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Doctor Who and the Image of the Fendahl

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The present day: just as the Fourth Doctor and Leela arrive in Fetchborough, England, Professor Fendelman prepares to experiment on a fossilized skull which science says should not exist. The skull is actually an artefact of the Fendahl, a god-like being who feeds on the life force of others. It has begun to awaken and kill. Worse yet, others seek to exploit the Fendahl's dreadful power. Image of the Fendahl was released to DVD in the UK in April 2009 and in North America in September 2009. Elaborately balanced between horrific and comedic, "Image of the Fendahl" comes in near the midpoint of Tom Baker's tenure as the Doctor, a justifiably classic phase of the series when those responsible for its making seem confident but not complacent that their efforts will entertain a wide segment of the BBC audience. That is, while a bit murkier and edgier than prior years, this is still "Doctor Who" as the quintessential family show--somehow working on several levels at once. On the simplest and most tangible level we have big slug-like monsters (and, this being the olden days before CGI, I think we should stop a moment and appreciate the inventive craftsmanship that endowed them with a mouthful of squirming writhing tentacles). On an equally thrilling if less visceral level, we have a finely-scripted tale of suspense and mystery. On yet more sophisticated levels yet, all of this is framed and informed by a complex and intriguingly speculative science fiction premise of astronomical scale spanning eons--which might feel overly remote if it didn't all come to a crisis within the familiar context of rural England in the 1970's. And yet all these levels cohere in harmony rather than jarring and grating with each other, which takes astounding storytelling skill if you think about it. There is a Making of featurette with the writer, special effects designer and several of the actors. Sadly Tom Baker doesn't appear in this nice overview of the production.

K9 appears only briefly, in the opening and closing TARDIS scenes; he is suffering from circuitry corrosion and stays in the TARDIS. Image of the Fendahl had been written before it was known K9 would be joining the series on a regular basis. John Leeson was not recruited to voice the character, who had no dialogue.The Doctor notes this is probably the origin throwing salt over your shoulder. After causing the priory's implosion, the Doctor intends to cast the skull into a super-nova in the constellation of Canthares. QV

After history was altered by a force from the future, the Fendahl was able to successfully dupe Reynald, former Earl of Marseille, into summoning it in Jerusalem in 1098, attracted to the destruction caused by the Crusades. It used a bone spear imbued with its life-draining properties to draw nourishment (allowing it to be mistaken for the Lance of Longinus), allowing it to transform him into a Fendahl Core and create several Fendahleen. However, due to the efforts of Simon, a knight of the period, Reynald was aged well into a decrepit state, weakening his ability to command the Fendahl's powers, killing both and banishing the Fendahl. ( PROSE: Deus Le Volt) DOCTOR: The Fendahl absorbs the full spectrum of energy, what some people call a life force or soul. It eats life itself. A Fendahleen is psycho- telekinetic, giving it the ability to control the muscles of its prey telepathically.Finally this story joins the ranks of those that literally neglect to include some important moments in the final edit. The ending of part 1 is choppy, there’s leaps of faith with no explanation and I’m sure I don’t have to mention part 4’s scene in the Tardis. Leela says, "Professor Marius would not be very pleased" about the damages of K9. Marius appeared in the previous story, TV: The Invisible Enemy.

COLBY: Did you say that about twelve million years ago, on a nameless planet which no longer exists, evolution went up a blind alley? The Time Lords destroyed the planet [forming the asteroid belt] and then hid its existence in a time loop to prevent any knowledge of the Fendahl leaking out. The Doctor knows the story as a myth from childhood and is terrified by it [it was one of the ghost stories told to him by the hermit: see State of Decay]. Image of the Fendahl’ is Tom Baker’s darkest DOCTOR WHO story since Phillip Hinchliffe produced. Fendahleen, alien monsters with deadly, psychotelekinetic powers, looked like serpentine versions of horror writer H P Lovecraft’s ancient, fictional god, Cthullu. His stories detail how knowledge of fictional mythology cause madness. In this story, the Doctor needed Leela to help him survive his living nightmare and save humanity from Armageddon.

Chris Boucher drew upon the fetch, a creature from Irish mythology which manifested as the phantom double of a living person. The word “fetch” was incorporated into many of the place names, and presaged Thea Ransome's transformation into the sinister Fendahl Core. If you'd like to talk about narrative problems with this story — like plot holes and things that seem to contradict other stories — please go to this episode's discontinuity discussion. Apocalypse Maiden: Thea Ransome, although most of the associated emotional turmoil is absent simply because Adam Colby never really figures out what is going on. Louise Jameson claims the reason her hair is done up in this episode is because a BBC hairstylist had mistakenly cut six inches off her hair just prior to filming. Her final scene in the story was filmed some five weeks after this incident, by which time her hair had grown long enough to allow her to wear it down for a single scene. ( DCOM: Image of the Fendahl) Collect three brand new figurines from the terrifying 1977 Doctor Who serial, ‘Image of the Fendahl’, with the Doctor Who Story Figurine Box Sets: Image of the Fendahl! This fantastic box set features exclusive Doctor Who figurines: Leela, the Fendahl Core, and Fendahleen. These items not available anywhere else on the eShop, so get your hands on the Doctor Who Story Figurine Box Sets: Image of the Fendahl while you can!

Horrifically unnecessary execution. Like the poor UNIT bloke’s encounter with a compost machine in ‘Seeds, humans murdering humans is more disturbing than monsters killing humans. DOCTOR: Well, telepathy and precognition are normal in anyone whose childhood was spent near a time fissure, like the one in the wood. The Fifth Planet thing in Episode 3 is fairly flagrant padding, but that's forgivable as the rest of the story works so well, and the omission of K-9 (because they didn't know if they were keeping him or not) is a bit obvious, but the story is a triumph.Despite his recent addition to the TARDIS crew, K-9 only appears very briefly in the opening and closing scenes of the story. The decision to keep K-9 as a regular character had been taken quite late in the day and The Image of the Fendahl had already been written for just the Doctor and Leela. Time Abyss: The Fendahl might not qualify, considering that it has technically been dead for 12 million years. Filming at Stargrove Manor ground to a halt when the generator which powered the lighting equipment caught fire, and a replacement had to be summoned from London in the wee hours of the morning. The noise of the arriving vehicles prompted an angry complaint from one of Stargroves' neighbours, and George Spenton-Foster responded with an apology the following week. It’s not all hard science, fortunately. That would do the book a disservice by implying it’s stuffy. It’s instead very compelling. Discussions range from theology to the actual title of the serial, from what happened to Mars and its native Ice Warriors to a so-called “unsupported fan theory” that takes Underworld into account.

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