Forgotten Villains: Doctor Who’s Fenric

By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues

I was recently made aware of just how many movies and television shows the younger generation have never heard of, never mind seen. So to that end, we look back at some characters you really need to see before you kick the bucket.

Fenric is the last great villain of the classic era of Doctor Who. He appeared in the story the Curse of Fenric in season 26, the final season of the classic era. What was great about him was that he was behind everything in the seventh Doctor’s era from season 24’s Dragonfire and we never knew it.

The new era of Doctor Who have taken several ideas from classic Who, one of which is a running theme each season etc Bad Wolf or Donna Doctor but we know in advance that this is happening. When Andrew Cartmel took over as script editor of the show in its final days, he instilled the mystery of exactly who the Doctor was.

Suddenly we discovered that he had many adventures off screen which we were not privy to and knew more than we initially thought. The Doctor was suddenly a figure we didn’t know at all, keeping secrets and driving Ace bonkers with his covertness.

While a lot of fiction has expanded who and what Fenric supposedly is, we will stick to the television and novel versions to avoid complications.

With a story so drenched in myth and legend such as Fenric, the images evoked by the revelation of the Doctor and Fenric’s last meeting are conjured up in sentences that drag the viewer right into the scenario. But before we get to that, let’s see what we know so far.

Fenric is a sentient force similar to the Great Intelligence faced by the second and eleventh Doctors. He is evil, seemingly born from a time that was out of balance. At some point the Doctor managed to trap him in a flask like a genie in a bottle in an off screen adventure. It is clear the Doctor is wary of Fenric and the extent of his power yet for all this malevolence, Fenric is something that can be defeated by taunting his hubris and arrogance. He sees himself as superior to all forms of life which are his playthings to do with as he wishes. That’s a trait shared by many creatures such as him and seems to be a common cog in their downfall.

However, the thing about being ancient and apparently timeless is that with every defeat you have the time to scheme and learn. Being defeated by beings you once thought insignificant playthings is bound to be a shock to the system.

The battlefield shall stretch a 100 leageues and at the end of the day not one living thing shall be left alive. The ancient enemies will seek each other out and all shall die!

Such a shock that Fenric is royally pissed off to go to such great lengths for a rematch in which he can defeat the Doctor. Such is his power he can see across time and space much the same way as Time Lords can. Could it be Fenric is some sort of Gallifreyan demon from the Dark Times which is why it is so personal with the Doctor? Whatever it is, such is his power that he can manipulate people across eternity to manoeuvre them to where he needs them to be. He uses human frailties and weakness to ensure things come together.

To exist he needs a body and has chosen the crippled Dr Judson, creator of the Ultima machine to be his vessel for the battle with the Doctor. Millington is responsible for Judson’s condition as per the brilliant novelisation by Ian Briggs so Fenric plays on this to use the machine, not to break German codes but to break the chains keepng Fenric from possessing a body by translating the ancient Viking runes. Indeed it breaks the chains of disability also but the price for Judson is too high.

Millington like the others as it would turn out was descended from the Vikings who transported the flask containing Fenric’s essence and was obsessed with getting into the Nazi mind. His obsession with Fenric we can only assume was planted and goaded by Fenric’s influence. Nothing could be allowed to stop the return of Fenric so even their Russian allies were a threat to Millington. In some ways he was an acolyte for the entity, a helpless puppet much in the same vein as Fendelman in the 4th Doctor story Image of the Fendahl. It’s in their very being so they cannot help it.

While Fenric’s control over others is not as obvious, he is able to ensure they come together so he and the Doctor meet. Once he possesses Judson’s body he almost revels in being able to hear hs voice again. He talks about the quality versus quantity of death. He snaps at Millington for interrupting him and it is almost as if he needs to use a human voice to vent his hatred and anger about how the Doctor was able to imprison him.

As I said earlier, the writing here evokes us to places unseen and never dreamed of in the Doctor’s travels and this is the prime example. It is so rich, we see in our minds how Fenric was trapped. In the novel it is implied that it was in fact the first Doctor was responsible for this. Fenric revels in death and likes it fast or slow so something bad must have happened for the Doctor to step in.

For 17 centuries I was trapped in the shadow dimensions because of him, He pulled bones from the desert sands and carbed them into chess pieces. He challenged me to solve his puzzle. I failed. Now I shall see him kneel before me before i see him die.

