Image of the Fendahl - Episode 4

I am watching this episode after just seeing Peter Capaldi’s first episode as the Doctor. First of all I thought that Deep Breathe was really good and I think that they made the right choice. The sight of a Dinosaur in London sort of does a great deal to make up for ‘Invasion of the Dinosaurs’. Now its back to business as I watch Tom Baker’s 84^th episode and the thing about these episodes is that I honestly couldn’t tell you what was going on. There is a lot of great things going on but I would be hard pressed to come up with an explanation. Image of the Fendahl is a case of style over substance.

The effect of transforming Thea into the gold lady was done quite well and also the effect of raising her up so she would be vertical was also a good effect. To be honest I think that this was a bit of a waste for Wanda Ventham because she’s a very good actress and she’s reduced to cameo status which is perhaps the worst thing that I can think of in this episode.

The performances from Tom Baker and Louise Jameson have been really good and the lack of K9 has definelty been a plus point. The writing has been good but its George Spenton-Foster who has really showed what can be done. If I was being picky then I could argue that the directing has been so good that it got in the way of me following what was actually going on because I was enjoying what I was looking at.

The idea that Max kills himself is quite a bold thing for a family show. It does fit in quite well with the dark theme of this story. We don’t see the death which perhaps makes it more grim than if we had seen it on screen.

The ending of the episode is rather odd because the priory explodes and we don’t have final scene with the surviving characters and before we know whats going on, the story moves back to the TARDIS where Leela’s hair is totally different. This has been a better story than I have thought in the past but it’s one that is slightly confusing and the fact that its been this baffling whilst entertaining shows how good a writer Chris Boucher was. The setting probably helped a lot but as I approach the next story I know that I am not too far away from one of my least favourite stories and I fear that this improving attitude to stories wont continue. As it is, Image of the Fendahl is a better story than ‘The Invisible Enemy’ but not as good as ‘Horror of Fang Rock’.