form that it adopts as the dominant form in this world.  

The Doctor explains to all that the creature came to earth to catalogue all life here. With him came two other creatures - Control who was a control subject, was kept in the ship to remain pure. The other was Josiah Smith, who went out to gather samples for Light. He however rebelled against Light and after their first expedition to Earth (in which he collected Nimrod as a sample), Smith ensured Light remained asleep and brought the ship back to Earth. He took over the mansion, hypnotising the Pritchards and killing the owner of the house.  Once in control, he tricked Fenn-Cooper into coming to the mansion and aimed to use him to get close to Queen Victoria, with the hopes of killing her and taking over the empire.

All this is inconsequential now though, as Light has awoken and is very displeased to find that everything has "changed" and evolved.  It cannot handle the fact and decides to make sure that life will not evolve again, setting in motion a firestorm and devising a plan to turn people into primordial soup, starting with the unfortunate Inspector McKenzie.  

As Light goes off to formulate his plan, the Doctor cures Fenn-Cooper and despite Gwendoline on the orders of Smith trying to send Ace to "Java", brings them out of their spell by revealing that her and the head housemaid are actually mother and daughter.  Light turns them to stone and goes to dinner.

After Control begins to evolve into a "Ladylike", she helps Ace free herself from Gwendoline and goes to dinner.

Everyone gathers in the dining room and Light outlays it's plan to stop evolution, but the Doctor points out that everything changes, even Light.  It changes location, changes it's mind, changes forms. It cannot handle it and dissipates into the house.  This is the sinister feeling Ace had when she visits the house in the future and she reveals that she set the building on fire and burned it to the ground.

They all make it to the ship in the cellar to stop the oncoming firestorm, but Josiah Smith has one final attempt at gaining the upper hand.  Control somehow switches place with Smith, becoming the more evolved of the two and sending him back to a simpler creature.  With the threat ended, Control, Smith, Fenn-Cooper and Nimrod all fly off in the ship, taking the threat away.

The Doctor and Ace leave, going back to the hallway. The Doctor asks Ace if she has any regrets and she says yes, she regrets not blowing the place up instead.

Trivia

• This story was originally set on Galifrey and was the Doctor's worst nightmare from his past, with links to his family. John Nathan-Turner thought it revealed far too much of his past, so they changed it to be a storyline for Ace.  The original idea was used for the novel "Lungbarrow" instead.

• The story didn't have any monsters originally beyond Light and Control, but John Nathan-Turner insisted, so they put in the husks to fulfil the demand

• This was actually the last true Doctor Who story to be filmed before the show was cancelled.  The final scene to be shot was the one where Gwendoline and Mrs Pritchard were turned to stone. 

• Many of the deleted scenes for this story were sadly lost as their tapes were wiped for reuse shortly after broadcast

The Review

Other guides accompanying this story have indicated that it is somewhat "marmite", that you will love or hate this story. I find personally that in fact there is a middle ground to be had.  The main clue to this, beyond personal experience, is in watching the making of. This story is rich in background and concept.  It accomplishes a lot in three episodes and has no time to dally about, therefore beyond a little explanation, it leaves people with little option to keep up unless they watch it on re-run which in 1989 was indeed possible. Because of this, many of the cast said that they knew it was pretty good, even though they couldn't fathom what the hell was going on.  That is where I found myself for much of this in the years from being a teenager until now.

Watching Ghost Light as an adult, I have found that I understand the plot a lot more and I appreciate how hard the story works.  It cooks up a very good sinister atmosphere, from the music, to the darkened lighting and aged scenery.  The sense of foreboding and the sinister implication of being sent to "Java".  It also handles mutlitple plot threads from Josiah's plans, the background of Gwnedoline, the evolution of Control and the nature of Light.  All of this is very well done and when put in contrast to the Doctor Who Series 2 episode with Queen Victoria and the Werewolf, you can see just how much future stories will talk down to people.  

The downside of this story is that because there is so much going on, it has glaring cuts from scene to scene that left me feeling a little frustrated. It's almost like vignettes of action where the logic just disappears between times.  For example, you know Josiah is up to no good, yet let him retire to bed, and hang about in his house until nightfall, even letting Ace sleep there!  Nobody seems to say "hang about, you're a Neanderthal" until way into episode 1.  It's all quite infuriating, plus Light just disappearing because he can't handle things is a bit of an anti-climax.

So, I do refute the Marmite argument.  I like this story, there's a lot to like, but it is equally non-sequitur and confusing which does detract from the enjoyment quite a bit in my opinion.  Still. One of the better efforts for the Seventh Doctor.

Rating

6 out of 10

Re-Watchability Factor

4 out of 10

Watch this if you liked...

• The Talons of Weng Chiang

• Lungbarrow

• The Unquiet Dead (Doctor Who Series 1)

• Tooth and Claw (Doctor Who Series 2)

Eighth Doctor Episodes

 

Summary

The TV Movie

Bonus *

Night of the Doctor