There are so many reasons why I love the Two Doctors I could chat about it ad nauseum. One of the best things about it is its utter uniqueness in Doctor Who history. There is quite literally no story like this one (whereas there are quite a few Caves of Androzani's and Talons of Weng Chiang's), a story which doesn't play by the rules of normal Doctor Who, that contains very little action and adventures but instead explores the plot ideas and characters so vividly. That abandons any sense of coherence for a slice of non stop indulgent fun. That uses dialogue so accurately that the script itself is worth gold. The Two Doctors doesn't want to be a safe runaround (but alas in places it touches upon this fabulous Doctor Who mini-genre), it wants to throw unpleasant images and concepts at you and expects you to accept them and move on.

One of the reasons I feel people moan about this story (and yet admittedly it had received critical acclaim in recent years) is the awkwardness behind some of the more 'adult' scenes on display. Shockeye's blatant cravings to eat a human is a uncomfortable reminder of our own obsessions and taking the metaphor one step further we see him lust after such a "fine, fleshy beast" laying her out on the kitchen table to have his wicked way. It becomes even more disturbing when we realise he craves a "jack" even more (and Jaime is then laid out on that exact same table whilst Shockeye tortures him horribly. This from the same man who bit into a live rat earlier in the show and held it up with a huge bite mark in it...very disturbing. The character of Shockeye is little more than a caricature but he is written (and played) with such utter conviction that the story takes on darker, less Doctor Who-ey shades than we are used to. 

Then there is the lack of plot. What? Lack of? I think not. It's actually a lovely plot and enjoyably complex. The only problem as far as I can see is the complete diverge from the plot as Doc 2 and Shockeye go into to town for some food. People bemoan that this story is too long but I must digress, yes it feels padded in places but if we started chopping unnecessary scenes we would be deprived of so many priceless scenes. I couldn't cut anything from this story justifiably. Doc 2 baiting Stike is totally pointless in the scheme of things but then we would miss Troughton's astonishing ability to switch from comedy to drama and back to comedy again in the blink of an eye. A few TARDIS scenes could be snipped but then we wouldn't be able to laugh as Colin abuses the machine in exactly the same way Troughton did earlier. And as for taking away the restaurant scenes....never! Some gorgeously placed black comedy in amongst the horror elsewhere and the death of Oscar, a scene I now celebrate because of its ability to get saddo fan boys so worked up. Even the obvious blood pouch in his shirt is just perfect. 

Bryant and Baker seem so much more comfortable with Homes' knowing hand to guide them. Those early TARDIS scenes are priceless with some the most rewarding dialogue they were ever given. I just love the Chris Columbus gag but the whole sequence about pin galaxies is also a treat. It's quite incredible how much Baker compares favourably to Troughton actually...all the tense scenes on the station are enhanced by his haunted reactions to everything. And all that talk about how brutal he is is just nonsense...look how he rushes to rescue Peri at the end of episode one or the scene that opens with him caressing her face to see if she's okay. Doctor nasty isn't making house calls today. 

Another thing this story manages that almost no other in the last four years has is its ability to have FUN. Its almost like a Doctor Who summer holiday with the amounts of running around in glorious Spain. With lots and lots of well scripted and acted comedy scenes and the gorgeous sun spilled landscape the fun just keeps coming. The last episode is a particular delight as things move back to the hacienda with lots of bluffs and double bluffs as characters are bumped off horribly (but memorably). The whole story is a bit of an indulgence in the end, not absolutely needed in the grand scale of Doctor Who but without it that infectious, enjoyable side to the show would be a sorrier place. The show is stuffed full of those little character bits, scenes like the celebrated one in Remembrance that 80's Who severely sacrificed in favour of action set pieces. Oscar's lovely speech about moths, the Doctor's reaction to the end of the universe, Jaime's attempt to get a kiss from anyone...lovely, lovely moments.

