The Doctor and Ace travel to a seaside British military base during World War II. It is home to the Ultima Machine, a powerful codebreaker which Dr Judson is using to decipher Viking runes found in the crypt beneath the local church. The Ultima Machine is the target of a squadron of Russian soldiers led by Captain Sorin, who have come ashore nearby. But it is also bait in a trap set by Commander Millington, who foresees a time when Russia will turn against Britain. All of these events have been manipulated by an ancient evil called Fenric, whose vampiric Haemovores are stirring in the waters off Maidens' Point.

By the second half of 1988, John Nathan-Turner had notched almost nine years as the producer of Doctor Who, and was eager to move on to other projects. He had previously obtained assurances from his superiors that he would be able to leave the show after Season Twenty-Three, and again after Season Twenty-Four -- only to have these promises retracted at the last minute. Nathan-Turner then decided to remain with Doctor Who for its silver anniversary season, because he was keen to oversee such a notable milestone. However, he was determined that this would be his swansong on the programme and, indeed, a number of Doctor Who alumni appeared in 1988's Silver Nemesis as a way to celebrate his lengthy tenure.

Production on Season Twenty-Five wrapped up in mid-August 1988, around which time Nathan-Turner expected his bosses to name his replacement. However, at a late stage, the BBC decided to postpone a proposal which Nathan-Turner had developed with his Doctor Who script editor, Andrew Cartmel. Then, in September, he was asked to stay on Doctor Who after all. Since his only alternative would be to quit the BBC altogether, a dispirited Nathan-Turner reluctantly agreed. On September 8th, the BBC officially confirmed that Doctor Who would continue to a twenty-sixth season.

Ian Briggs' original suggestion of a 1970s timeframe was dismissed as being too recent

One of the writers with whom Nathan-Turner had been collaborating in his attempts to move beyond Doctor Who was Ian Briggs, who had scripted Dragonfire in 1987. In May 1988, Briggs started discussing a new Doctor Who storyline with Cartmel. Having already written a lighthearted romp, Briggs was now keen to try his hand at something more atmospheric, preferably with a period setting; this aligned with the script editor's intention to focus more on Earthbound stories for Season Twenty-Six. Briggs' original suggestion of a 1970s timeframe was dismissed as being too recent, and he and Cartmel instead settled on the Blitz.

Eager to avoid the standard approach of situating the action in London, Briggs prepared a storyline called “Powerplay” which took place in Coventry, West Midlands. Cartmel instead proposed a coastal setting, with the North East appealing due to its association with the arrival of Dracula in the eponymous 1897 novel by Bram Stoker. This venue suited Briggs' desire to draw upon Norse mythology and the journeys of the Vikings, inspired by a vacation to Sweden he took over the summer. In particular, he drew upon the legend of the vast wolf-monster Fenrir or Fenrisúlfr, who was prophesied to cause the death of the chief god Odin, and so was mystically bound to a great stone until Ragnarok -- the “twilight of the gods”. The narrative became known as “Black Rain” but, by the time the scripts were commissioned on November 9th, it was retitled “Wolf-Time”.

Another key element of the storyline was derived from Briggs' interest in the events surrounding the dawn of the computer age. Most notably, Dr Judson and the Ultima machine were conceived as a parallel for Alan Turing and his bombe device. During World War II, Turing had made enormous strides in the field of computer science while designing equipment which could decrypt the encoded communications generated by the Nazis' Enigma machine. After the war, however, Turing faced discrimination because of his homosexuality, and he committed suicide soon after being subjected to hormone therapy as part of a criminal sentence. Judson's paraplegia would serve as a metaphor for Turing's persecution; there would also be oblique suggestions that he and Commander Millington had been romantically involved.

Having introduced Ace in Dragonfire, Briggs was excited to contribute to a throughline which Cartmel had conceived for Season Twenty-Six, in which Ace would be forced to face up to her greatest fears. Nathan-Turner, however, was wary of the emphasis his script editor wanted to put on the companion, and was mindful of the continuity issues which had arisen due to the last-minute rescheduling of Season Twenty-Five's The Greatest Show In The Galaxy. Consequently, he argued for stand-alone serials, as opposed to the gentle linkages Cartmel had in mind. The producer also wanted to pull back on the notion of the Doctor possessing hitherto unrevealed powers, to which Cartmel and his writers had begun alluding during 1988. Another point on which Nathan-Turner was firm was that the monsters in “Wolf-Time” should not be referred to as vampires, which had already featured in 1980's State Of Decay. Instead, Briggs developed the idea of the Haemovores -- literally, “blood eaters”.

