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
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