And lets not forget all the comedy that actually works. How funny is the scene where the Doctor keeps babbling and Peri is trying to listen to the horrible moanings that are echoing through the service duct. Scary but very funny. And only Robert Holmes could drive so much comedy from his own race, the Sontarans, they take themselves so bloody seriously (and nobody else does!!!) it makes Stike's eventual, horribly embarassing quadruple barreled death (stabbed, covered with acid, electrified by the time machine and blown up in his ship!) all the more wonderful. Shockeye's discovery of his bloody leg is the last straw, so funny it hurts. But the script is littered with well placed witty lines..."Centuries!!...if gonna take that long i'll see if Jaime's okay" is Peri's reaction to the end of the universe, Doc 2 and Shockeye discuss the delights of "Shepherd's Pie"...an apparently cannibal dish!, even better is how Troughton grates on about "monkeys" and later we see Peri chomping on a banana!!! Its long past time Doctor Who let its hair down after three years of serious (lets say dull) SF. 

This is probably the most entertaining story of Doctor Who's last ten years. Watching today we can critisize the amount of violence, the 45 minute episodes, the gratuitous location work but why bother. A story filled with so many rewarding moments, so much humour and horror, that deliberately flouts accepted Doctor Who law (continuity, realistic violence, genuine laughs!) to tell a great story should be celebrated. So I shall.

And I can't go without mentioning two of my favourite Who sequences...Cheseneye reverting back into an Androgum and lapping the Doctor's blood off the floor and the Doctor being chased through the hills of Seville by a knife weilding mainiac who uses the otherwise arbitary moth storyline to superb effect as he cyanides his victim to death. Doctor Who was never this totally brave again and thank god...the fans would probably have a heart attack.

Time and the Rani is utter crap, I would never deny that. The script is ludicrous, full of scientific mumbo-jumbo that would have Eienstein (who makes a brief appearance) baffled. It is poorly structured and has some seriously poor cliffhangers and the 'wow' moments are kept to an absolute minimum. The acting is as far from Oscar worthy as you could possibly get and the lines some of these well known actors are force fed make you want to die of embarrassment.

And yet...

I find this story immensely pleasurable from the word go. Every time I re-watch I find myself enjoying its barmy atmosphere. Its almost as if everybody knew they were onto a stinker so decided to make it as bad as possible in every way. On these terms the story is a forgotten classic, a comedy that rivals anything from the Williams era for laughs (and is even better than The Chase for post pub watching!!!).

Funny? Oh yes it is! Scarily enough the Rani's Bonnie impressions are actually very good (and wet your pants hysterical!)...her little asides ("Pretentious is the word") never fail to get me going. Kate O'Mara gives a performance so camp that it knocks Benik, the Security Chief and Lady Adastra out of the pool! Its a daft script so it deserves a daft performance and O'Mara's treatment of the character doesn't diminish my love the character one jot. Just watch her delayed reactions as the Doctor ties her up at the end of episode ("Arraaagh!") or her grandiose villany dialogue ("I have the Loyhargil! Nothing can stop me now!"). Get stuffed Zaroff..the Rani is now the best OTT baddie!

D'you what the funniest thing about this story is that Pip'n'Jane (bless them) actually thought this effort was a serious and dramatic way to start the season. Its more like The Nutty Professor on speed with a dose of LSD for good measure! 

Poor Bonnie, all she wants are good scripts so she can show the world what she's made of and she's made to trip over, fall unconscious, scream, get tongued by a Tetrap, scream, get suspended upside down, scream, put in a bubble and bounced around a quarry and of course...scream. The reprise to episode two is brilliantly funny where Mel is supposed to scream for like three minutes without stopping and you can hear that poor Bonnie's voice is going and yet she struggles on gamely. I love Bonnie to pieces and she proved her self admirably in Trial of a Time Lord and the Big Finish plays so im now convinced it was a case of wrong time/wrong place plus crapper than crap scripts. The scenes where Mel is underwitten (such as her desperate pleas to Ikona and her reaction to Faroon's reaction to Sarn's death) are genuinely well acted and poignant.

