The Curse of Fenric (TV story)

The Curse of Fenric was the third serial of season 26 of Doctor Who. It revealed that the events of Ace's arrival in the Seventh Doctor's life, and the uncanny chance of their secondary foe during Silver Nemesis using proper time travel, were all part of this evil entity's plan to release itself and gain revenge on the Doctor for imprisoning it in its flask. The chessboard from Silver Nemesis was also a hint; the Doctor had initially beaten Fenric by using an unsolvable chess problem.

This story revealed the Seventh Doctor's deceitful qualities much more than he had demonstrated them in earlier adventures, and the repercussions his manipulative schemes had on people; specifically, when he did what he thought was best for their sake without their consent, but his actions damaged them.

Synopsis
The TARDIS materialises at a secret naval base off the coast of Northumberland during the Second World War. Dr Judson, a scientist there, has created the Ultima Machine, an early computer designed to break German codes. The base's Commander Millington plans to let a Russian commando unit led by Captain Sorin steal the machine's core, which he has booby-trapped with deadly toxin.

Judson uses the machine to translate some ancient runes from the crypt of the nearby St. Jude's Church and this leads to the release of Fenric, an evil entity from the dawn of time whom the Doctor trapped seventeen centuries earlier in a Chinese flask by defeating it at chess. The flask was later stolen and buried at the church by Vikings.

The base and church are attacked by Haemovores. These are humans who have been transformed into hideous vampiric creatures by the Ancient Haemovore — the last survivor of a pollution-ravaged future Earth, who has been brought back in time by Fenric. Fenric takes over Judson's body to challenge the Doctor to a rematch at chess, and Ace unwittingly helps it to win.

Fenric, now in Sorin's body, reveals that Ace, Judson, Millington, Sorin and Wainwright, the vicar of St Judes, are all "Wolves of Fenric" — pawns in its battle against the Doctor. It now plans to release the deadly toxin, but the Doctor succeeds in turning the Ancient Haemovore against it and its host body is killed by the gas. However, the Doctor is forced to do this by harshly belittling Ace to break her faith in him, as it was the only thing keeping Fenric's influence active.

The baby daughter of a young woman whom Ace helped to escape from the Haemovores is revealed to be her future mother. Meanwhile, the Doctor reconciles with Ace, who has finally overcome the psychological issues that plagued her life.

Part one
During World War II, two dinghies manned by Soviet soldiers row towards Maiden's Point on the English Northumberland coast, but one gets lost in the fog. Nearby, the TARDIS materialises, and the Seventh Doctor and Ace step out. The Doctor is content to stroll right in, but Ace is wary if this is a top-secret naval installation, then it should not be that easy. Indeed, only a few steps later they are confronted by armed guards. The Doctor befuddles the guards by complaining that it took them long enough and insulting their discipline. He then asks them where Dr Judson's office is. Going to see the wheelchair-bound Judson, the Doctor ingratiates himself with him by recognising the Prisoner's Dilemma which Judson has on a blackboard. Ace, too, impresses Judson by identifying a logic game that he also has mapped out. By the time the guard commander arrives to confront the Doctor and Ace about their unauthorised presence, the Doctor has already forged letters of authority from the Prime Minister and the Head of the Secret Service.

The Soviets, meanwhile, have discovered the sole survivor of the other dinghy, delirious and pale. The Soviet commander, Captain Sorin, asks the survivor where the sealed orders are but he is unable to answer. The orders are discovered washed up on the shore by another Soviet soldier. Inside is a photograph of Judson, but something in the water kills him before he can bring the orders back to Sorin. The Doctor and Ace have been put in barracks, and he tells her to go to bed while he walks around the grounds, noting to a guard that eyes are watching.

The next morning, the Reverend Wainwright finishes his service, speaking to a local spinster, Miss Hardaker, and her two charges, Jean and Phyllis, evacuees from the East End of London. The Doctor and Ace show up, looking for Judson, who is working on Viking inscriptions in the crypt of the church. Ace strikes up a conversation with Jean and Phyllis, and makes an appointment to meet up with them later at Maiden's Point. As they enter the crypt, Ace notices a lot of silver around and says they might get stolen. Wainwright assures her that the locals are too frightened of the Viking curse: the church was built on old Viking graves, and they say evil was once buried here. In the crypt, Judson is confident that the ULTIMA code machine, which he is using to decipher German intercepts, will be able to crack the inscriptions. Ace tells the Doctor she hears the sound of machinery, but the Doctor dismisses it as the sounds of the church organ.

