Doctor Who: Image of the Fendahl (1977) Review

 

Image of the Fendahl is like sweating through a bizarre fever dream, and about as draining. 

WRITTEN BY

Chris Boucher, who is far, far, far, far, far, far, far better suited to the 45-minute format of Blake's 7 than the serialisation of Doctor Who. 

PLOT

Hell if I know. Something about a living telepathic skull landing on Earth and influencing humanity to produce more of its kind (except they're grubs and gold-painted women instead of skulls). The Doctor's in it, spouting whatever Tom Baker comes up with when he's sat on the toilet. He also directly aids in suicide. 

ANALYSIS

I have sometimes criticised the modern series of Doctor Who for taking advantage of its "anywhere, anytime" premise to produce shallow, cartoonish and frankly lazy stories that abandon all internal logic because hey, it's set in the future. Why not a forest in a bottle on a space ship in a maze (actual quote)? Why not a railroad between planets with a 20th century Orient Express chugging around? Werewolves as aliens! Victorian London on Mars! The Statue of Liberty stomping around!

These types of 'fantasy'-based stories have never appealed to me. I wouldn't even call them fantasy, but something more akin to Alice in Wonderland, a story deliberately constructed to be a whimsical flight of fancy, not to make sense. Which is all well and good for Alice, but for a character like the Doctor, who routinely involves himself in human tragedy? If I'm expected to worry about the Doctor and care about his feelings, then the story had better make sense. Otherwise, I'll just be asking why he won't wave his magic wand and make the badness go away. 

Doctor Who's classic run was generally better at this sort of thing, partially owing to a vastly larger runtime per individual story. It could afford to flesh out whatever environment the TARDIS visited, provide legitimate stakes and guest roles that were more than just tired stereotypes for the Doctor to interact with. At its best, a Doctor Who serial is like a fine Jules Verne novel: engrossing, intelligent and gripping. 

Image of the Fendahl is not one of those serials. In fact, it's the worst kind of lazy fantasy.

Now, to its credit, Fendahl is not entirely without merit. It evokes a wonderful atmosphere of the supernatural, of ghosts and skeletons and primal horror. Anyway, there are some daring moments, some delightfully memorable characters and great lines. But what does any of that matter when you've got a script that Mystery Science Theater 3000 would reject as too silly? 

Whatever solid idea Boucher might have had for a story is utterly buried under a neverending series of contrivances, all resolved with contrivances. Practically every plot point is introduced in the most baffling, non sequitur way possible, and then handwaved away as if the writer became irritated by its existence. For example, Scott Fredericks' character Max is revealed to be an evil cultist who wants... I don't even know, the power of the Fendahl, I suppose? Why? How? Doesn't matter. And then he of course realises he can't have whatever he expected to have, shoots himself and that's the end of that. How did the Fendahl get to Earth? Errr, astral projection. And the concept of astral projection is part of human race memory, because yeah, that definitely covers it. The Fendahl can open time fissures, rework biology within a day, paralyze people, transform from grubs into Madonna wannabes. They need twelve Fendahleen to become a Fendahl because shut up, they do. But salt kills them. It lacks any rationality or consistency. 

But worst of all, it's just not engaging. Nothing of substance happens until part 4, which is when the Fendahl finally reveal themselves. Everything up to that point is just miscellaneous supernatural phenomena foreshadowing what's to come. The Doctor is barely involved, and none of the guest characters (save for two) are interesting enough to warrant spending so much time on them. It's a gruelling, confusing watch. 

CHARACTERS

Whoever cast Edward Arthur as Colby should've been shot. He has all the best lines, but delivers them all in such a shouty, petulant manner that one begs to see him dead. I understand that Colby isn't supposed to be a likable person, but that doesn't mean the audience should despise him as well. Colby's wit is sadly wasted on Arthur's performance. 

Tom Baker and Louise Jameson are delightful as usual. Louise in particular continues to impress in a way I hadn't really noticed before. Although the character of Leela was conceived as a modern Eliza Doolittle, the show always made sure to keep her close to her native roots, and innocent to the ways of the world. As a result, Leela is both consistently endearing and unique in her mindset, always translating foreign concepts in ways she - as a savage warrior - can understand. She's probably one of the best written companions in the show's history. 