The origin of the Ancient Haemovore was inspired by the 1976 David Bowie film The Man Who Fell To Earth

The origin of Ingiga, the Ancient Haemovore, on a dying future Earth was inspired by the alien played by David Bowie in the 1976 film The Man Who Fell To Earth, who came from a world ravaged by drought. The Soviet names were drawn from the works of Russian playwright Anton Chekhov: Sorin was the owner of the estate which served as the setting of 1896's The Seagull, Prozorov was the name of the family at the heart of 1901's The Three Sisters (in which Vershinin was a soldier), and 1904's The Cherry Orchard dealt with the heirs of the Gayev family. Miss Hardaker, meanwhile, was inspired by the schoolteacher Miss Tillings in the 1965 Dennis Potter play Stand Up, Nigel Barton. (Ironically, both characters would be portrayed by the same actress: Janet Henfrey.) Briefly, the weapon hidden in the Ultima machine was an atomic bomb instead of a deadly poison. Another discarded idea was a coda which depicted an older Ace putting a baby to bed, and catching a glimpse of the Doctor watching over her.

Around the start of 1989, Briggs' adventure was renamed “The Wolves Of Fenric”. At this point, it was planned to be the second story made for Season Twenty-Six, entering production in May under director Michael Kerrigan. The recording calendar was intended to begin with Ben Aaronovitch's Battlefield, in which Nicholas Courtney would be reprising his role as Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. However, in January, it was discovered that Courtney would not be available for the April recording dates which had been earmarked for Battlefield, forcing it to switch places with “The Wolves Of Fenric”. This meant that Briggs' serial would now be directed by Nicholas Mallett, who had last worked on Paradise Towers in 1987.

The abrupt change meant that Briggs was faced with four fewer weeks to complete his scripts, compelling him to write the final two episodes over the span of just three weekends. Around the same time, Cartmel requested the removal of any references to Ragnarok, in order to avoid confusion with the Gods of Ragnarok who had appeared in the 1988 finale, The Greatest Show In The Galaxy. Also deleted was a line of dialogue in Episode One which would have suggested that Ace was not a virgin. Indeed, the character outline which Briggs had drawn up in 1987 acknowledged that she had had sex with the space rogue Sabalom Glitz.

In the late Eighties, four-part Doctor Who stories were normally made as a combination of location and studio recording. In the case of “The Wolves Of Fenric”, it was planned that scenes outside the naval base, in the graveyard and on the shoreline would be completed on location between April 1st and 11th, to be followed by three days in the studio from April 25th to 27th. During pre-production, however, Mallett became convinced that “The Wolves Of Fenric” would benefit from being made entirely on location, with the costs recovered by hiring the guest cast for a shorter period of time. Although Nathan-Turner also wanted to make greater use of location filming in Doctor Who, he was uneasy with the scope of Mallett's plans, and grudgingly gave his consent.

Ken Trew introduced a darker outfit to reflect the Seventh Doctor's evolving personality

Coming into Season Twenty-Six, Sylvester McCoy had anticipated that this would be his final year on Doctor Who. However, he had greatly approved of the moodier direction that his character had taken during Season Twenty-Five, and he also now enjoyed a strong bond with his co-star, Sophie Aldred. Nathan-Turner was eager for McCoy to stay on for an extra year and, in early 1989, his lead actor was persuaded to agree. As such, when McCoy was contracted for Season Twenty-Six on March 13th, an option was added to cover Doctor Who's potential twenty-seventh season in 1990. McCoy was also pleased by the decision to modify his outfit, with designer Ken Trew introducing a darker jacket, hatband, tie and handkerchief to reflect the Seventh Doctor's evolving personality.

During rehearsals, Tomek Bork (Captain Sorin) suggested to Mallett that the Soviet troops should speak in Russian during the adventure's opening moments. The director agreed, as long as the Polish-born Bork was willing to translate the dialogue himself and assist the other actors with the delivery of their lines. It was also Bork who came up with the idea of the Russian soldiers scaling the walls of St Jude's, rather than ascending the stairs. It was at this stage that Nathan-Turner asked Briggs to reconsider the serial's title yet again. The producer was concerned that the meaning of the term “wolves” in the context of the plot came too late, and so Briggs proposed The Curse Of Fenric instead. Nonetheless, “The Wolves Of Fenric” would still be used on some documentation right up to the story's broadcast.

The major location for The Curse Of Fenric was the Crowborough Training Camp at Crowborough, East Sussex. Work there, spanning April 3rd to 8th and concluding on the 11th, was for all of the scenes at the naval base. The recording was hampered at times by unseasonably cold and snowy weather, and on other occasions by heavy rains. As a result, the ground became extremely muddy, and the prop tunnel entrance constructed by Trew's design team started to sink; Briggs also had to rewrite some of his dialogue to account for the conditions.

