Doctor Who and the Image of the Fendahl

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Paul Cornell, Martin Day, and Keith Topping wrote in The Discontinuity Guide (1995) that Image of the Fendahl was "one of the best stabs at outright horror in Doctor Who's history". They said it was "possibly one episode too long... but the verve of the production more than makes up for this." [7] In The Television Companion (1998), David J. Howe and Stephen James Walker felt that the scripts were "a little vague when it comes to certain details about the Fendahleen" and the Fendahl was "something of a disappointment", but they praised the supporting characters, in particular Daphne Heard's performance, who "plays the role to perfection and is largely responsible for conveying the sense of high tension and anticipation in the latter episodes". They considered Image of the Fendahl to be "one of the last truly frightening Doctor Who stories". [8] Cornell, Paul; Day, Martin; Topping, Keith (1995). "Image of the Fendahl". The Discontinuity Guide. London: Virgin Books. ISBN 0-426-20442-5. The full frame image looks good, though not outstanding. The Restoration Team has done their magic and this show looks as good as can be expected given the age and videotape origins of the program. The color is good though not quite as intense as I would have liked. The fine detail is good but the show is a little on the soft side and the exterior scenes are a bit grainy. Aside from that this looks just fine. Thea falls into a trance-like state as the scanner is activated. Outside, a large unseen creature approaches the Doctor through the woods, and he seems unable to move.

I love the story, combining sci-fi with the occult and a dash of horror, it’s one of my favourite serials. Daphne Heard as Mrs Tyler pretty much steals every scene she’s in, and her interaction with the Doctor is great as he clearly respects her knowledge. I know her role is kind of a trope of old woman who has occult powers I absolutely love her! The Doctor yet again is on great form with lots of funny lines like “Good morning, ladies. Now which one of you has the time scanner, hm? ” (to the field of cows) trailer: is the original bbc trailer for the story from 1977, which was broadcast right after the end of the preceding story. It's short but interesting.

See also

The Doctor discovers " sodium chloride affects conductivity... and prevents control of localised disruption of osmotic pressures". " Salt kills it," clarifies Leela. But Tom Baker's fourth season in the role did contain this story, a script originally commissioned during those earlier years, and as a result it's pretty much the last attempt at gothic horror they mounted.

Concerns arose that the Fendahleen costumes were too phallic in appearance, and so ribbing was added to mute this impression. The Fendahleen aren’t the greatest monster costume you’ll see on classic Who, but I admire the concept. In ‘ Image of the Fendahl’, as with each of those Kneale plays, it is the melding of the supernatural, the ancient, the trappings of folk horror, melded with modern scientific investigation – the clash of the old and the new that is key. It works very well within ‘ Doctor Who’ for those very reasons – a universe in which demons do exist but are alien species, where ghosts exist but are rather temporal phenomenom – from the past or future via a time fissure. Where the trappings and rituals of the occult are explained for rational reasons – the origins of throwing salt over the shoulder, the equivalent of the use of iron at the resolution of ‘ Quatermass and the Pit’. Nigel Kneale might not have wanted to admit it, but in that regard his work and the world of ‘Doctor Who’ dovetail nicely. The Doctor is every bit the rational, scientific, moral force of the Professor, just rather less of someone struggling to grasp and understand new phenomena outside of the realms of human experience and instead bringing advanced knowledge and experience and a lot more flippancy. The Professor has to formulate his own hypothesis from historical research and scientific investigation, while the Doctor already knows the story of the Fendahl and thus completely short cuts the investigative aspect of the story, making it rather ‘ Junior Quatermass and the Pit’ in the final analysis although that is no bad thing to be.

Continuity

I love all of Boucher’s Doctor Who, and there’s something creepy in all of them – sequences that resonate with something deep within us, whether that’s Poul’s primal screams of cowardice in the face of murdering automatons, or the child-like Xoanon, pleading to find out who he really is. But Image of the Fendahl takes this one step further, with a creature that feeds on death, finding sustenance in our very suffering, a being even the Time Lords thought too monstrous.