The Doctor and Ace visit the churchyard, and note that it contains descendants of Vikings. When they go to Maiden's Point, they find the open packet of the sealed orders, and realise that there are Soviet soldiers about. The Doctor decides to go back to the church, and warns Ace not to go into the water. He finds Wainwright in the church, and correctly guesses that someone has already deciphered the inscriptions. Wainwright shows the Doctor a translation made by his grandfather, speaking of a curse following the Vikings who came here carrying Oriental treasure. They wished to go back to the "North Way" but the curse claimed their lives at Maiden's Bay. The Doctor reads part of the Soviet orders that mention Norway the "North Way", and takes the translation to Judson.

Ace returns to The Doctor and they continue looking around the base, and come across the room where some WRNS are listening to coded transmissions. One of the WRNS, Kathleen Dudman, has a baby whom Ace takes to even though she is named Audrey, the same as Ace's mother, whom she hates. Millington, however, is not as sympathetic, and orders Kathleen to get Audrey off the base within 24 hours or face dismissal from the service. Exploring further, the Doctor and Ace enter Millington's office, a perfect replica of the German cypher room in Berlin, where he tries to divine the mind of the enemy. There are two differences, though, a picture that shows that Judson and Millington went to school together, and a Viking-themed chess set.

In his office, Judson continues to read the translation, which tells of the final battle of the gods at the end of the world, which Millington seems to believe is nigh. As he reads, new runes appear burning into the wall of the vault, and a creature hiding behind a ruined Viking ship stirs. While searching Maiden's Point for more clues, Ace and the Doctor find the body of the soldier who found the orders earlier, with a strange object in his hand. They are then confronted at gunpoint by the other Soviets.

Part two
The soldiers take them back to Sorin once they discover that the Doctor and Ace know about their sealed orders. The Doctor tells Sorin that an assault on the base will be suicidal, and letting them go to investigate further is the only way to stop the evil that is killing his men. Already another soldier has been attacked and is delirious, holding on to a similar object which he hands to the Doctor.

In the meantime, Judson is carried away from deciphering the new inscriptions by his nurse, Crane, who finds the crypt too cold for an invalid. Millington insists that Judson use the ULTIMA to decode the inscriptions, even though it is needed for the German intercepts. The Doctor and Ace return to the crypt, noticing the new inscriptions. Remembering the machinery Ace heard earlier, they look for a secret door, but Millington finds them first, taking them at gunpoint into the hidden passages connected to the church. Inside, men are mining toxins from a natural source, a chemical weapon to end the war. The Doctor makes an allusion to the Well of Hvergelmir, where serpents spew their venom over the roots of Yggdrasil. This persuades Millington that the Doctor believes in Norse mythology as he does, and offers to show the Doctor all of it. The Doctor goes with Millington to the ULTIMA, leaving Ace behind in the church to talk to Wainwright, who seems to have lost his faith in humanity. He also says the church has lost its sense of sacredness.

At the ULTIMA, Millington reveals that the computer is bait for the Soviets, with a beaker of toxin hidden inside the machine. Millington shows the Doctor a room with row on row of shells, and an isolation chamber to test the toxin. As a demonstration, he breaks a vial inside the chamber, killing a cage of pigeons. The plan is to let the Soviets take the ULTIMA, and when they try to decrypt the British codes, a single word, "Love", implanted in a cypher will detonate the beaker.

In the crypt, a wall shakes open of its own accord, revealing an ancient looking urn, which is cast aside by the soldiers working there to seal up the church. At Maiden's Point, Jean and Phyllis enter the water again, fully dressed (Miss Hardaker having earlier confiscated their bathing suits), splashing around as a mist drifts into the bay, and when it clears, they are gone. Millington is informed that the operations at the church are being closed down, and he orders that all radio transmitters and outside telephone lines be disabled and any chess sets in the camp be burnt. Judson starts to decrypt the inscription and the ULTIMA spits out, "Let the chains of Fenric shatter."

