History Recap / DoctorWhoS26E3TheCurseOfFenric

* UsefulNotes/WorldWarII: Russian soldiers! The ENIGMA machine! Military bases! Even Hitler appears in portrait form!!!
** Curse of Fenric also holds the distinction of the very first time World War II is used as a setting for a Doctor Who story. Previously, due to the fact that members of the writing/production staff had actually served during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, the period of World War II was considered forbidden due to the implications of making light of the war by using it as backdrop for a science fiction show.

** Curse of Fenric also holds the distinction of the very first time World War II is used as a setting for a Doctor Who story. Previously, due to the fact that members of the writing/production staff had actually served during WW2, the period of World War II was considered forbidden due to the implications of making light of the war by using it as backdrop for a science fiction show.

* BatmanGambit: The Soviets are meant to steal ULTIMA, which has a poison gas canister hidden inside it that will activate when the Soviets decrypt a prearranged word that would be placed in British cyphers.

* CutPhoneLines: Commander Millington orders the phone lines cut to isolate the naval base.

* StableTimeLoop: Fenric is apparently trying to perform one. The Ancient One getting transported back and spreading poison will enable the Haemovores to evolve. Subverted when the Ancient One performs a HeelFaceTurn and destroys Fenric's host body in a HeroicSacrifice.

* ShoutOut: Kathleen cries out "[[Film/GoneWithTheWind Where shall I go, what shall I do?!]]"
** [[Myth/NorseMythology The Wolves of Fenric]].
* StableTimeLoop: Ace only exists as the result of a stable time loop: she befriends her grandmother as a young woman, and when disaster strikes sends her to a specific address in London with Ace's infant mother.

* UsefulNotes/WorldWarII: Russian soldiers! The ENIGMA machine! Military bases! Nazis are absent, though.
** However there is a massive portrait of Hitler in Millington's office.

* HolyBurnsEvil: Haemovores can be repelled by faith itself. Reverend Wainwright sadly fails to repel one using a bible, as the horrors of the war have destroyed his faith. Sorin repels them with a red star badge from his uniform, because he has faith in communism. And the Doctor can repel them stronger than anyone, [[HeartwarmingMoments because he puts his faith in his friends]].

* ShoutOut: Kathleen cries out "[[GoneWithTheWind Where shall I go, what shall I do?!]]"

* ArcWelding: Ace being transported to Iceworld and Lady Peinforte's magic were due to Fenric.

* BoobyTrap: Commander Millington booby traps his chess set. Ace and the Doctor set off a gas grenade, which Doctor defeats by placing a wastepaper basket on top of it. Ace then comments that it was lucky that he used a gas grenade, and if it had been herm she would placed a couple of sticks of dynamite under the table. With sudden realization, Ace and the Doctor both then look under the table and bolt. A few seconds later, the table blows up.

** However there is a massive portrait of Hitler in Millington's office.

* HolyBurnsEvil: Haemovores can be repelled by faith itself. The Doctor repels them by repeating the names of all his companions, the fervently Communist Sorin repels them with a red star badge from his uniform, and Reverend Wainwright sadly fails to repel one using a bible, as the horrors of World War II destroyed his faith.

* ReCut: A "movie" edit was produced for the VHS version, and then further tweaked for the DVD version, which removes opening and closing credit sequences and cliffhanger reprises for the middle episodes, restores certain deleted sequences, and reorders certain scenes. It's generally considered by fans that the plot is much easier to follow in this cut.

* TheScottishTrope: "Let the chains of Fenric shatter."
* SealedEvilInACan

* SmartBall: It seems that before she was expelled from school, Ace paid keen attention to her computer science lessons.

* NotEvenBotheringWithTheAccent: The story is set in and around a military base in northern England but most of the cast make no effort to sound northern; possibly justified as below, in that most of the action is set at a military base which wouldn't necessarily be populated by people from the local area. Jean and Phyllis in the script are also supposed to lose their [[LondonTown London]] accents after they get vampirised but on screen they continue to sound as if they've just come from the set of ''Series/GrangeHill''.