Lets face it...McCoy is awful in this but he plays the part so loosely (and with such comedy) its impossible not to enjoy. In many ways its good that Colin escaped this story as I cannot imagine how he would have fared here. With no real character to discern here McCoy just plays himself on overdrive and its quite infectious in places...I love the first scene between Mel and the Doctor ("Theory exchanges no mockery!")...full of energy and quite sweet when they realise who they are. Unfortunately he plays up the awful proverbs (although the recent Bang-Bang-a-Boom takes the piss out of that so I guess it was worth it) and the more cringe worthy aspects of the character. Alas who could ever forget "A hologram! As substantial as the Rani's scruples!"...shiver. 

And lets not forget that this story has a fully competent production. Andrew Morgan is the only person who is determined to inject some talent into this story and his direction is excellent in places. He might be lumbered with another quarry but he tries to make things interesting by shooting at high angles and setting the camera's between the rocks for some inventive shots. The special FX for the story are as good as the show ever got and the bubble traps Mel has a habit of falling into look superb. The asteriod, rocket lift off and bulging brain look good too. It really is a case of dire script/excellent production. And lets not forget Keff McCulloch who I feel gives his best music in this story, its a really freaky techno-inspired score sometimes totally at odds with the action but always very memorable. Love the piece where Ikona looks for the glitter weapon and the theme where the Tetraps jump down from the ceiling and emerge...very cool. 

So there we have it, its hearts in the right place but its brain has been stuck on heroine too long, a story that looks fab but you cannot take seriously. At the time it was the worst thing that could have happened. Now, many years on it is a guilty indulgence and hugely enjoyable at that.

Ladies and Gentlemen I give you Doctor Who...the only show in existence that is brilliant when it sucks.

‘Paradise Towers’ is one of those stories that many fans dislike immensely, and like many season twenty-four stories it is widely believed to be a childish and silly run-around. As I stated in my review of another story that this season threw up, ‘Dragonfire’, such criticisms are probably accurate, but then again the production team weren’t aiming for the gothic horror feel of the seventies. They were approaching Doctor Who from a completely different angle, and to a certain extent it was probably designed to be childish and silly. Many fans hated this approach to making Doctor Who. I personally don’t have a problem with this – it is a children’s show after all – as long as there’s an interesting story full of interesting characters lurking underneath all of the fluff. Paradise Towers has that, and so in my eyes redeems itself.

The Doctor and Mel travel to the luxury apartment complex Paradise Towers so that Mel can go for a swim in its pool. Once they land they discover that the towers have fallen into disarray, and that its inhabitants have divided up into factions. There are the Kangs (girl gangs), Caretakers (fascist police) and Rezzies (old ladies). However, something evil is lurking in the basement, and it is up to the Doctor to unite the factions and defeat the evil. 

Writer Stephen Wyatt packed his scripts with some fascinating ideas. Indeed, a story featuring cannibalistic old Ladies, killer cleaning robots, fascist caretakers and street gangs has all the right ingredients for a good Doctor Who story, yet in the process of this production going from script to screen something went wrong. 

Maybe it was the casting of Howard Cook in the role of Pex, who just comes off as rather silly. You never find his character funny or sympathetic as was probably intended. Then there is the ever awful Bonnie Langford as Mel. Here, she strives to give what must be her worst ever performance by continually over emphasising every single line. Sylvester McCoy still isn’t coping to well, but at least he’s better here than in Time and the Rani. Then we come to the killer cleaning robots. Now, I know the show was made on a very small budget, but these things look awful, and in the final part we learn that a single arrow hit from a Kang crossbow can destroy them. I find it hard to believe that a whole tribe of Kangs could be wiped out from things so easy to kill. Then there is the padding. This four part adventure should have been condensed into three parts. The writer uses the ploy of the Doctor escaping and then getting recaptured, and pads his scripts further with Mel wandering down corridor after corridor and then getting stuck in a lift. The incidental music is awful, with the production being suited to a much darker score. But hey, that’s Keff McCulloch for you.

