In England this month, Image Of The Fendahl comes to DVD, with its Australian release just a few months away. I have to admit to be slightly biased in regards to this story as I remember watching it as a child and being just enamoured of it. Rewatching it, this is the story with English sex symbol Wanda Ventham, but frankly it is Leela (Louise Jameson) who blows me away. I've never really found the Doctor's companions of old hot, but I'm finding, more and more, that my feelings on that are changing, and frankly, Leela in those skins...
Back to maturity though!
Image comes at a strange time in Tom Baker's Doctor Who era; producer Philip Hinchcliffe had been stepped down due to the levels of violence and horror his stories had, and script editor Robert Holmes was keen to follow his boss, with whom he was very much in sync with. New producer Graham Williams was ordered to tone it all down, but convinced Holmes to stay on, and Image is Holmes last story (in production order) and it seems he's very much gone back to the style he preferred. Image has all the hallmarks of the Hinchcliffe era - a gothic horror story, homaging a classic (in this case the wonderful 1950's television series Quatermass And The Pit; although truth be told it probably owes more to the 60's Hammer film version than the BBC television version) and featuring some rather horrifying and violent moments. There is, in fact, one scene that is extremely shocking, and even Tom Baker, on the audio commentary seems shocked by it.
The story essentially stems around a skull that is twelve million years old, and the Doctor and Leela have tracked down a time rift which is powering up the skull to release a creature that was imprisoned by the Time Lords and which feeds on death itself. It's simple enough, and the story itself is just rife with wonderfully atmospheric scenes, such as the opening where a hiker is killed by an unknown force, which ultimately affects the Doctor at the end of Part One. Performances are quite fantastic all round, though there are three performances which are, quite frankly, mesmerising.
Dennis Lill plays Dr Fendelman, with a teutonic accent and a mustache that deserves its own spin-off series. That aside though, he positively throws himself into his performance and is just amazing. Daphne Heard, similarly bizarrely accented but without the mo, plays ole Mrs Tyler who baint be approvin' of them scientists, but there's just something about her that makes you shut up and accept everything that comes out of her mouth without a second's hesitation.
However, it is Tom Baker who steals the show. With Williams in the producer's chair, Baker was getting more and more opportunity to do exactly what he wanted to with the part. His ad libs come think and fast in this story, with some moments such as the Doctor telling his feet to move, and then telling them to turn around, showing Baker at his most off the cuff extravagant. The thing about this, though, is that Baker is constantly charismatic. He's like William Shatner...just completely bizarre and yet compelling viewing. Baker is not my favourite Doctor, but there's no denying that his sheer charisma makes him the most watchable of them all, dragging the audience in with his golf ball eyes and making them follow him like a bohemian Pied Piper. In Image he switches from over the top eccentricity to sombre authority. He's truly fabulous.
However, the true star of the story is director George Spenton-Foster. He appears to be absolutely against long shots, and there are copious amounts of close ups, moodily lit, that truly make the story claustrophobic. Doctor Who seems to work at its best when you have a small group of people in a small space, with something outside trying to get in, and something inside going slowly mad (the formula still works; note Midnight). Spenton-Foster knows exactly how the formula nees to work, and brings it home with a bang.
The DVD for this one is one of the "cheap" DVDs, which means that, instead of five documentaries, you only get one; you get the audio commentary, deleted scenes and digital restoration (which is, as always, superb). So, fundamentally, it's still a great DVD with some great extras, and given the tendency recently for DVD documentaries to have a barely peripheral association to the story that it is associated with, it's nice to have just one documentary that is entirely focussed on Image Of The Fendahl. That said, the documentary itself doesn't really reveal an awful lot of new information for the hardened fan, but for others it will be a nice grounding - though I was astonished to discover that everybody hates the Fendahleen...I love them. I think they look great.
But all the extras could be tossed aside for the audio commentary. Tom Baker, Louise Jameson, Wanda Ventham (Thea) and Edward Arthur (Colby) are all terribly entertaining, regaling the audience with stories that have nothing to do with the story, but are fascinating, and, of course, Tom Baker is without doubt as mad as a hat full of berries, discussing how old women ask him about his sonic screwdriver, and how he is mistaken for Claire Rayner.
This is another great DVD from the Doctor Who Restoration Team, and is an absolute classic Doctor Who story that everyone should have on their shelves.
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