TV Club: Doctor Who, The Curse of Fenric
The Curse Of Fenric (season 26, episodes 8-11; originally aired 10/25-11/15/1989)
The Curse Of Fenric, like many Doctor Who stories, is about a battle to stop an impending apocalypse. It was also close to an apocalypse for Doctor Who in real life: This was the second-to-last story the series aired before its cancellation. And that was a real shamebecause while The Curse Of Fenric isn’t brilliant or even much above average, it does represent a huge improvement over the embarrassing mess of the Sixth Doctors seasons 22 and 23, and one which provided a clear direction for the current revival.
Curse Of Fenric also shows how Doctor Whos greatest strength, its ability to reinvent itself, wasnt limited to a change in lead actor, but was driven by behind-the-scenes changes in production staffin this case, by the addition of the classic-era series final script editor, Andrew Cartmel. Cartmel and Sylvester McCoy, who played the Seventh Doctor, came on board at the same time, in the wake of a catastrophic meltdown that had resulted in, among other things, previous star Colin Baker getting fired. Their first season, led off by Time And The Rani, wasnt much of an improvement, but Cartmel and McCoy both pushed for changes and received, by their third and final season, a pretty solid reinvention anchored by a new take on the Seventh Doctorthe comic buffoonery of Time And The Rani was downplayed, with McCoy now portraying a slightly bumbling but ultimately wise and mysterious near-mystical figure who acted as surrogate father to his spirited but troubled companion Ace (Sophie Aldred).
Originally published Feb. 19, 2012 on avclub.com. Read the complete article.
No Comments
No comments yet.
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI
Leave a comment
You must be logged in to post a comment.