On the flip side of the coin, I thought Richard Briers as the chief caretaker was wonderful. Only when his body is inhabited by the great architect Kroagnon does he become embarrassing and unintentionally hilarious. Actually, I rather enjoyed all of the scenes with the caretakers. The idea of fascist caretakers, complete with German world war two era style uniforms, enforcing pointless rules and regulations, is very entertaining. 

Also worthy of note is the language used by the Kangs. The idea of young people developing their own language has been seen before, of course, most notably in A Clockwork Orange, but it’s an interesting idea and works well here.

Before I tie this review up, I feel I must mention the one plot hole that this story contains. It is, after all, quite a massive one. Why did the inhabitants of the towers separate Kroagnons brain from his body and imprison him in the basement. He himself says ‘no one knows my paradise towers better than me’, surely it would have made more sense to simply kill him? It also beggars’ belief that they left him with all the technology needed to escape. Clearly more thought should have gone into this.

After watching ‘Paradise Towers’ you always get the feeling of a missed opportunity. The story has the potential to say rather more about urban housing and the effect it has on its inhabitants than it actually does, and treated in a more serious manner by director Nicholas Mallet this could have been a great story, rather than just a fair one. Yes, Paradise Towers has its flaws (no pun intended), but I always find it enjoyable and is one of the better stories of McCoy’s early time on the show.

The Doctor meets an old friend, defeats a cold hearted psychopath and acquires a new assistant in a solid if unspectacular space adventure romp. ‘Dragonfire’ is most notable for two reasons. Firstly, for being the story in which the Doctor says goodbye (and good riddance?) to Mel, and secondly for introducing his new assistant, the ‘street-wise’ Ace.

The adventure begins when the TARDIS lands on Iceworld, an ‘intergalactic trading post’ from which the Doctor has been receiving a signal. Once there he meets up with Sabelom Glitz and a young waitress originally from twentieth-century earth called Ace. Glitz, having recently sold his entire crew to cover a gambling debt, has in his possession a map which he says will lead to treasure, and so he and the Doctor set off to uncover the mysteries of Iceworld. Unbeknownst to them they are being tracked by Kane, ruler of Iceworld, through a device hidden in the map. What starts out as a promising quest style adventure is spoilt somewhat by poor production design and sloppy plotting. 

And poor production design is where we shall begin. The most obvious thing one can say about this serial is how cheap the sets look. Indeed, the various locations around Iceworld in which the main characters travel through are pathetic, a garish example of bad production design. This, coupled with a very poorly realised dragon creature, looking rather too cuddly and never anything but a person in a big monster suit, almost completely ruin what could have been an enjoyable Doctor Who story. Now, some may argue that if you watch Doctor Who and consider yourself a fan, then you shouldn’t be bothered by the production design of a famously low-budget sci-fi show. I would argue that there are many examples of good production design running through the series history, ‘Ghostlight’, for example, looked a million dollars. 

Also going against this story is a plot which at times doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. For example, we are told that Kane has been imprisoned on Iceworld for three thousand years, and yet when it actually comes to the business of escaping it all seems rather easy. I should also point out at this juncture that ‘Dragonfire’ is full of padding, with lots of things happening that are more or less inconsequential to the plot. These include Glitz trotting off to recapture the Nosferatu and the failed assassination attempt on Kane by Kracauer and Belazs, and don’t get me started on the pointless sequences with the little girl and her teddy. The majority of Doctor Who stories are filled out with scenes that really shouldn’t be there, but when the main plot needs more explanation, these little diversions become ever more annoying. 

Whilst I’m dealing with the weaker aspects of the story, what the hell was that cliff hanger to episode one all about? Not only does it make NO SENSE WHATSOEVER, it is also slightly depressing in that it gives the impression the production team of the time were not too fussed about the show. It’s like they looked at the script and said, ‘OK chaps, this makes no sense, but let’s carry on regardless and make ourselves look like complete arses.’ At the end of episode one there was in fact a perfect place for a cliff hanger, when the dragon confronts Ace and Mel. The whole thing smacks of sloppiness. 

