in which "The Curse of Fenric" is watched

[ladymercury_10]

So I have been watching some Seventh Doctor episodes, but not particularly in order.  I have, however, been sort of saving "The Curse of Fenric" because I knew it was supposed to be good, and I finally got around to watching it tonight.  And it was really good!  And much scarier, I think, than most current Doctor Who, low-budget special effects notwithstanding.  (The haemovore makeup on the girls was really effective.  The fake rain, which fell sideways, and sometimes fell more heavily on one side of the screen, was not.  Especially since they didn't try to hide the fact that it was sunny when they were shooting the "rain" scenes. :P )

I am not sure I have anything terribly thoughtful to say about it, though.  I am somewhat confused by the whole "the baby was Ace's mum" subplot, because I wasn't sure if she realized it before they threw it in her face or not.  Because if she didn't, it seems a bit bad to go, "Hmm, here is a lady with my grandmum's name and surname and wartime occupation, and she has a baby with my mum's name, isn't that weird and kind of awkward?" and not make the connection.  Also I am confused about how much the Doctor actually knew, and how much he said he knew, to mess with Fenric/to break Ace's faith/for other secret manipulative reasons.  Furthermore, Ace seemed to recover from the whole "you insulted everything about me and only apologized somewhat vaguely" incident awfully quickly, didn't she?  

But really, I did like it quite a lot, I am just easily confused and generally nitpicky.  Mostly it would just be nice if people who have had longer to develop headcanons about these things/know the actual answers/etc. could enlighten me.  

Also, I knew going in that there were similarities between this serial and "The God Complex," but it is interesting that Ace also has a "girl who didn't make sense" sort of thing, like Amy, and that she has a mythology background where Amy has a fairytale one.  

Another question: Is "Survival" a good episode?  It seems Important, but the cheetah costumes are slightly lolarious to me and I don't know if I could take it seriously.

Comments

[eve11]

I was so confused by Curse of Fenric. There were way too many plots going on. What was with the shell on the beach? The Doctor v. Fenric chess game was interesting, and the whole Evolved Difference Engine (ha, your phrase, thanks!) thing was cool, and there was a glowing pot. I suppose I should try to watch it again and pay more attention.

[eve11]

Aha, I found my review of it, and summarily tagged it so I could find it more easily in the future.

[ladymercury-10.livejournal.com]

Oh, yay, I will go look at that, then. :)

[ladymercury-10.livejournal.com]

There were an awful lot of plots, even for something with four parts. I think the shell was some cursed thing that belonged to the haemovores or to Fenric's treasure? And lol, yes, there was a random glowing pot, which was also Fenric's treasure? But then the treasure was kind of not very important? Or something. Definitely something. :P

Haha, yes, the Evolved Difference Engine. It must be a very special ENIGMA machine if they can use it to Rosetta-stone random alphabets in addition to decrypting ciphers of known alphabets. :P