December 22: Ghost Light Part Three / The Curse of Fenric Part One

It is rather unfortunate that you have to assume that Light is some sort of simpleton in order for his reactions to make sense; they could have run with the fact that he's been asleep so long that his catalog of Earth is completely out of date and therefore useless, and while this does seem to be in there somewhere it looks more as if he's completely shocked that things changed, as if this thought had never occurred to him -- although if this is the case then why would Josiah be around at all?  What use would a survey creature be if you never expected him to change?

Redvers Fenn-Cooper, Josiah Samuel Smith, and Ace at dinner.
(Ghost Light Part Three) ©BBC

Speaking of Josiah, his plan to rule the British Empire by assassinating Queen Victoria is rather daft, isn't it?  It makes sense from an internal plot point of view (Josiah needs to evolve into the dominant species, and what's more dominant than being a king?), but there's no clue at all as to how he would actually achieve this goal, as the stated explanation is ludicrous.

So those are the clumsy bits.  Fortunately everything else in part three (all right, with the exception of McCoy's clenched hand acting early in part three) is just as outstanding as the first two parts were.  The Victorian theme continues (particularly with Light in the role of cataloger, trying to pin everything down into neat little categories -- rather like all the insects on display in Gabriel Chase), and it's interesting to see how the evolution theme plays out and is then inverted with Josiah and Control.  Ace gets to let out some more angst ("No, Control, don't do it!  Please don't [burn the house down]!  That's what I did!"  "In 1983?  Ace, you didn't tell me that."  "You're not my probation officer.  You don't have to know everything"), and the ways the Doctor both arranges the downfall of Josiah's plans -- just by turning Control into a "lady-like" -- and convinces Light to destroy himself are quite masterful.  And that layer of allusions is still present too, just to make everything seem even better than it already is.

As it turned out, Ghost Light was the last story ever filmed in the original run (though obviously not the last screened -- that seems to have always been intended to have been Survival).  It's a fascinating story, one that rewards repeated viewings that allow for more character moments and allusions to be noticed each time.  It has interesting things to say about evolution and Victorian values, and it's fabulously written, acted, designed, and directed.  Not a bad story to finish up on then, eh?

But obviously we're not done with the season yet.  Now it's on to The Curse of Fenric and Doctor Who's first foray, after 26 seasons, into the second World War.  The Curse of Fenric also bears the distinction of being the only Doctor Who story that genuinely scared me as a child (something about the idea of vampires that would kill you if your faith wasn't strong enough).

Not quite at the scary bits in the first episode though, which is mainly a setting-up one.  Even though this is a story about the war, the actual fighting seems distantly removed from this setting.  No, here we have the efforts of a codebreaker named Dr. Judson at an isolated base in the north of England while Russian soldiers land on the beach nearby, apparently with the intent of kidnapping Judson.  All this and some stuff about ancient Viking runes and something Base Commander Millington calls "the curse of Fenric".

It's certainly an entertaining episode, with some intriguing moments (such as how something's in the water that's apparently killing Russian troops) and some amusing ones as well (the way the Doctor forges official paperwork for both him and Ace).  But at this point, all we know is that something sinister is going on -- what that sinister thing actually is will be for later episodes to reveal.  But this is certainly a good start.