‘Dragonfire’ is saved by a wonderfully over the top performance from Edward Peel as Kane and solid performances from the rest of the cast. Peel delivers his lines really believing in what his character is saying, which is unusual in this era of the shows history when a lot of the supporting actors seemed to be playing it for laughs (Briers and Dodd, I’m looking at you). In fact, all of the main cast give good performances (Langford excluded), with McCoy beginning to get to grips with the role of the Doctor, playing it much straighter than before. TV newcomer Sophie Aldred, who plays Ace, begins her Doctor Who career in a less than convincing manner, although she would improve immeasurably through the next two seasons. I don’t think her early poor showing is entirely her own fault, as her dialogue is awkward and clunky. Streetwise teenagers at the time never said ‘Wicked’ or ‘Brill’. She is at least an improvement over Langford, who here demonstrates why fans hate her so much. Glitz, who returns after previously featuring during the Colin Baker era, is well portrayed by Tony Selby as a Del-Trotter style wheeler-dealer and small time crook. Although entertaining, it’s difficult to see what he actually contributes to the story. It would appear that he was included as a mechanism for Mel to leave the company of the Doctor and the series and for that, he will forever have my thanks. 

Performances apart, ‘Dragonfire’ also manages to clamber up the rungs of respectability with a classic Doctor Who moment when the Doctor, attempting to distract a guard with philosophical babblings, discovers that not all nameless henchmen are dumb heavies. Also worthy of mention is the excellent special effect at the end of episode three when Kane, exposed to sunlight, melts in an extremely effective and surprisingly horrific manner. I must also mention the incidental music, which is atmospheric without being too intrusive, and nowhere near as bad as what we got for the majority of the McCoy era. 

One of the big problems in reviewing ‘Dragonfire’ is that season twenty-four in general marked a different approach to making eighties Doctor Who. For the first time in a long while the show appeared to be aiming for the kids TV audience. Now, the rights and wrongs of this approach have been debated many times before and there is little new to say on this issue, but it does mean that season-twenty four stories have to be viewed in the context of what the show was trying to do at the time. Yes, it is gaudy, childish and at times very silly, but it is also a lot of fun. Compared with classic stories of earlier eras ‘Dragonfire’ will always come off worse, but then the two are incomparable to any real extent because season twenty-four was so different to everything that had gone before. 

In closing, view ‘Dragonfire’ as an entertaining and at times silly piece of entertainment and you’d be hard pressed not to enjoy yourself. Yes, it’s flawed, but is not as bad as some would have you believe.

Before I begin this review proper I’ll first point out that what I’m reviewing here is the 1993 video release, and not the original 1988 broadcast version. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, being five years old at the time of broadcast, it would be impossible for me to review that version (until a special edition DVD is released, containing the original and extended versions a la ‘The Curse of Fenric’). Secondly, the video release is one mostly likely seen by most fans more than fifteen years after broadcast. Not that it would make a whole lot of difference, as I gather the added footage doesn’t change the story a great deal. Anyway, on with the review… 

I’ll get straight to the point with this one. ‘Silver Nemesis’ has a reputation for being utter tripe, without a single redeeming feature. Many would have you believe that ‘Silver Nemesis’ is in fact one of the worst Doctor Who stories of all time. And, in many respects they are right. But for some reason, I can’t help but enjoy watching it. Shoot me. Now that I’ve got that out of the way, you’ll understand why I’ll spend the next four paragraphs ripping into the story, only to recommend it as an entertaining diversion at the end. And rip into it I shall.

Let me first deal with the similarities in plot this has with ‘Remembrance of the Daleks’. It has to be said that the two are basically the same story told in slightly different ways. To summarise the plot, various groups are fighting over a super weapon, with one of these groups being one of the Doctors oldest adversaries, the Cybermen. The Doctor manipulates the various factions into wiping each other out, until only the orbiting Cyber fleet is left. He then uses the weapon against the Cyber fleet, completely obliterating them. Replace Cybermen with Daleks and Cyber fleet with Skaro and you have the basic plot outline for ‘Remembrance of the Daleks’. This might have been excusable if these two stories were spread out over different seasons or if ‘Silver Nemesis’ actually tried to hide these similarities, but they were broadcast far too close to each other and at one point during ‘Silver Nemesis’ Ace says, “Just like you nailed the Daleks.” It’s almost as if the production team were proud in some way to be recycling plot lines.