Mallett's team had struggled to locate a church which could pose as St Jude's and its graveyard, since they required both a bell tower and a flat roof which could support the cast and crew. In the end, advertisements were placed in newspapers asking for the public's assistance, and an historian recommended St Laurence's Church in Hawkhurst, Kent. It was suitably ancient: much of the building had been constructed in the fifteenth century, but the oldest sections dated from the early years of the second millennium. Recording took place at St Laurence's on April 12th and 13th, with a second unit directed by Nathan-Turner completing additional shots there on the 14th.

Three more Hawkhurst locations were also used for The Curse Of Fenric. On April 14th, the basement of Bedgebury Lower School offered the cell area where Fenric's flask unearthed itself. Then, on the 15th, Miss Hardaker's cottage was a private residence called Roses Farm, while the mine shaft was actually an old British Rail tunnel on Yew Tree Farm. McCoy enjoyed a visit from his wife, Agnes, and their sons, Sam and Joe Kent-Smith, on this day; Nathan-Turner offered the boys the chance to play Haemovores in the mine shaft sequences.

Finally, Maidens' Point was actually Lulworth Cove, near West Lulworth in Dorset. Mallett filmed there from April 18th to 20th, with Nathan-Turner's second unit handling the underwater photography on the last day. Ironically, the April 19th recording of the Haemovores' rise from the water was beset by the same problem which had afflicted a similar scene in 1972's The Sea Devils, as the costumes trapped air and became difficult to submerge. Ultimately, the Haemovore actors were given rocks to which they could cling, in order to keep themselves underwater.

In post-production, Mallett was distressed to learn that one of the videotapes from the April 7th recording at Crowborough had been reused the following day, with all of the footage wiped as a result. In particular, this meant that he had lost various close-up and insert shots from the climactic confrontation between Fenric and the Ancient Haemovore. With no option to remount the affected material, Mallett had to assemble the scene using mostly wider-angled shots. As a result, some of the Ancient Haemovore's dialogue was dropped, as was a shot which suggested that only Ingiga's remains were left behind in the gas chamber -- the implication being that Fenric had contrived a way to escape.

After the first edits were compiled, The Curse Of Fenric was found to exceed its allotted twenty-five-minute timeslot in spectacular fashion, with Episode Four especially overlong. Consideration was given to re-editing it as a five-part story, but the total overrun of about twelve minutes was not sufficient to warrant another installment; furthermore, Briggs was concerned about the effect this would have on the adventure's pace. Amongst the most drastic trims Mallett was forced to make were a scene of soldiers staking Haemovores on the roof of St Jude's from Episode Three, and more of the exchange between the Doctor and the Ancient Haemovore from Episode Four. This would be the final work on Doctor Who for both Mallett and Briggs.

John Nathan-Turner was keen for The Curse Of Fenric to air around Hallowe'en

The Curse Of Fenric was originally planned to be the second story broadcast as part of Season Twenty-Six, after Battlefield. However, given the haunting atmosphere of Briggs' serial, Nathan-Turner was keen for it to air around Hallowe'en. With the season debuting on September 6th, this meant that The Curse Of Fenric would have to be moved back one slot, to follow Ghost Light. The new broadcast order had been decided during April. Unfortunately, this meant that the line of dialogue concerning the spooky old house which Ace had burnt down -- intended to inspire the time travellers' involvement in Ghost Light -- was now rendered somewhat incongruous.

After the weak viewing figures Doctor Who had endured in 1986 and 1987, the production team had been encouraged by the positive ratings momentum of 1988. Sadly, Season Twenty-Six premiered to historically small audiences, and the situation saw only marginal improvement over the following weeks. Nathan-Turner made the unusual decision to “relaunch” the season at its halfway mark, holding a press screening for the first episodes of The Curse Of Fenric and the season finale, Survival, on October 19th. The impact was minimal, however, and the four episodes of The Curse Of Fenric would become the only first-run Doctor Who broadcasts to slide so far down the ratings tables that their chart placements are unknown.

• Doctor Who Magazine #225, “Archive: The Curse Of Fenric” by Andrew Pixley, Marvel Comics UK Ltd.
• Doctor Who Magazine Special Edition #10, 13th April 2005, “Ride On Time” by Andrew Pixley, Panini Publishing Ltd.
• Doctor Who: The Complete History #46, 2018, “Story 154: The Curse Of Fenric”, edited by Mark Wright, Hachette Partworks Ltd.
• Doctor Who: The Eighties by David J Howe, Mark Stammers and Stephen James Walker (1996), Virgin Publishing.
• Doctor Who: The Handbook: The Seventh Doctor by David J Howe and Stephen James Walker (1998), Virgin Publishing.
• In·Vision #103, August 2002, “Production” edited by Diane McGinn, Cybermark Services.