Jean and Phyllis rise from the waves, skins pale and with long claws in place of fingernails. They lure a Soviet soldier into the water, but before he can reach them, monstrous hands grab and drag him under. Ace realises what the inscriptions are — a complex logic diagram for a computer program, and tells Judson this in his office. Armed with this knowledge, Judson excitedly tells Crane to take him to the ULTIMA room. Meanwhile, Jean and Phyllis go to Miss Hardaker and kill her. When Ace and the Doctor find Miss Hardaker's body drained of blood, the two vampire girls are already approaching Wainwright, who lost his faith when he heard about British bombs killing innocents. They are about to feed on him, but the Doctor arrives and dismisses them. They threaten to return for Wainwright.

The Doctor says that as long as Judson does not solve the inscriptions, everything will be all right. Ace, horrified, realises she has given Judson the solution and says the Doctor should have told her. They rush to the ULTIMA room as more monstrous vampires, some dressed in archaic clothing, rise from the bay. When the Doctor, Ace and Wainwright reach the machine, it is running at top speed and cannot be stopped. The urn in the crypt glows with a green light, as Millington says triumphantly that the Doctor is too late. He is convinced that once the chains of Fenric shatter, all its dark powers will be his.

Part three
The Doctor points out that the base's defences have been weakened because Millington wanted the Soviets to steal the machine, and reinforcements cannot be called for because the transmitters have been disabled. The Doctor explains that the vampires are really Haemovores, mutations from mankind's far future. Ace wants to make sure that Kathleen and Audrey are all right before they go back to the church. Wainwright traces the names of the descendants of the Viking settlers while the Doctor and Ace explore the crypt for clues. Ace finds the cast-aside urn, and puts it in her backpack without telling the Doctor, not considering it the Oriental treasure he is looking for. Wainwright finds the names the Doctor is looking for — the curse of Fenric passing down through the generations.

The Haemovores attack the church, Wainwright and Ace trying to beat them back with the church silver. Ace tries to escape through the roof, but is attacked by the Haemovores. Sorin and two of his men spot her struggles and rescue her, although their shots only slow the haemovores down. What eventually drives them back, however, is the Doctor's faith — as he chants the names of his former companions, the Haemovores scream and retreat. The Doctor explains that faith forms a psychic barrier that the Haemovores cannot penetrate. The Doctor orders everyone into the crypt, but Sorin says he needs to go back to his men. His faith in the revolution will protect him. He gives Ace his scarf, and tells her to be careful.

The Doctor finds the tunnel to the toxin stores (and a back way out) sealed, but Ace blows it open with two cans of Nitro-9. The two Soviet soldiers stay a bit behind to slow the Haemovores down. Ace takes out the flask she found, hoping to use it to mix more Nitro-9, but the Doctor recognises it as the treasure they've been searching for. Outside, Sorin keeps the Haemovores at bay with his Soviet Army badge, but they turn away from him and start moving back to the church, being drawn to the flask. When the Doctor, Wainwright and Ace reach the exit, Millington is waiting, and takes the flask, sealing the exit even though the two Soviet soldiers are still inside, now trapped with the Haemovores. They plead with Millington to open the shutters, but their pleas are ignored. Sorin moves back into the camp, telling his men to abort the mission if he is not back in ten minutes. He calls out to Millington to talk terms, officer to officer. However, Millington is not interested, and places Sorin under arrest. Sorin manages to warn his men, and they retreat. The Haemovores start to burn through the metal shutters of the tunnel, while Ace discovers Kathleen sitting alone in the barracks, numb with grief at receiving a letter informing her of her merchant navy husband's death at sea. Judson continues with the decoding of the inscription, now with the flask sitting in the ULTIMA.