‘Silver Nemesis’ is full of some of the most obvious padding of any Doctor Who story. The encounter with the skin heads and the limo ride with Delores Grey add absolutely nothing to the story and are, please forgive me for lowering the tone, shite. These are two prime examples, but one could also mention all that nonsense with the queen and her security guards. These scenes are so excruciatingly bad they border on the cringe worthy. If these pointless little diversions (which are clearly meant to be humorous, but aren’t) were removed then you’d have a half decent story. McCoy and Aldred are both a joy to watch, from their first scene enjoying a jazz session, where Courtney Pine guests as himself, to the scene where the pair jam the Cybermen signal for reinforcements with one of Pines cassettes. The battle scenes are well handled and the English countryside is well used as an exceptionally pretty backdrop. Furthermore, the supporting cast, which includes Anton Diffring and Fiona Walker as Her De Flores and Lady Peinforte respectively, all give decent performances, despite being poorly served by the script. But even with these plus points, ‘Silver Nemesis’ seems more than able to shoot itself in the foot and back all at the same time with one element to the story they really should have tried harder to get right. I am, of course, referring to the Cybermen.

Now, no review of ‘Silver Nemesis’ would be complete without commenting on these ‘deadly adversaries’. For a monster or creature to work and be scary within the confines of an early evening family show, then it should all be taken deadly serious by the cast and crew. It shouldn’t be played for laughs. But laugh at the Cybermen I did. You see these buffoons are so weak, stupid and incompetent that half of their number is wiped out by gold tipped arrows, and the other half by a teenage girl with a slingshot and some gold coins. I do realise that gold is to these creatures what garlic is to vampires, but here it is taken to ludicrous extremes, with them fleeing in terror at the slightest hint there may be some gold nearby. Yes, the costumes look great and the effect on the end of the Cyber guns is rather nifty, but they appear unable to shoot straight and are easily defeated. I’m also confused as to why the Cyber fleet only sent down one small group to retrieve the Nemesis, when in orbit we are told they have “thousands of ships”. 

It has to be said that it doesn’t start off too bad. In fact, episode one is quite promising. It’s only when all of the main players are involved does it begin to fall apart. And that is perhaps the biggest flaw with ‘Silver Nemesis’. Far too many things are happening, and the whole thing jumps around far too much.

I said I would recommend it, and I shall. You see, for all its flaws and shortcomings as a piece of TV Sci-fi and as a Doctor Whostory, I always enjoy the experience of watching ‘Silver Nemesis’. Maybe it’s the ‘so bad its good’ element. Perhaps ‘Silver Nemesis’ is really a classic Doctor Who adventure, it’s only when you attempt to pull it apart and analyse it does it transform into the polished turd that most think it is, I’m not sure. But what I am sure about is that every time I watch ‘Silver Nemesis’ and come away from it knowing it was pap and knowing there are far more productive ways to spend my free time, I’m also aware that I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

And isn’t that the point?

Season twenty-six of Doctor Who threw up some great stories. ‘Survival’ and ‘Ghostlight’ are widely recognised as beingDoctor Who of the highest order, and rightly so. OK, so ‘Battlefield’ was pants, but every season contains at least one shocker. Out of the four stories broadcast that season was a Doctor Who story that I consider to be the best of the best, ‘The Curse of Fenric’. 

