The A-Z of Classic Who | Image of the Fendahl: A Tale of Two Gothics, Part Two

The second part of our look at the end of Doctor Who's gothic period jumps forward two stories, past the distinctly non-gothic The Invisible Enemy to Image of the Fendahl, the final story script edited solely by Robert Holmes and generally accepted as the end of Doctor Who's gothic period... and unfortunately it is a distinctly unimpressive finale for one of the show's most important eras.

Despite its placement here, Image  has rather more in common with Ghost Light than Horror of Fang Rock... in that it doesn't make a lick of sense and suffers because of it. It's not borderline incomprehensible like Ghost Light but the key concepts at work are barely explained and mostly don't make much sense. It's made worse by the threat posed by the Fendahl being far less effective than that posed by the Rutan in Fang Rock, despite the former threat being much more serious. But we'll look at all these elements individually as we always do, but the bottom line is that Image of the Fendahl is a bit of a disappointment.

the doctor didn't subscribe to that skull of thought hahaha i'm here all day

Let's start by looking at the positives though, and there are a few. Firstly, the Doctor and Leela have excellent chemistry throughout the story partly because of Leela having some very solid character development and partly because of Tom Baker and Louise Jameson finally looking like they can stand being the same room as each other. It gives the story some much needed warmth and character and allows the two leads to remain identifiable to the audience despite the utter gobshite they're having to talk about. Baker also has some great lines throughout this story and delivers them to his usual high standard. Secondly, as we'll discuss most of the supporting characters are bad, but Grandma Tyler is the notable exception; a wonderfully bitchy no-bullshit proactive woman, who happily walks around with a shotgun and plays off the Doctor fantastically. It helps she's written to have a bit of character rather than being a condescending arse like almost everyone else in the story - her grandson Jack, while not being an impressive character, is an exception as being mostly inoffensive. But we'll get to the character problems.

The story, despite everything else, is also shot and directed well - it manages to keep some suspense and tension throughout the early parts of the story and looks rather good at times; the Part One cliffhanger for instance, while being nonsense on paper, comes across far better on the screen because of how its put together.

The Doctor had to hope the approaching monster was allergic to dry ice

Finally, while it did not come across in the final script, the central concepts behind the story are sound - interesting, even. An ancient, unstoppable evil is a bit of a cliche but having it tied to Time Lord mythology is an interesting twist and the Fendahl itself, being a creature of many parts and affecting development of an entire species in order to consume it. That this does not come across on screen means it only gets partial credit for this but it is a neat idea.

An ancient creature of many parts... all of which look ridiculous

So, to the problems. Firstly, apart from the two leads and the supporting characters mentioned above, all the characters are varying shades of unlikeable, condescending morons whose lack of anything approaching common sense causes the entire plot to happen and nearly wipe out the Earth. Let's look at them one by one.

Adam is an irritating posh-boy who never puts a fucking sock in it and despite the script telling us he's a scientist, comes across as too stupid to work out even the most obvious of things put in front of him. He's clearly meant to be a character the audience identifies with, as the 'least likely to go beserk' of the main scientist characters, but there was never a point when I didn't want to slap him in the face. His constant irritating whinging would be far less insufferable if the character did anything proactive of note, but he just spouts the bloody obvious, gets captured, needs to be rescued and then cowers while The Doctor, Leela and Grandma Tyler save the day. I don't blame the actor who was clearly doing his best, but the character is an annoying twerp who at best contributed nothing.

Dr Fendelman is an entirely different kettle of fish. For a start, his generic foreign accent is so utterly terrible its genuinely the most entertaining thing in the story ("Aderm!") but it unfortunately undermines anything dramatic he says or does because... well, he's saying it like he's taking the piss out of a tourist that walked slowly in front of him in central London. It also doesn't help the character, despite being presented as intelligent, is unable to put basic two and twos together and gets himself killed because he's apparently smart enough to create a 'sonic time scanner' or whatever, but not smart enough to know that getting himself shot is not a particularly effective way of dealing with the mortal threat to Earth. He also has an unlikeable bit at the beginning where he tells Adam to cover up the death of a hiker and hires in a security force... which not only goes nowhere in the overall story, but also makes him seem like an unlikeable prat. Overall, he's a poor character.

"So Aderm, which of us do you think will be more stupid and put the Earth in danger because of our moronic stupidity?"

