It’s a convincing argument. He argues that, in the face of Mary Whitehouse complaining about dolls that kill, the Doctor drowning, and Leela’s skirt being too small (as if that’s a thing), the BBC had to rein Doctor Who in. And it did so by airing one of the most chilling stories ever. “Both on television and as a book, Image is a superlatively creepy story – it creeps you out (and I’d argue that if it doesn’t, you haven’t yet understood everything it’s saying and doing),” he writes. “Indeed, I shall show that it is, implicitly, the scariest Doctor Who story, and I mean that literally – for its terror lies in its implications… If Mary Whithouse had understood Image, she might’ve found it more offensive than a few mere strangulations and a toy with a dagger.” Deleted and Extended Scenes - Material originally cut from Image of the Fendahl is presented here courtesy of a low-quality monochrome video recording

Written by Chris Boucher. This four-episode serial first aired from October 29 to November 19, 1977.

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Collect three brand new figurines from the terrifying 1977 Doctor Who serial, ‘Image of the Fendahl’, with the Doctor Who Story Figurine Box Sets: Image of the Fendahl! This fantastic box set features exclusive Doctor Who figurines: Leela, the Fendahl Core, and Fendahleen. These items not available anywhere else on the eShop, so get your hands on the Doctor Who Story Figurine Box Sets: Image of the Fendahl while you can! Image of the Fendahl was released to DVD in the UK in April 2009 and in North America in September 2009. Image of the Fendahl’ is Tom Baker’s darkest DOCTOR WHO story since Phillip Hinchliffe produced. Fendahleen, alien monsters with deadly, psychotelekinetic powers, looked like serpentine versions of horror writer H P Lovecraft’s ancient, fictional god, Cthullu. His stories detail how knowledge of fictional mythology cause madness. In this story, the Doctor needed Leela to help him survive his living nightmare and save humanity from Armageddon. The full frame image looks good, though not outstanding. The Restoration Team has done their magic and this show looks as good as can be expected given the age and videotape origins of the program. The color is good though not quite as intense as I would have liked. The fine detail is good but the show is a little on the soft side and the exterior scenes are a bit grainy. Aside from that this looks just fine.

In ‘ Image of the Fendahl’, as with each of those Kneale plays, it is the melding of the supernatural, the ancient, the trappings of folk horror, melded with modern scientific investigation – the clash of the old and the new that is key. It works very well within ‘ Doctor Who’ for those very reasons – a universe in which demons do exist but are alien species, where ghosts exist but are rather temporal phenomenom – from the past or future via a time fissure. Where the trappings and rituals of the occult are explained for rational reasons – the origins of throwing salt over the shoulder, the equivalent of the use of iron at the resolution of ‘ Quatermass and the Pit’. Nigel Kneale might not have wanted to admit it, but in that regard his work and the world of ‘Doctor Who’ dovetail nicely. The Doctor is every bit the rational, scientific, moral force of the Professor, just rather less of someone struggling to grasp and understand new phenomena outside of the realms of human experience and instead bringing advanced knowledge and experience and a lot more flippancy. The Professor has to formulate his own hypothesis from historical research and scientific investigation, while the Doctor already knows the story of the Fendahl and thus completely short cuts the investigative aspect of the story, making it rather ‘ Junior Quatermass and the Pit’ in the final analysis although that is no bad thing to be. The Eighth Doctor later released the Fendahl without knowing, and encountered it again in 2007. ( AUDIO: Island of the Fendahl) Elaborately balanced between horrific and comedic, "Image of the Fendahl" comes in near the midpoint of Tom Baker's tenure as the Doctor, a justifiably classic phase of the series when those responsible for its making seem confident but not complacent that their efforts will entertain a wide segment of the BBC audience. That is, while a bit murkier and edgier than prior years, this is still "Doctor Who" as the quintessential family show--somehow working on several levels at once. On the simplest and most tangible level we have big slug-like monsters (and, this being the olden days before CGI, I think we should stop a moment and appreciate the inventive craftsmanship that endowed them with a mouthful of squirming writhing tentacles). On an equally thrilling if less visceral level, we have a finely-scripted tale of suspense and mystery. On yet more sophisticated levels yet, all of this is framed and informed by a complex and intriguingly speculative science fiction premise of astronomical scale spanning eons--which might feel overly remote if it didn't all come to a crisis within the familiar context of rural England in the 1970's. And yet all these levels cohere in harmony rather than jarring and grating with each other, which takes astounding storytelling skill if you think about it.But the cast all play it totally seriously, it never slips into camp humour, and the production values whilst cheap are perfectly decent. This is a long way from being the best that the show has to offer but it's a little above average and not a bad watch at all. In my next posts I’ll take a look at the characters inhabiting the world of ‘Image of the Fendahl’ and finally the nature of the menace itself. Two days after filming was completed Tom Baker and Louise Jameson attended the world's first ever Doctor Who convention in London. The present day: just as the Fourth Doctor and Leela arrive in Fetchborough, England, Professor Fendelman prepares to experiment on a fossilized skull which science says should not exist. The skull is actually an artefact of the Fendahl, a god-like being who feeds on the life force of others. It has begun to awaken and kill. Worse yet, others seek to exploit the Fendahl's dreadful power.