Ace confronts the Doctor, demanding to know what he knows, bitterly complaining that he always seems to know, but just cannot be bothered to tell anyone, like it is a game that only he knows the rules to. The Doctor tells Ace about an ancient evil that has existed since the birth of the universe. Fenric is just Millington's name for it, and it is trapped in the flask. Ace lures Sorin's guard away while the Doctor frees the Soviet captain — they have to stop Fenric before he finds a body. Wainwright waits while the Haemovores break through the tunnel gates, and tries to hold them back with the Bible, but his faith is too weak and the Haemovores overwhelm him.

The flask in the ULTIMA flashes, hitting Judson with green energy, causing him to collapse out of his wheelchair. A storm whips up as the Haemovores advance over Wainwright's lifeless body. As the Doctor, Ace and Sorin reach the ULTIMA room, Millington murmurs that the chains of Fenric are shattered and the gods have lost the final battle. Ace thinks that Fenric has taken Millington, but she is wrong. Behind the Doctor, Judson rises to his feet, his eyes aglow, and proclaiming that "we play the contest again, Time Lord."

Part four
Fenric/Judson says that the Doctor trapped him in the Shadow Dimensions since the 3rd century, but now he has a body again and the preparations are complete. He teleports away as British soldiers rush in. Millington orders that the Doctor, Ace and Sorin be shot for treason. Before the firing squad can carry the order out, however, Sorin's men attack and the three escape. Fenric/Judson appears in the tunnels, meeting the Haemovores and asking them to fetch him the Ancient One. At the bay, the Haemovores perform the summoning, and the Ancient One, a hideously mutated Haemovore, rises from the waters. The Ancient One is from the far future of Earth, a time where it is the last thing left alive — the ultimate destiny that evolution and pollution has shaped for mankind.

The Doctor tells Ace that he needs a chess set, and they remember the one in Millington's office, but Millington has wired the chess set to explode, and they barely get out before the office is destroyed. Millington, meanwhile, meets Fenric/Judson in the toxin chamber, where Fenric reminisces about the time the Doctor beat him — carving pieces out of bones taken from the desert sand and setting up a chess problem. Fenric was unable to solve the puzzle and was banished, so now he seeks revenge. The Doctor explains to Ace why the names are important — they tell of where the curse has passed, to family names like Judson, Millington, Wainwright and Dudman. Ace remembers that Kathleen still has a chess set which escaped Millington's destruction order, and they go to retrieve it. The British soldiers use toxin grenades against the Soviets, but the Haemovores start killing the British soldiers. The WRNS become Haemovores and turn on the soldiers who come to rescue them. Fenric/Judson allows the Haemovores to kill Nurse Crane, in return for all the humiliation she visited on Judson over the years. When Bates, the guard commander, goes to warn Millington of the massacre, he overhears Fenric/Judson tell Millington that he will use the toxin stores to poison the world forever. Bates sneaks out again, and joins forces with the Doctor and Sorin to fight the real enemy. Sorin praises Ace for her bravery, and gives her his Soviet Army badge. Ace and the Doctor reach the barracks and take Kathleen's chess set. Ace stays to look after Kathleen and Audrey. The Haemovores crash in through a window, and they barely escape out through another. Ace bundles Kathleen and Audrey into a jeep, telling them to go to London, where Ace's nan will look after them. Kathleen gives Ace a picture of Audrey, and Ace kisses the baby goodbye, saying she will always love her. Fenric/Judson tells the Ancient One to take the poison into the oceans, and kill the other Haemovores. He concentrates, and the Haemovores collapse and crumble to dust. The Doctor sets up the chess puzzle in the toxin stores, and challenges Fenric/Judson to solve it. Millington is about to shoot Bates but Sorin's last man shoots Millington instead. As Fenric/Judson desperately contemplates the puzzle, the Doctor speaks to the Ancient One. He knows the Ancient One comes from a world where industrial pollution has caused the Earth to die in a chemical slime, and what Fenric is asking the Haemovore to do is to be the act that begins that — another one of Fenric's games.