It can be difficult to review this story as there are really three different versions floating around. There is of course the 1989 original broadcast, which is also included on the DVD release. Then there is the early nineties video release, which contains new material not originally broadcast, and finally the special edition DVD release, including even more new footage, a new 5.1 Dolby soundtrack and new CG special effects. Scenes are also rearranged so that the whole thing plays much more smoothly, as the director Nicholas Mallet originally intended. In my opinion, all of the things that make this story so great were already in the original broadcast, so that is what gets reviewed here. The special edition is just icing to the already delicious cake underneath. Also, it is probably unfair to review the special edition alongside episodic televised stories, as the thing has had a lot of extra care taken with it (outlined above). 

In fact reviewing ‘The Curse of Fenric’ isn’t only made difficult by the various versions of it that exist. It’s made more difficult by the fact that it’s a near impossible task trying to nail down just what the story is all about. Is it a), an anti-war story, b), a vampire story, c), a character study of Ace as she grows into a woman, d), a story about ecological disaster or e), a WW2 war story. It’s all of these things and more.

Set during WW2 Ace and the Doctor travel to a secret military intelligence installation on the English coast, where base Commander Millington and Dr Judson are cracking Nazi codes. They also appear slightly preoccupied with Viking rune stones, for reasons that are made more apparent later. Thrown into this mix are Russian Spetznatz commandoes who arrive to steal the computer that is cracking the codes. Unknown to them, the computer contains a chemical bomb that will detonate when a certain word is decoded back in Russia. As if all this wasn’t enough, vampire hordes (Haemovores) rise from the sea and summon the ‘ancient one’. As the story unfolds we learn that this is all a backdrop to an ancient game played out between Fenric and the Doctor.

All of these elements could have made ‘The Curse of Fenric’ an unfocused mess, but I feel the chaotic narrative structure (which is more apparent in the broadcast version) is suited to one of the themes that Ian Briggs was writing about; Chaos. The story is essentially an anti-war piece, with Fenric representing war and chaos. As the story unfolds more and more people die senselessly either at the hands of the Haemovores or the soldiers, who spend the final episode dying in their droves. The Reverend Wainwright is actually one of the more important characters in this regard, as he has lost his faith because of the horrors of war and ends up losing his life as a result. On the DVD, Briggs talks about sex being an important part of the story also, but this is alluded to far less in his scripts, (it is primarily a children’s show after all!).

Moving away from the plot and themes, it has to be said that ‘The Curse of Fenric’ looks superb. Entirely shot on location, the story contains an atmosphere that very few late eighties Doctor Who stories ever did. Mallet directs superbly, especially considering the time constraints. As Briggs points out on the DVD, ‘The Curse of Fenric’ was recorded on a fourteen day shoot, which is very little time when what they filmed was essentially a feature film. 

Mark Ayres’ score is haunting, creepy and a pleasant move away from the horrible Keff McCulloch synth-rock music we got during the majority of the McCoy era. 

Performance wise, ‘The Curse of Fenric’ can’t really be faulted. McCoy gives one of his best performances as a much darker Doctor. Now, many people have a problem with the idea of a ‘dark Doctor’. I’ve never really understood this, as in my opinion it makes the character of the Doctor far more interesting. He doesn’t just wander into situations, bumbling around finding solutions by accident. Now he has a plan, he often knows what is going to happen and doesn’t mind using the people around him like pawns. Ace, at the end of episode four, has to broken down in order for the Doctor to defeat Fenric, and to do this he has to destroy her faith in him.

Speaking of Ace, this has to be one of Aldreds finest hours in the show. She plays the part with a maturity not often seen before. This story, like other season twenty-six stories sees Ace being a pivotal feature of the action, so it was important she performed well.

The supporting cast are all excellent, especially Nicholas Parsons as Wainwright, even if he didn’t have a clue what was going on (on the DVD commentary he sound absolutely bewildered and completely confused!). Perhaps the only criticisms of the performances that could be made would be of the two young evacuees, Phyllis and Jean. They act as if they are appearing in a dodgy sixth-form production, and actually have quite substantial roles in the story.

If you haven’t seen ‘The Curse of Fenric’, then you really ought to. Any preconceived notion about the McCoy era ‘all being a silly pantomime’ will be blown away by the best Doctor Who story ever.