This story had a working title of The Island of Fandor. (It didn't. This myth originated when Gordon Blows, then editor of the Doctor Who Appreciation Society magazine TARDIS, misheard the title of the story over the phone and reported it incorrectly.) Technobabble As it is, it is a rather thoughtful horror story, with a decent cast and an interesting set of characters. Albeit one that would have benefitted from the full-on season 14 treatment, a bit more money, Maloney directing, a more brooding performance from Tom, and the wooden TARDIS set – the standard one looks awful here. Chris Boucher writes Leela very well and Louise is as good as ever, but she is starting to get caught up in too many of Tom’s sometimes rather poor attempts at injecting humour at unfortunate moments. It isn’t too out of control here, but the TARDIS scenes are a bit woeful (‘ TARDIS wonderful!) and it is still a fair drop off from season 14 standards. I can imagine Hinchcliffe popping his head around the corner and Tom quietly dropping the idea. As I said, though, it’s still a good story, if a little convoluted. The initial idea of an ancient skull arriving on Earth thousands of years before man, and influencing man’s development has a lot of potential. The added twist that this skull is from the Fendahl, which was supposed to have been the stuff of Time Lord legend, was good, too. But then we get into how the Fendahl is drawing energy, and making use of Thea who then becomes the core of the Fendahl which it uses to convert members of a cult group into Fendahleen, which it plans to use to form a gestalt entity… you following? See what I mean. It’s an unconventional story, in its narrative, its first cliffhanger, and its antagonists. I see it as akin to The Impossible Planet/ The Satan Pit, almost “where angels fear to tread.” The four-part serial is dark and brooding and, yes, beautiful.

Enter The Whoniverse

The much anticipated Eaglemoss Image of Fendahl figure set contains the Fourth Doctor’s companion, Leela alongside the transformed Thea Ransome and of course the Fendahleen. This is the third and final Doctor Who script written by Chris Boucher who previously penned The Face of Evil and The Robots of Death. Very shortly after this story, Boucher started work as script editor on Blake’s 7. Image of the Fendahl’s director, George Spenton-Foster, would helm four episodes of that series and returned to Doctor Who to direct The Ribos Operation. Subverted later on when the Doctor is examining the dead Fendahleen. He comments that it is beautiful, but when Leela questions this he reveals he was actually talking about the way he killed it. Scificollector are pleased to be able to now make it available to collectors and this Death Dalek mega sculpt makes for a fitting completion to the collection.

Goal-Oriented Evolution: The skull from the Core of the Fendahl had, over millions of years, subtly altered a life form on the planet it landed on until that life form was suitable for creating a new Fendhal and had a subgroup manipulated into actually creating it. The human who learned he and his species existed only to spawn the rebirthed Fendahl was not happy. This is the case to such an extent, that at times the two leads are slight at an angle, tangential to the main story. They take a while to arrive in it and there is a slightly odd section of episode 3, when they head off in the TARDIS to see the missing 5th planet. This is a strange diversion in the narrative, it is something that can work as a tactic – Holmes uses it to great effect in ‘ Pyramids of Mars‘ and ‘ The Deadly Assassin‘, but here it just feels awkward and serves really to avoid the Doctor solving the plot too early, a case where tell not show would have worked fine and it doesn’t really advance the story.It should come as no surprise that Bucher-Jones is a big fan of Image of Fendahl: after all, he co-authored the 1999 novel, The Taking of Planet 5 with Mark Clapham (and yes, a handy appendix points out places where Fendahl‘s narrative is expanded). But he’s not blinded to its faults. In fact, there’s a section balancing out the good and the bad. Although I find some ‘bad’ points are easy to explain away, his sheer enthusiasm for the story shines through in the ‘good’, pleasingly including script extracts featuring Mother Tyler. The Time Lords destroyed the planet [forming the asteroid belt] and then hid its existence in a time loop to prevent any knowledge of the Fendahl leaking out. The Doctor knows the story as a myth from childhood and is terrified by it [it was one of the ghost stories told to him by the hermit: see State of Decay]. Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: The Doctor blowing up the Fendahleen and throwing the Fendahl into a supernova. The serial is a fine hammer horror romp, yes okay I not sure the monster can do my co more than shuffle at you and waves it’s tentacles but it can freeze in you place, in simplified manner than made the Angel in Blink so threatening. I’m sure you and Jim will discuss the science and uncover it as nonsense but I thought it was great.