When Sorin goes to kill Fenric, the weakened entity possessing Judson tells Sorin that he was chosen for this mission because his grandmother was English, and a descendant of one of the Viking settlers. Sorin is touched by the curse, too — one of the Wolves of Fenric. When Ace enters the toxin store, it is Sorin who is contemplating the puzzle, and Ace tells him the solution, realising too late that Fenric is now in Sorin's body. Fenric/Sorin solves the puzzle as the Doctor enters, and he gloats. All the descendants of the Viking who buried the flask were pawns in his game — Judson, Millington, Sorin, the Ancient One, and even Ace. In thirty years, Kathleen Dudman's daughter Audrey will become Ace's mother, the one Ace hates. In saving Kathleen and Audrey, Ace has created her own future. Fenric/Sorin orders the Ancient One to kill them. Ace, however, still has faith in the Doctor's infallibility, and that faith creates a psychic barrier that keeps the Ancient One back. Fenric/Sorin takes up a vial of the toxin, saying that he will kill the Doctor anyway, but if he would like Ace to live, to kneel before him. The Doctor callously tells Fenric/Sorin to kill Ace, revealing that he knew all along that Ace had Fenric's evil inside her. Why else would he have taken in a social misfit and an emotional cripple who could not even pass chemistry, yet somehow created a time storm in her bedroom? The Doctor saw Fenric's hand in it from the start (as soon as he saw the chess set in Lady Peinforte's study), and was just using Ace to get to him. With these belittling revelations, Ace's faith in the Doctor is shattered, and she falls to the floor weeping. The Ancient One is free to move, but, instead of killing the Doctor and Ace, forces Fenric/Sorin into the isolation chamber, shattering the vial of poison and killing them both. The Doctor pulls Ace out of the store as it explodes behind them.

The Doctor tries to explain to Ace that he didn't mean what he said, but had to break Ace's faith in him to allow the Ancient One to act. He would have done anything not to hurt Ace, but he had to save her from the curse. On the shores of Maiden's Point, Ace wonders why she cannot stop hating Audrey, her mother, even though she loved her as a baby. Ace dives into the bay, no longer frightened of the water, and surfaces, liberated. In doing so, it is implied that she has overcome her psychological troubles after being forced to face them by the Doctor's harsh words. The Doctor and Ace walk off, back to the TARDIS.

Cast

 * The Doctor - Sylvester McCoy
 * Ace - Sophie Aldred
 * Dr. Judson - Dinsdale Landen
 * Commander Millington - Alfred Lynch
 * Captain Bates - Stevan Rimkus
 * Sgt Leigh - Marcus Hutton
 * Perkins - Christien Anholt
 * Captain Sorin - Tomek Bork
 * Sgt Prozorov - Peter Czajkowski
 * Vershinin - Marek Anton
 * Petrossian - Mark Conrad
 * Rev Wainwright - Nicholas Parsons
 * Miss Hardaker - Janet Henfrey
 * Jean - Joann Kenny
 * Phyllis - Joanne Bell
 * Nurse Crane - Anne Reid
 * Kathleen Dudman - Cory Pulman
 * Baby Audrey - Aaron Hanley
 * Ancient One - Raymond Trickett

Crew

 * Assistant Floor Manager - Judy Corry
 * Costumes - Ken Trew
 * Designer - David Laskey
 * Incidental Music - Mark Ayres
 * Make-Up - Denise Baron
 * OB Cameraman - Paul Harding, Alan Jessop
 * Producer - John Nathan-Turner
 * Production Assistant - Winifred Hopkins
 * Production Associate - June Collins
 * Script Editor - Andrew Cartmel
 * Special Sounds - Dick Mills
 * Stunt Arranger - Tip Tipping
 * Theme Arrangement - Keff McCulloch
 * Title Music - Ron Grainer
 * Visual Effects - Graham Brown

Great Old Ones

 * Fenric met the Doctor in 3rd century Constantinople and, defeated at chess, was banished to "a shadow dimension" while its earthly essence was imprisoned in a flask for 17 centuries.
 * Fenric is the name given by Vikings to an ancient evil created at the dawn of time.
 * Fenric's flask was carried to England by the Vikings in the 9th century where a survivor of their expedition, Sundvik, settled and spawned generations of "wolves" who carried Fenric's taint. Descendant daughters of the line married into the families of Millington, Judson and Wainwright. Sorin is also a wolf of Fenric through his English grandmother, as is Ace through Kathleen Dudman, her maternal grandmother and Audrey, "the mother you hate".

