Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start...
Day 483: Image of the Fendahl, Episode One
Dear diary,
I’m terribly sorry, but I think I’ve gotten lost somewhere along the line while working my way through Doctor Who for this marathon. You see, this is clearly a Philip Hinchcliffe story from Season Thirteen/Fourteen, and not part of the same programme that’s now shifted tone to things like The Invisible Enemy. I commented during Horror of Fang Rock that it always took a bit of time for a new production team to establish themselves, so I’m not really expecting Graham Williams to set a tone for the programme until the next season rolls around, but The Invisible Enemy felt like much more a template for what’s to come than this episode has, if anything, this felt like going back a step.
That’s not a complaint, mind, because there’s an awful lot about it to like. Opening with a shot of the skull is immediately striking, and certainly means that my interest is being grabbed right from the start. That we go on to have sets of big country houses (something the show always does very well), and plenty of shooting at night means that I’m kept rooted to the screen right the way through. This has been one of those strange episodes where it’s felt as though it’s going on for an absolute age, while also managing to be over before you know it. That’s always a sure sign that I’m too caught up in events to pay attention to anything else.
This is another one of those stories which I really know very little about. I knew it was set in a location called Fetch Priory. I knew there was a skull. I know there’s a kind of… worm creature turning up at some point. The DVD disc also informs me that there’s a character painted gold at some point. That’s all I’ve got! Everything else is completely uncharted territory, and that’s always an exciting prospect.
Something to note, though… we seem to have reached a shift in the way that Tom Baker approaches the role. It’s been creeping up for a while now (mostly since they resumed to start filming this season - with The Invisible Enemy forming the first story of the ‘block’), but we’re definitely seeing him approach it differently to the way he did for his first three years in the role. There’s a couple of ways of looking at this, and I think it comes down to a combination of the two.
The first way of explaining it is to simply reference Matt Smith’s Eleventh Doctor. In Series Five, the writers script a generic ‘Doctor’, and Smith then applies his own unique performance to that character, giving us a new incarnation of the Time Lord. By the time we get to Series Six (and, to a lesser extent, the latter episodes on Series Five), writers have seen enough of Matt’s performance to start writing the character as ‘The Eleventh Doctor’. Suddenly, it doesn’t feel as natural anymore - all the quirky moments are now scripted, so they lose something in the translation to the screen. It feels a bit like that’s happening here, too. It feels entirely natural that this Doctor would hold court with a field of cows, and it did make me laugh, but it also feels more forced than I’m used to.
The second way of explaining it returns to my thoughts of the Tom Baker years comprising three distinct ‘eras’. I’ve described them as being largely divided by the producers in charge, and that seems to apply to Baker’s approach to the role, too. He’s playing everything up that bit more now. He is the Doctor. He’s settled and confident enough in the role by now that he can pretty much do whatever he liked. Several tales do the rounds of this period of the programme’s history, where Baker would offer his suggestions, and if they were turned down he’d just go ahead and do it anyway. You can feel that confidence in his performance during this episode, and it’s not always a good thing.
That might just be me having an off day, mind. The Doctor and Leela haven’t really gotten caught up in the story yet (they’ve only met a single character - who also hasn’t intersected with the main guest cast), so I’m perhaps focussing on the pair more than I usually would. They’re being given the freedom to roam more than I’m used to of late. Maybe once they’re inside the house and fighting this month’s menace, Baker will settle down again?