Things don't improve with the other two scientists. Max is a generic villain, a power-obsessed idiot who can't see the gravity of what he's dealing who's part of a local cult that doesn't understand what they've become involved in yadda yadda yadda. It's the most generic been-there-done-that rubbish - there are no shades to the character - there's nothing to make him likeable but equally not a great deal to make him unlikeable. Sure he acts like a smug twat, but then again, so does Adam, and he's meant to be a goodie.

Thea is just a bit of cardboard with less characterisation than Grandma Tyler's shotgun who's sole purpose is to be a plot device and get transformed into the Fendahl Core. She is utterly and staggeringly dull and I have no doubt audience sympathy with her when she does get transformed is supposed to be there... but it isn't. There just isn't any character there to be sympathetic with. It's not as bad as Adam - if he was the one being transformed the audience reaction would probably be 'thank fuck that's shut him up' but having such a bold and shocking transformation on someone so boring is a bad misfire.

"I should shoot you now Aderm?"
"Wait, why are you saying it like that?"
"Sorry, it's rubbing off"

So the supporting characters are mostly a bit shit but what really clinches it is that the overall plot is just very badly put together. There's about four or five different plot threads that don't connect very well and much of what happens throughout the story just isn't explained. The true nature of the Fendahl should be terrifying and create a tense atmosphere, but because of how badly the explanation is mangled, the reaction is more confusion than fear. Where it's come from, its relation to the skull, how its been weaving in with humanity's evolution, how it relates to Fendelman's alien hypothesis... it's not like Ghost Light where these things aren't explained, it's that these things are explained but very badly, which in a way is even more confusing. It's there for the audience to pick up on, but it's not being picked-up on in a way that enhances the drama, its being picked up on in a way that makes the audience go 'I think I understand that... I think' which not only isn't really working, it also distracts from the overall drama.

 The threat of the Fendahl is also quite badly executed in the script, mostly because we're constantly being told how dangerous this thing is, but not why or how it's dangerous. 

The most terrifying creature in the universe ladies and gentlemen

The Doctor's line that 'tomorrow there will only be one person left alive' is a strong one and does a good job of establishing the threat, but otherwise there simply isn't enough to make it seem genuinely dangerous. The central problem is that the Fendahl doesn't actually do anything in the story - it kills a couple of the idiot cultists, who really only had themselves to blame, and spawns its ridiculous rubber penis monsters, but there's little that actually demonstrates the threat. The Doctor and Leela outsmart it fairly easily and just blow the damn thing up in a hideous anticlimax. Oh, and these unbelivably dangerous creatures that will spell the end of the human race can be defeated by... salt. Yes, really. If you have a packet of crisps to hand, you could defeat the Fendahleen. In the end though, the Doctor occasionally putting on his serious face and saying serious things, and Fendelman yelling in his ridiculous accent that we're all doomed just isn't enough to make this feel like a serious threat. 

Unfortunately, therefore, Image of the Fendahl just doesn't deliver on the promise of it's central concept. It simply needed a script polish that never came, to tidy up all the explanations and make the central threat more potent. It says quite a lot that the Rutan in Horror of Fang Rock was far less dangerous, yet felt like much more a threat, because the script allowed its abilities to be shown not through endless dialogue from characters we either dislike or find unintentionally hilarious ("Aderm!") but through a tense atmosphere and the deaths of characters who have been made to be identifiable.

This isn't unwatchably bad or anything - Baker and Jameson's strong double act, the effective atmopshere created by the directing and a well put together soundtrack and Grandma Tyler's wonderful bitchiness all mean there's quite a bit to enjoy in Image of the Fendahl, but unfortunately its all weighed down by the underdevelopment of the main script and some piss-poor supporting characters, creating what is overall a below-average experience.

And as for its relation to the overall gothic period? Well, it is certainly more typical of the overall period than Horror of Fang Rock was, with its Victorian haunted house, Lovecraftian creatures and haunting atmosphere... but it works less effectively than both that story and the earlier gothics because of the failure of the threat to be properly executed. And thus, the gothic period ends on an unimpressive note, simply because it feels like a lesser example of the period. Compare it to Pyramids of Mars, where, among the main gothic elements, is a threat that always feels real and always feels utterly important. It's therefore sad that Image of the Fendahl comes up short not only as a story, but also as the final example of Doctor Who's gothic period.

Final Score: 4/10. While far from being terrible and having quite a few elements that do work, the failure of the script to make the central threat work, coupled with bad supporting characters, come together in a story that is below average for Classic Who.

Next Episode: Inferno