Originally intended to be the first story of Doctor Who's final season on the air in the 1980s, The Curse Of Fenric was moved back and became the penultimate story of the show's best season in many years. Of course, many a year has passed since 1989. I haven't exactly watched Fenric once a year in the meantime, so this DVD gave me a chance to reflect with the benefit of hindsight and, perhaps, slightly more mature tastes. (Well, then again, I do keep snatching up Doctor Who DVDs, so it doesn't seem like that much has changed.) And the answer is: yes, Fenric is still some sterling Who.

The two-disc set presents this classic four-parter in two ways. The first disc features the original four-episode broadcast version, with commentary from Sylvester McCoy, Sophie Aldred and Nicholas Parsons, who broke the mold of his comedy and game-show-hosting career to play Reverend Wainwright with a certain gravitas. With Parsons on board, the commentary is genial and interesting, and it's clear that everyone knew they were working on some above-average material for the series. Equally interesting is the text subtitle commentary, dishing out tons of factoids I'd never heard or read before - including the fact that the wheelchair-bound character of Dr. Judson was originally intended to have something other than a physical infirmity holding him down (in the original draft, he was instead afraid that his homosexuality would be discovered, something that was completely wiped out of even the subtext of the rewritten, filmed and aired scripts).

Disc two presents the complete story again, only this time as a continuous, edited-together movie-style presentation of around two hours in length. Working from the detailed notes left by Nicholas Mallett, the late director who helmed Fenric, Doctor Who Restoration Team member (and original Fenric music composer) Mark Ayres re-edited the four episodes to eliminate the cliffhangers and add a great deal of footage back into the story that had originally been cut for time. (If you have the extended-length VHS edition, you still need this - more footage is included on the DVD than was used for that release.) Ayres has also remixed the sound into a seamless Dolby 5.1 Surround mix and has remixed his own musical score, giving it a broader, less synthesized feel. (The original music can be listened to on the first disc as an isolated music track.) The effects have been revamped with CGI and even some shooting gaffes (such as a firing squad scene in which the man-made rain pouring down is given away by the bright sunlight shining down on the action) have been fixed. It's truly impressive.

A Fenric-related convention panel discussion from 1990, as well as a later segment involving this story from a satellite channel's celebrity-hosted all-weekend Who marathon, are included on the second disc to round things out, along with two original documentaries, Recutting The Runes (covering the making of the new version) and Shattering The Chains (focusing more on the cast and crew's memories of producing the original version).

Some might consider this presentation of Fenric to be a step too far in the direction of revising classic Doctor Who with CGI effects, since it adds a whole extra disc (and therefore, outside of the UK, adds to the price point as well) to the package, but in this case it's worth it. You have the original and you have a new edition, without any of the clumsy branching-chapter problems that have plagued such past original-plus-extra-footage DVDs such as the original X-Men. Fenric classic and new-formula Fenric are a potent brew - and they're a definitive, must-own slice of McCoy-era Doctor Who.

Reviewed by Earl Green
theLogBook.com webmaster / editor-in-chief