Scott Fredericks (Carnell in Weapon) is always fun to watch, but he's sadly playing a stock lunatic with hardly any depth to him. We don't even know where he comes from, and what convinced him of Ma Tyler's visions. Does he live in the village? Is this part of his heritage or something? Wouldn't Denis Lill's Fendelman (who is specifically mentioned as having grown up near the fissure) be a much more appropriate choice for this type of character? At least with Fendelman, there's some hints of a personality. The fact that Fendelman was a technician who mysteriously became obsessed with learning about Man's origins provides a nice creepy hint that his mind was being warped by the Fendahl. But with Max, we really have no idea what's going on in his head so it's hard to care about him. He just seems to be there as an obstruction to prevent the story from ending two episodes early. 

The only saving grace and anchor to the story are the Tylers, a batty grandma-grandson pair who provide some much needed levity and a sincere family dynamic... even if one of them is a witch. The homely scenes in their cottage are just about all I really enjoyed about Fendahl. 

NOTES

• As with The Robots of Death, I'm only reviewing this because the two Doctor Who stories tie into the Kaldor City spinoff, which crosses over with Blake's 7 as one of the post-Gauda Prime timelines.
• The hiker whistles Scott Joplin's timeless classic 'The Entertainer'. Okay, so maybe there's two things I enjoyed. 
• K-9 has broken down again, which he did in about 3/4 of his stories as I recall. 
• A 'sonic time scan' is surely a contradiction in terms? What does scanning time have to do with sound? 
• Who exactly is Fendelman that he can order henchmen to show up on the double?
• I know that it's in Max's interest for the police not to appear, but how come nobody questions his decision to do a post-mortem on a body? I don't think that's legal (or ethical), even if he has a licence for that sort of thing. And I'm not sure he should, given that he's working on an archeological project. Unless he too was somehow redirected from a different type of occupation like Fendelman.
• What in the name of Uranus is a 'sonic shadow', how did it affect Fendelman's missile guidance system and what does it have to do with Fendahl skull pieces???
• I love fog machines. There's nothing like a good old fog machine working overtime to bring out the spooks. 
• But what I don't love is that most tiresome of British drama cliches: earnest people shouting "Don't you see?!?!?" over and over again. 
• Who let the Doctor out of the locked room, and what for?
• How does Thea/the Fendahl not notice or do something about the Doctor running circles around her and ruining her plan?
• What is the deal with her eyes? 
• What causes the implosion of the priory, and why does that make time reverse? Is it the time fissure closing? If so... how? All the Doctor did was hotwire Fendelman's scanner thingy. Then again, he did once build a machine out of wine corks when he was Jon Pertwee. 

INFORMATION!

• Leela suggests that professor Marius would not be pleased with K-9's treatment at the hands of the Doctor. Professor Marius was K-9's original owner in the serial The Invisible Enemy. 
• Leela insults Moss by comparing him to a child of the Sevateem, her tribe in the serial The Face of Evil. 
• The Fendahl are part of Time Lord mythology, suggesting that they are creatures from the dawn of time. They were supposedly destroyed when the fifth planet (in existence?) broke up, but somehow they ended up on Earth. 
• The Doctor implies that the devastation of Mars (as seen much later in The Waters of Mars and Empress of Mars) was somehow related to the Fendahl. Does that mean the water is also a part of them? Considering that they can do and be whatever the plot requires them to, it wouldn't be a stretch... 

BEST QUOTE

DOCTOR: "Make some tea."
JOHN: "Tea?"
DOCTOR: "Tea! She does drink tea?"
JOHN: "Well, yeah."
DOCTOR: "Off you go and make some, use the best china! Four cups laid out on a tray. Off you go! Oh, and some fruitcake..."
JOHN: "Anything else?"

DOCTOR: "No." (whispers to Leela) "I love fruitcake!" (loudly to mrs Tyler) "Come on, mrs Tyler! This is no way to behave when you've got visitors! We've come for tea!"

LEELA: "And fruitcake."

DOCTOR: "... and fruitcake..."

CONCLUSION

Utter bollocks.