(689) The Curse of Fenric - Part 1

The Curse of Fenric is a story that I never really liked the first time that I watched it but in recent years I have started to appreciate it a bit more. It’s the final four part adventure in Doctor Who and the penultimate story of the McCoy era. It is also the 94^th four parter in Doctor Who. The opening few seconds of this episode are very gloomy and this is another story that doesn’t have much laughter in it.

The big name of this story was Nicholas Parsons who has been presenting Just a Minute on BBC Radio 4 since 1967. It’s the first time that there has been something approaching stunt casting for quite a while. Parsons’ plays Reverend Wainright who is suffering from a lack of confidence which is something that will be more relevant in future episodes. I thought that it was a nice performance and even knowing who Parsons is I still buy who he is suppose to be playing. Anne Reid is another familiar face in this. Reid would return to Doctor Who to suck blood out of David Tennant’s neck in 2007 but I know her as one of the members of sitcom Dinnerladies. It’s a rather thankless character because she is playing the nurse for Dr Judson.

Miss Hardaker is a rather clichéd character but there is something that Janet Henfrey does to make it seem slightly better than it could have ended up. She is a rather annoying busybody who manages to belittle Wainright in her first appearance. Dinsdale Landen plays Dr Judson who is one of the key characters. Despite being in a wheelchair, he is one of the smartest people in the story. His involvement is greater in future episodes but its still a great character and I think that Landen does a good job of distracting us with a doddering old man in a wheelchair character that loves his job. Alfred Lynch is impressive as Commander Millington. From the very first moment that he appears he comes across as a rather intense character who is there to think like the Nazi’s would think. There is something that comes across rather sinister about him and I don’t think that its because its difficult to know when he is being himself and when the Nazi stuff is starting to take him over.

Sylvester McCoy has now appeared in more episodes than Colin Baker. It’s a rather good performance from McCoy and I like how the relationship between McCoy and Aldred has become really close. There are several exchanges where their friendship has really become solid. Sophie Aldred has some more character development for Ace. She comes across a baby that is called Audrey which is her mother’s name.

The episode ends with the Doctor and Ace being surrounded by the Russian soldiers. I don’t think that it’s a bad ending although I thought that the episode was alright in parts because it didn’t really seem to find its feet because it was too busy setting things. I have been watching this story in recent years in the feature length special edition that accompanies this DVD so it’s a new(ish) experience watching this in a four episode format and I think that problems with this story will soon surface. Only time will tell if things will change.