** The Franchise/DoctorWhoExpandedUniverse gives us a more accurate identification: ''Hastur'', the Unspeakable One, the Ragged King. YES, ''[[Franchise/CthulhuMythos that one]]''!

* AllThereInTheManual: Like several novelisations of 1980s ''Doctor Who'' stories, the novel fleshes out several of the characters; in particular, it shows that Millington had been madly in love with Judson for decades, and was the one to (accidentally) cripple him out of jealousy. Feelings between the two London evacuees are also hinted at to an even greater degree than the TV episodes, and it reveals that Judson's nurse is a Soviet spy informing on the ULTIMA project to the Russians. It even fleshes out the prudish old woman who is billeting the evacuees, stating that as a younger woman she got pregnant after a reckless visit to Maiden's Point with a boy she knew, hence her bitterness about the subject in the present day.
** Judson's ULTIMA project is said to be a result of InterserviceRivalry -- the Navy want their own equivalent of Turing's group at Bletchley Park.
** The Doctor recites the names of his past companions to overcome the Haemovores: Susan, Ian, Barbara, Vicki, Steven, Jo and Sarah Jane.
** Nurse Crane is implied to be a soviet agent.
** Prozorov is renamed Trofimov and frequently thinks of his wife Irena and daughter. It is mentioned that he and Sorin investigated the deaths in Trannsylvania.
** Vershinin's rank is given as corporal, which is not clear on screen.
** There is dialogue indicating that Ace, Jean and Phyllis are not "maidens". (This was scripted but cut down during filming and removed entirely during editing.)
** The Doctor's name is obscured by a splodge on his forged authorisation.
** The Haemavores that kill Petrossian are said to be the missing commandos. (They are not seen on screen.)
** Miss Hardaker is given backstory as an unmarried mother who never escaped the stigma.
** The refugees are said to have arrived that day, explaining why Bates mistakes Ace for one.
** The Doctor tells Ace she can hear the psychic "singing" against the Haemavores because she is slightly telepathic.
** The Ancient Haemavore helps Fenric because he believes he will return him to his own time.
** Ace mistakes the Doctor's reference to the flask coming from the Orient, believing he means Leyton Orient Football Club. (The novel contains interludes telling the story of the Doctor's first encounter with Fenric and the flask's journey to Northumbria).

* GeniusCripple: Dr. Judson. Overlaps with HomoeroticSubtext in the novelization--when they were schoolboys, Millington had a thing for Judson, and one day at rugby practice, he injured his crush in a jealous rage.

* HomoeroticSubtext: Between Millington and Judson, and Jean and Phyllis; the novelisation fleshes out on both couples, but even in the episodes proper there's still plenty of implications. Millington and Judson are played at least in part as an estranged couple forced to work together long after the relationship ended badly, and Jean and Phyllis, once converted to vampires, suggest that they were 'cursed' from birth, a reference both to their status as Fenric's wolves but also to attitudes towards homosexuality viewing it as an affliction or burden.

* ArtisticLicenseSports: The Doctor has perplexed Fenric with a chess puzzle the being cannot solve. The solution is accidentally provided by Ace, the black and white pawns must work together! This is presented as a solution that Fenric, [[EvilCannotComprehendGood by his nature]], could not comprehend. In reality, it's a solution that nobody who understands chess could comprehend. [[note]]There are a few smart-alecs who have written chess-puzzles with the phrase: "Move one to mate" having the solution be "promote pawn to enemy's whatever, using said piece to mate me". This may or may not be legal in a actual game, and in either case is not used here.[[/note]]
** The Doctor all but confirms this. He defeated Fenric using chess puzzles the first time they met. It is implied that he cheated then as well, counting on Fenric not to realize that in the Doctors case GoodIsNotNice.

* ImmuneToBullets: Bullets slow the Haemovores down, but can't kill them.
* ItWontTurnOff: The ULTIMA machine.
* KneelBeforeZod:

* ShowSomeLeg: Ace tells the Doctor she's NotAKid before seducing a guard.