This dialogue asks so many questions and fully stamps the seventh Doctor as a super master manipulator. Is Fenric a god? Did he reduce a civilisation to dust? Was there someone there the Doctor cared for? If he could retrieve bones from desert sands was Fenric defeated using the remains of his victims? Where are the shadow dimensions and how did he escape? There is an entire story here never before seen yet we see it clearly from just a few sentences of dialogue.

The seventh Doctor has gone down in history as a master manipulator intent on seeking out injustice and stopping it. Is it any wonder given he knew Fenric was coming for revenge and would use any means to do it? The Doctor knew Ace was what Fenric calls one of Wolves of Fenric when he heard about the time storm placing her on Ice World so she would meet the Doctor. The Daleks and Cybermen were all distractions from the main game but the chess set in Lady Peinforte’s study clued the Doctor in that Fenric was very much active and on the hunt.

That is what is eating away at Fenric; he could not solve the Doctor’s riddle on the chessboard. Now amid all this chaos and room full of nerve gas bombs, Fenric has set up a chessboard to win but he knows he cannot and uses subterfuge. Ace sees the solution straight away and tells what she thinks is Sorin the answer. The chess pieces join forces solving the impasse. But Fenric has jumped bodies and possessed the Russian killing him instantly. Now that he has won the game, he will unleash his fury upon the world while the Doctor watches helplessly.

Sorin and his men are all descended from the Vikings who transported Fenric in the flask and have been manoeuvred here to this time and place. Fenric takes his body destroying Ace’s love for him before revealing that the baby in the camp Ace rescued was in fact her own mother and created her own future by saving both the baby and her grandmother by sending them to London before the vampires invade. Ace would grow up hating her mother but loves the baby causing hard emotions within her that torment her all her life. Fenric is so twisted that he takes great delight in seeing pain and suffering, what he calls the sound of dying.

His wolves extend from across time and he draws back the vampiric Haemovores that will be what man evolves into when the Earth is a wasteland of toxins and chemical destrucion. These too are victims of Fenric and are of no consequence to him. Indeed bringing the future to the past could have lethal consequences for the timeline but he doesn’t care. Even the dead and dying are his toys to feed his amusement. The Ancient One also known as Ingiger has been brought back and seemingly tasked to be his main puppet here firstly by killing Ace. When they first meet, Fenric seems to have control over him. Fenric comments another of the wolves of Fenric have arrived to play their role. The Ancient One says his world is dead and Fenric snaps it is no loss if he is the best evolution has to offer.

It seems the Ancient One is the last of the Haemovores as the rest have all died out due to starvation. There is no compassion or feeling for anyone or anything,just the fulfillment of his own desires. Fenric will use Millington’s plan to bomb Moscow with poisonous gas, sit back and suck in the death and destruction as the world tears itself apart in flame. This will also trigger the polluted Earth that brings forth the Haemovores. Virtually everyone is dead now and Fenric just intends to spread the nerve gas to the rest of the world using the World War as a springboard. That way he triggers the Earth the Haemovores come from long before it should be.

Fenric is so above the rest of us in his deluded mind that he gets the Ancient One to kill all the other Haemovores via telepathic signal. They dissolve on the spot including the recently turned human vampires. Fenric fails to see the pain the Ancient One cafries. Not only is the future Earth dead, the Ancient One has now been forced to murder the last of his species. However the Doctor does and uses it to save the day. He knows that the fury of the Haemovore will make him dangerous and take that anger out on Fenric. Fenric cannot see that he no longer has a hold over the creature because by forcing him to commit genocide and making it clear just how much contempt he holds the Ancient One and his like the being will not allow history to repeat itself. If he kills Fenric, then the future Earth will never happen and humanity will be spared such a horrible fate.

It is fitting then that it is the Ancient One that kills Fenric by trapping him in a test chamber where the last Haemovore smashes a gas cannister and kills them both. It isn’t clear if Fenric is dead or if killing the body plunges him back to drifting in the void as a formless entity.

The twelfth Doctor with companion Bill would face Fenric again in comic book form this time involving Vikings, the Flood from the Waters of Mars and Ice Warriors. In the Wolves of Winter which acts as a prequel to the Curse of Fenric, the formless entity’s scheme is grander and intent on changing the future in which he is defeated. It also sees the return of the Great One and we meet the Vikings mentioned in the television story.

Fenric is still out there and elevated the Doctor from simple time traveller to galactic guardian who now sees the universe through eyes that sees evil as much more than a chuckling villain twiddling their moustache.