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

[ladymercury-10.livejournal.com]

I had heard about the part where he chants their names, but I think I missed the part where he actually does it because of the loud chiming "faith" noise they played over it. :/

LOOOL that was actual weather?

Oh dear, animatronic cats? That sounds truly cracktacular. :P

[usuallyhats]

Aw, that's a shame. I think it was clearer in the re-edited version (which is on disc two of the DVD, if you have it). And it's longer in the novelisation! It's the bit where the haemovores start properly breaking through and the Doctor goes very still, if you want to go back and look for it.

I think lost_spook is right about the rain! The weather was certainly really weird during the location filming, as far as I can tell.

They are... unfortunate. ;) I think the extras said that animatronics were a fairly new thing at the time, and someone on the production team saw some really good animatronic dogs and thought "hurray, that'll be better than trying to use live cats"... not realising that animatronic cats don't work nearly so well!

[ladymercury-10.livejournal.com]

I don't have the DVD, I just watched it on Netflix. It's on streaming, though, so I could always go back and watch that bit again, I suppose.

Haha, that is really funny about the animatronic dogs vs. cats thing. :P

Your icon is super cute, btw. :)

[usuallyhats]

I think it's worth going back to: it's so lovely a moment. (Unless you have to pay to stream it again? I don't know how Netflix works!) And if you do find yourself with access to the DVD, the re-edited version is worth a watch! I wouldn't buy it just for that, though.

Thank you! :)

[ladymercury-10.livejournal.com]

No, Netflix is a subscription, so once you've paid for your month you can stream whatever you like. They might have the DVD available for getting by mail, too, now that I think about it. Is the re-edited version very different in general?

[usuallyhats]

Ah, that's ok then! I subscribe to Lovefilm, which is similar, but not all the streaming things are free.

Hmm, it's been about six years since I watched it, but iirc they've added some cut bits back in, rejigged the editing a little so it's tighter in places (there may have also been some recutting/reorganising of existing scenes), and redone the score a little. No huge changes, as far as I remember, just a bit of tidying up! And it's one long story instead of individual episodes. :)

[ladymercury-10.livejournal.com]

Ah, yeah, when I streamed it they had cut out the credits and such between episodes, but it looks like if I got the DVD by mail it would be six minutes longer. Interesting!