Doctor Who - Image Of The Fendahl (1977). Great year, great vintage. A Tom Baker era Gothic Hammer-style Horror! Except, this wasn't during the right period!
Mary "Witch"rite decided, for the good of us all....... that Doctor Who was too violent horror for the kiddo's. So we were lumbered with "meh" stories. However, at least we got through enemy lines with maybe three stories & this fab story is just such one! A fab escape indeed. This also draws from Erich Von Daniken's Chariots Of The Gods.
Denis Lil is Dr Fendahlman. Your cliché, overzealous, possibly mad, scientist who has a skull. A Homo-Sapien skull that is 12 million-years old, complete with a pentangle on its forehead. An experiment that can only end in disaster. Edward Evans is your regular good-natured scientist Adam Colby. Scott Frendricks is the disillusioned Max Steel, with delusions of grandeur by your typical, cliché occult wannabe, demi-god beliefs.
Wanda Ventham . Yes. THAT Wanda of U.F.O. tight-shirt fame & Sherlocks Mum! Is the beautifully named Thea. Her destiny is chosen, more on that later.
Alas, poor Doctor!
The Doctor & Leela land....in a cow field to investigate mysterious time fissure. The Doctor stumbles upon the group of scientists in a mansion & immediately gets promoted to the rank of wandering doom-peddler by Colby, then a convenient murderer by Fendalman. Leela wanders into Granma Tyler's cottage for tea & fishcake(?!) & almost gets whacked by village idiot Ted Moss. But, of course, she's a warrior of the Sevateem & he's just trained by the mighty Council.
Worry not Grandma, no reindeer.
Yes, Grandma Tyler's another cliché. Peddling out doom & gloom with her psychic vision. But she's loveable & funny. But she also joins the infamous, "Ow! A twig, my ankle! Oh woe" club. How can she not remind us of our own Gran-Mothers? Her "domestic" with her grandson Jack about flat Earth had me in hysterics! Jack Tyler is equally, rural folk, likeable. She goes into psychic shock & our hero deduces that she was exposed to the time fissure as a little girl. Seriously, I would LOVE to see a flashback of that scene. Post Victoriana, a la New Who!
Whoppers?
We learn that the Fendalhl is a gestalt entity & can project itself across many a light-year, taking out Mars allegedly. Those poor Ice Warriors! I mean really (?) The Mars syndrome! Sutekkh anyone? Meanwhile we learn that the Timelords are hypocrites, ( gee-whizz, what a revelation..). They tried to destroy the Fendahl on Planet 5. Against their non interference rules ( looking at you Highlanders Watchers as well!) That's red-tape, cloak & dagger, bureaucrats for you & great job wiping it off the face of the Universal map too, sigh......No Star Trek Prime Directive morals here.
Silly Steel is merely the piece in a grand-scheme type jigsaw puzzle (sucker). Dr Fendahlman puts the pieces together in his wonderful "Mankind is being USSSSED!" quote, worth a rewind! Colby get's the funny sarcastic take about Colby trying to conjure up the Devil. Poor Thea's fate is sealed as well by this gestalt entity. The puzzle suddenly fits.
MANKIND IS BEING USED!
Okay, I feel compelled to mention Matt Smith era story Hide (2013). Oh, c'mon! If you think about it, it's set in a dark, rural 70's gothic-style mansion with fancy 70's computers, there's a scientist looking for paranormal activity, & a psychic medium at hand The similarities were such that when Hide aired I had to watch this! Serious mode off, back to silliness.
This is definitely a missing jigsaw piece of Gothic-era Who, the one that got away. They really could have used K9 on this one but it was still early days. Love the mellotron, backward taped, psychedelic music in the final episode. Another priory/mansion had to be destroyed. Ah, well, we did it on Pyramids Of Mars & Seeds Of Doom. Whaddaya gonna do? Love the Medusoid look of the Fendahl, very apt considering. Great attempt at the giant slug-like Fendahleen. The Fendahl are cannibals, there can be only one! So, no all you can eat buffets then?
All in all we've got another titan hidden amongst the rest of this era. Watch if you dare!
Borgduck,
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