Story notes

 * The Curse of Fenric was originally to have been shot, as with most Doctor Who serials, as a mixture of studio interiors and location exteriors. However, after reading the script, director Nicholas Mallett persuaded producer John Nathan-Turner that given the settings involved, the serial could be made more effective and realistic by shooting the entire production on location. Nathan-Turner eventually agreed to this proposition.
 * This story was originally going to be titled The Wolves of Fenric and before that, Wolf-Time. Other working titles were Powerplay and Black Rain. Fenric does refer to his servants as his "wolves" (and wolves have a strong link to Norse mythology). However, John Nathan-Turner felt that as the "wolves" connection was not revealed until quite late in the story, the title would not initially make any sense to the audience. It would appear that the change of story title came quite late in the day, as the Radio Times programme listing for Ghost Light part three bears the footnote "Next week a new story begins: 'The Wolves of Fenric' ".
 * For the scenes in part one involving Captain Sorin and his men paddling to the shore in dinghies, subtitles — in block capitals and in the style of a tickertape print-out — were superimposed on-screen (e.g. "WHAT'S HAPPENED TO OUR COMRADES?") to translate the Russian dialogue. This was the first use of subtitles in Doctor Who since The Mind of Evil in 1971, and is currently the last.
 * Although there are several references in the story to the Norse belief in a final battle at the end of the world, the word Ragnarok was removed from the script to avoid confusion with the Gods of Ragnarok from the previous season's The Greatest Show in the Galaxy.
 * The Radio Times programme listing for part two credits Alfred Lynch (Commander Millington) as "Millington", Peter Czajowski (Sgt. Prozorov) as "Prozorov" and Marcus Hutton (Sgt. Leigh) as "Leigh".
 * Cory Pullman (Kathleen Dudman) is credited as "Kathleen" in Radio Times for parts one and two.
 * Aaron Hanley (Baby) is uncredited on-screen for part two, but is credited in Radio Times.
 * Writer Ian Briggs based the character of Dr Judson on Alan Turing. (The "ULTIMA machine" of the story is based on the real Enigma machine.) In an interview for the DVD release of this story, Briggs said that, since at that time it was not considered appropriate to depict a character's struggle with homosexuality in a family programme, he transformed Turing's frustration at being unable to express his true sexual identity into Judson's frustration at being crippled. In the same interview, Briggs stated that he intended to suggest that both Judson and Millington were homosexual, and had a shared past, although this was not realised in the finished programme.
 * Ace mentions to Kathleen an old house in Perivale, which the Doctor overhears. Originally, this was supposed to be a foreshadowing of the events of Ghost Light, but the rearranging of the broadcast schedule turned it into a reference to a past story. Also, the Doctor starts off the story in a duffel coat that hid his altered outfit which was supposed to be revealed for the first time during the course of this story. This too was affected by the rearranging of the schedule, as the new outfit had already been seen in Battlefield.
 * Shooting on the serial went over-length to such a degree that consideration was briefly given to editing the story into five rather than four episodes. However, Ian Briggs strongly opposed this as he felt that the narrative flow would be badly disrupted.
 * The infant Audrey was portrayed by the son of the proprietors of The Bush Hotel on Shepherd's Bush Green who was familiar to the production team as it was near the Doctor Who offices.
 * Two of the Haemovores in part four are played by Sylvester McCoy's sons Sam and Joe Kent-Smith. Their scenes were cut from the transmitted version of part four, but were reinstated for the extended BBC Video version and the Special Edition movie-length version included on BBC Worldwide's DVD release of the broadcast version.
 * In the novelisation of the serial by Ian Briggs, when Fenric kills Nurse Crane, he reveals that she was a Russian agent and had led the soldiers to the installation, which may explain how Millington knew that the Russians were going to steal the ULTIMA machine. This was not derived from any information given in the televised version.
 * Removed from the script was a reference to Ace's having lost her virginity. (Ace's character outline specified that Sabalom Glitz had done the honours.)
 * The story tied together elements mentioned in passing in previous stories, specifically Peinforte's chess board in Silver Nemesis, and the circumstances that took Ace to Iceworld as related in Dragonfire.
 * This is the first televised story to be set during World War II.
 * This is the first televised story to link together events and aspects from previous ones to a significant extent: Fenric is revealed to have caused the time storms that sent Ace to Iceworld in Dragonfire and Lady Peinforte to 1988 England in Silver Nemesis, and is implied to have manipulated up to the entirety of the Seventh Doctor's life up to that point as part of his revenge plot. Though Logopolis previously provided an explanation for the CVE that took the Fourth Doctor and Romana II to E-Space in Full Circle, The Curse of Fenric provided a single plot point that tied together two other stories (and presumably the entirety) of the Seventh Doctor's tenure. The concept of linking stories together in this manner would reappear in Series 4, approximately 20 years later, and would become a fundamental aspect of the series when Steven Moffat became the show's head writer and executive producer in 2010.

