Doctor Who: The Curse of Fenric (1989)

Date(s) of Broadcast: 25 October - 15 November 1989
Number of Episodes: 4
Average Episode Running Times: 25 mins
Format: colour
Sound:

PRODUCTION
Production Company: BBC
Producer: John Nathan-Turner
Production Associate: June Collins

SCRIPT
Script: Ian Briggs
Script Editor: Andrew Cartmel

DIRECTION
Director: Nicholas Mallett

PHOTOGRAPHY
OB Cameramen: Paul Harding, Alan Jessop

MUSIC
Title Music: Ron Grainer and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop
Title Music Arranger: Keff McCulloch
Incidental Music: Mark Ayres

SOUND
Special Sound: Dick Mills

MAKE UP AND COSTUMES
Make Up: Denise Baron
Costumes: Ken Trew

VISUAL EFFECTS
Visual Effects: Graham Brown

DESIGN AND SET CONSTRUCTION
Designer: David Laskey

MISCELLANEOUS
Production Assistant: Winifred Hopkins
Assistant Floor Manager: Judy Corry

STUNTS
Stunt Arranger: Tip Tipping

CAST
PART ONE
Sylvester McCoy (The Doctor)
Sophie Aldred (Ace)
Dinsdale Landen (Dr Judson)
Alfred Lynch (Commander Millington)
Nicholas Parsons (The Reverend Mr Wainwright)
Janet Henfrey (Miss Hardaker)
Tomek Bork (Captain Sorin)
Peter Czajkowski (Sgt Prozorov)
Marek Anton (Vershinin)
Mark Conrad (Petrossian)
Joann Kenny (Jean)
Joanne Bell (Phyllis)
Anne Reid (Nurse Crane)
Kathleen Dodman (Cory Pulman)
Aaron Hanley (baby)
Stevan Rimkus (Captain Bates)
Marcus Hutton (Sgt Leigh)
Christien Anholt (Perkins)

PART TWO
Sylvester McCoy (The Doctor)
Sophie Aldred (Ace)
Dinsdale Landen (Dr Judson)
Alfred Lynch (Commander Millington)
Nicholas Parsons (The Reverend Mr Wainwright)
Janet Henfrey (Miss Hardaker)
Tomek Bork (Captain Sorin)
Peter Czajkowski (Sgt Prozorov)
Marek Anton (Vershinin)
Joann Kenny (Jean)
Joanne Bell (Phyllis)
Anne Reid (Nurse Crane)
Kathleen Dodman (Cory Pulman)
Aaron Hanley (baby - uncredited)
Stevan Rimkus (Captain Bates)
Marcus Hutton (Sgt Leigh)
Christien Anholt (Perkins)

PART THREE
Sylvester McCoy (The Doctor)
Sophie Aldred (Ace)
Dinsdale Landen (Dr Judson)
Alfred Lynch (Commander Millington)
Nicholas Parsons (The Reverend Mr Wainwright)
Tomek Bork (Captain Sorin)
Peter Czajkowski (Sgt Prozorov)
Marek Anton (Vershinin)
Joann Kenny (Jean)
Joanne Bell (Phyllis)
Anne Reid (Nurse Crane)
Kathleen Dodman (Cory Pulman)
Aaron Hanley (baby)
Stevan Rimkus (Captain Bates)
Marcus Hutton (Sgt Leigh)
Christien Anholt (Perkins)

PART FOUR
Sylvester McCoy (The Doctor)
Sophie Aldred (Ace)
Dinsdale Landen (Dr Judson)
Alfred Lynch (Commander Millington)
Tomek Bork (Captain Sorin)
Marek Anton (Vershinin)
Joann Kenny (Jean)
Joanne Bell (Phyllis)
Anne Reid (Nurse Crane)
Kathleen Dodman (Cory Pulman)
Aaron Hanley (baby)
Stevan Rimkus (Captain Bates)
Marcus Hutton (Sgt Leigh)
Raymond Trickett (ancient Haemovore)

EPISODES

Part One (25 October 1989)
Part Two (1 November 1989)
Part Three (8 November 1989)
Part Four (15 November 1989)

PLOT SUMMARY

The Doctor and Ace arrive in Northumberland during the Second World War and call at a house where Dr Judson is percefting his Ultima Machine, a sophisticated code-breaking machine. While Russian commandos try to steal the device, The Doctor comes up against an old enemy, Fenric, an evil creature imprisoned by The Doctor seventeen centuries earlier. Fenric has brought the vampiric Haemovores back from the future as part of its elaborate plot to take its revenge on The Doctor and win its freedom.

One of the highlights of the McCoy era, a complex story, atmospherically directed. It develops Ace's character more than any other story of the period and continues to paint The Doctor as a dark, manipulative figure whose motives seem quite unfathomable at times. It's also a cracking monster story in the fine Doctor Who tradition, one with a carefully plotted series of scripts which showed again that both McCoy and the show could have had a fine future had cancellation not been looming.

UK
Television Distributor: BBC
Video Distributor: BBC Video (4453)

USA
Video Distributor: Warner Home Video (E1099)

1989
October
25: UK - part one television broadcast (on BBC1)

November
1: UK - part two television broadcast (on BBC1)
8: UK - part three television broadcast (on BBC1)
15: UK - part four television broadcast (on BBC1)

The Wolves of Fenric - shooting title

SEE ALSO
Doctor Who: The Greatest Show in the Galaxy (1988)
The Fog (1980)

BOOKS

Doctor Who: The Television Companion pp.
credits, synopsis, review (by David J. Howe and Stephen James Walker)

OTHER SOURCES

screen
credits

KEYWORDS

aliens, military, scientists, time travel, vampires, world war ii

Last Updated: 15 October, 2008