“Image of the Fendahl” is an adventure of the fifteenth season of “Doctor Who” classic series, which aired in 1977. It follows “The Invisible Enemy” and it’s a four parts adventure written by Chris Boucher and directed by George Spenton-Foster.

The story

A group of scientists is carrying out tests on a human skull found in Kenya. According to the dating the skull is twelve million years old, defying all knowledge about human evolution. During a test, the skull appears to emit some kind of energy that connects to Thea Ransome, a scientist in the group.

The Tardis is attracted to Earth by the energy emission and the Fourth Doctor (Tom Baker), concerned about the possible consequences, goes to investigate together with Leela (Louise Jameson) to prevent possible disasters. To achieve this he’ll have to face the Fendahl and the Fendahleen.

Extras

This DVD contains a limited amount of extras. There are typical contents such as production subtitles, a gallery of pictures from this adventure, the Radio Times Billings and a promo of the “Doctor Who” DVDs soon to be published.

There are various comments in the adventure alternative audio track by its protagonists Tom Baker and Louise Jameson, actress Wanda Ventham and actor Edward Arthur.

After Image. A documentary about 26 minutes long about the production of this adventure.

Deleted and Extended Scenes. A series of scenes cut in part or completely from the final editing for about 11 minutes.

Trailer. The promo broadcast by the BBC before the start of this adventure.

There’s also an “Easter egg” with a short clip about Leela.

Author Chris Boucher had already written two scripts for the previous “Doctor Who” season and script editor Robert Holmes had a good impression. Boucher was strongly influenced by the movie “Quatermass and the Pit”, a film adaptation of one of the BBC drama series with Professor Quatermass as the protagonist.

The concept of an external influence on the evolution of human beings was nothing new in “Doctor Who” but at the time of the original series production didn’t particularly care of those inconsistencies between different serials. You can see another typical case in the multiple explanations for the existence of Atlantis.

The script written by Chris Boucher contains many horror elements since it’s based on psychic phenomena and the plot is developed in a dark atmospheres, with many night scenes. To compensate for the low budget, the story is very focused on these elements and on the rising tension in its protagonists.

That kind of story was already a classic at the time, with a group of scientists who are conducting an investigation and eventually unleash dark forces that manifest themselves in various ways. From the start, the differences within the group are shown because the scientists not only have different personalities but also have different motivations and someone has their own agendas.

At the center of the story there’s a mysterious skull, apparently human but dated well before the appearance of the human species on the Earth. The beginning of strange phenomena attracts the Tardis in the area and the Doctor is in a difficult situation because he’s facing a threat that in the past scared even the Time Lords.

The sense of threat grows over the episodes with ancient forces that manifest themselves in an increasingly destructive way, the basic problem in “Image of the Fendahl” is that all this build-up doesn’t lead to an adequate ending. The story doesn’t focus enough on the threat of Fendahl and Fendahleen but ends up losing consistency. It’s also partly betrayed by creatures that are supposed to be terrifying but have a funny look instead.

In previous seasons of the classic “Doctor Who” series the stories with gothic horror elements were very successful but were also criticized for their scary monsters and violent contents. The consequence is that the production tried to mitigate the stories of that kind but that meant that they took strength away from the most important elements.

Already in the previous serial, “The Invisible Enemy”, a monster that was funny rather than menacing quite dampened the story’s tone. In “Image of the Fendahl” in my opinion it quite spoiled the atmosphere in the climatic moments when the horror tones were supposed to have their maximum strength.

Another problem of “Image of the Fendahl” is a script that has some flaws. In the period in which it was prepared, Robert Holmes was leaving his role as a script editor to Anthony Read, who was the one who in the end handled the rewriting although Holmes is credited for the job. It’s possible that the job was done in even more hurried way than usual in a production where time was never enough.

Some communication problem between the script editor and Chris Boucher seems also confirmed by some other flaws in the script. Many night scenes were a problem for the production but the author didn’t know that. K-9 was just added as a regular character but in the “Image of the Fendahl” is left on the Tardis with an excuse because the author was unfamiliar with it.

The result is the presence of some inconsistencies such as the fact that the Time Lords seem to have blocked information about the Fendahl yet the Doctor seems to know quite a lot about them, so much that it was a source of his childhood fears. Had he mixed some fairy tale about the Fendahl with fears caused by Clara? 😉

Some polishing about the scientists to devolop their motives and their background would’ve been beneficial. In particular, a development of the one who eventually became the story’s villain would’ve given this adventure a greater strength. This could’ve at least partly compensated for the visual flaws limiting the quality drop in the last episode.

It’s a shame because I think “Image of the Fendahl” had great potential. In the end, despite its flaws all in all it’s a good adventure but could’ve been memorable. The DVD edition is also limited so I recommend buying it to “Doctor Who” fan.