Ratings

 * Part one - 4.3 million viewers
 * Part two - 4.0 million viewers
 * Part three - 4.0 million viewers
 * Part four - 4.2 million viewers

Filming locations

 * Crowborough Training Camp, Uckfield Road, Crowborough, East Sussex (Army camp)
 * Bedgebury Lower School (now known as Lillesden School for Girls), Hastings Road, Lillesden, Hawkhurst, Kent (Tunnels beneath church)
 * Yew Tree Farm, Slipway Hill, Cranbrook, Kent (Tunnels beneath church)
 * St Lawrence's Church, The Moor, Hawkhurst, Kent (St Jude church)
 * Roses Farm, Gills Green, Hawkhurst (Mrs Hardaker's cottage)
 * Lulworth Cove, Dorset (Maiden's Point)

Production errors

 * Ace fights a pair of Haemovores on the roof of the church, during which the mask of one of the actors becomes dislodged from the neck of his costume. The Haemovores also drop out of character during the fight, emitting very human sounds of mask-muffled grunting as they are attacked (in contrast to the inhuman, post-production sounds of pain they otherwise make in this serial).
 * The explosion that destroys Millington's office hurls debris into the camera, bouncing off the lens and causing it to shake.
 * The canisters of poison in the base arsenal are very obviously just a single wall of moulded plastic.

Myths

 * Some sources have incorrectly claimed that the baby, Audrey, has a Superted toy in her crib in part one, a character who wouldn't exist until the 1980s. However, it is not a Superted toy. It is, in fact, a knitted teddy bear which is an authentic 1940s period design.

Continuity

 * Ace talks of an old house in Perivale. (TV: Ghost Light) (The production team had originally intended this as foreshadowing rather than a continuity reference, but the order of the two stories was switched before broadcast.)
 * The Doctor reveals that Fenric had caused the separate time storms that transported Ace (prior to the events of Dragonfire) and Lady Peinforte (as shown in Silver Nemesis). Lady Peinforte's chess set relates to this.
 * The Doctor states to Kathleen that he does not know if he has any family. During his second incarnation, he told Victoria Waterfield that he could remember them, but only when he really wanted to; the rest of the time, "they sleep in my mind and I forget". (TV: The Tomb of the Cybermen)
 * The Doctor meets the adult Audrey again when he travels to February 1971 in order to apologise to the infant Ace for the Fenric and Gabriel Chase incidents. (PROSE: Ace of Hearts) She also met her as a toddler two years later in 1945. (AUDIO: Casualties of War)
 * Kathleen died in 1973. Although she was only three years old at the time, Ace distinctly remembered that her mother cried for days afterwards. (AUDIO: Night Thoughts)
 * In his investigation of reports of a series of agent provocateurs known as "the Doctor" who had been involved in numerous unusual incidents, the journalist James Stevens found evidence of the Doctor and Ace's involvement in the ULTIMA Incident, which was still classified in the early 1970s. The records indicated that the Doctor was "a short, quirkily dressed man, with a slight Scottish accent and immense intelligence." He noted that the two matched the descriptions of an enigmatic pair also known as the Doctor and Ace who were heavily involved in the Shoreditch Incident in November 1963. However, he was sceptical about the possibility of them being the same people as neither of them seemed to have aged in the intervening 20 years. In the interim, Stevens noted that this Doctor was present during a holiday alert in a Welsh holiday camp called Shangri-La in 1959 but that he was in the company of another young woman named "Mel." (PROSE: Who Killed Kennedy)
 * The Doctor is able to perfectly forge Winston Churchill's signature. He considered Churchill a personal friend. (PROSE: World Game, Players, TV: Victory of the Daleks)
 * Ace later refers to the meeting with Dr Judson as a 'caper'. (PROSE: Atom Bomb Blues)
 * The "brave Viking warriors" will be met by the Twelfth Doctor in the company of Bill Potts as he encounters the Ancient One again. (COMIC: The Wolves of Winter)

Home video and audio releases
DVD releases


 * This story was released as Doctor Who: The Curse of Fenric in a two disc set. The DVD included a movie-format "Director's Cut / Special Edition" version which was assembled by incidental music composer Mark Ayres from notes left by director Nicholas Mallett and discussions he had previously held with the director. It featured roughly ten minutes of additional footage, CGI effects and a new Dolby 5.1 soundtrack. As well, it opened with a dedication to Nicholas Mallett and producer John Nathan-Turner, both of whom had died by the point the DVD was produced.


 * It was released:
 * Region 2 - 6 October 2003
 * PAL - BBC DVD BBCDVD1154
 * Region 4 - 11 February 2004
 * Region 1 - 1 June 2004
 * NTSC - Warner Video E1993


 * Contents:
 * Take Two - BBC children's programme looks behind the scenes.
 * Shattering the Chains - Ian Briggs talks about writing the story.
 * Recutting the Runes - Behind the scenes on the new DVD "Special Edition"
 * Modelling the Dead - How to make a Haemovore mask.
 * Claws and Effects - A look at the production recce and visual effects tests.
 * Nebula '90 - The cast and crew reunited at a 1990 Doctor Who convention.
 * Music-only Option
 * Clean Titles Sequences
 * Photo Gallery
 * Production Subtitles
 * Easter Eggs-
 * On Disc One, navigate down to the special features option on the first menu and press select. Move down to the Claws and Effect option and hit left to highlight a hidden Doctor Who logo. Hit select to view BBC1 continuity announcements made before the original broadcast of all four episodes.
 * On Disc Two, navigate down to Recutting the Runes and hit left to highlight a hidden Doctor Who logo. Hit select for Mark Ayres talking about the re-scoring of the special edition of The Curse of Fenric.
 * When you play part two using the music-only option, you can hear the opening and closing theme tune sans sound effects. When you play part three using the music-only option, you can hear the sound effects sans the opening and closing theme tune.
 * When watching on disc one using the 'Play All' option and Info Text turned on, in between parts two and three, you get a 'Spot the Haemovores' challenge
 * Commentary: Sylvester McCoy, Sophie Aldred, and Nicholas Parsons
 * Notes:
 * Editing for the DVD release was completed by the Doctor Who Restoration Team.

VHS releases


 * Released as Doctor Who: The Curse of Fenric, the release, in episodic format, included roughly an additional six minutes of extra footage that was reinstated by John Nathan-Turner. Although included on the movie-length edit of the story (see DVD releases above), one scene that was not reinstated for this release was part of the action sequence on the church roof in part three, in which Captain Sorin and his men take hammers, along with several wooden stakes, from their backpacks, and (unseen) drive the stakes through the hearts of the Haemovores — the inclusion of which would have precluded a "PG" certificate.
 * It was released:
 * UK February 1991
 * PAL - BBC Video BBCV4453

Soundtrack

 * Main article: The Curse of Fenric (soundtrack)

The Curse of Fenric was one of the first serials to be awarded its own individual soundtrack album, as Mark Ayres' score was released in 1991 by Silva Screen Records on FILMCD 087. Besides the music from the serial, the album also included a new Ayres arrangement of the Doctor Who theme. Excerpts from the soundtrack also appeared on the 1994 release The Worlds of Doctor Who, also by Silva Screen (FILMCD 715).