Trivia / Doctor Who S26 E3 "The Curse of Fenric"

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• Cast the Runner-Up: Dinsdale Laden had been up for roles at 4 prior points in the history of Doctor Who, with the earliest being the very second story. As the run was ending he finally got cast as Dr. Judson.
• Creator Backlash: Andrew Cartmel didn't think the director handled the action scenes well and felt the chief Haemovore costume was risible.
• Dawson Casting: Jean and Phyllis are supposed to be teenagers, although both actresses were in their early twenties at the time of filming.
• Fake Russian: Captain Sorin was played by the Polish Tomek Bork.
• Hey, It's That Place!: Maidens' Bay was filmed at Lulworth Cove, a well-known Dorset beauty spot.
• Inspiration for the Work: Ian Briggs got ideas from Norse Mythology, inspired by a vacation to Sweden. The largest influence was the legend of the giant wolf Fenrir, who was prophesied to kill the lead god Odin, and so was bound to a magical stone until the end times, also known as Ragnarök.
• Out of Order: This was intended to be shown as the season premiere, before "Ghost Light", so that Ace telling Kathleen about "the old house in Perivale" would have been foreshadowing for that story. But John Nathan-Turner wanted Curse to air around Halloween time, meaning it ran after "Ghost Light" had already gone out. It also had the side effect of removing what was supposed to be a major turning point that season: Sylvester McCoy is wearing a trench coat for most of the first episode, and removes it late on to reveal his new costume with a darker jacket, with the intention being to surprise the viewer with the reveal of the new costume, which was ruined by the fact that this story was no longer running first.
• Real-Life Relative: Two of the Haemovores in part four are played by Sylvester McCoy's sons Sam and Joe Kent-Smith. Their scenes were cut from the transmitted version of part four, but were reinstated for the extended BBC Video version and the Special Edition movie-length version included on BBC Worldwide's DVD release of the broadcast version.
• Self-Adaptation: Ian Briggs wrote both this episode and its novelization.
• Stunt Casting: Nicholas Parsons, best known as a game show host, proved to be a mixed blessing. On the one hand, he played his part of a vicar suffering a crisis of faith quite superbly. On the other hand, because he was such a rare example of a piece of stunt-casting actually working, a number of plot-important scenes he wasn't in ended up on the cutting-room floor.
• Throw It In!: Ace's scream when the window behind her gets broken in was Sophie Aldred's genuine reaction; she hadn't been told that it was going to happen.
• Wag the Director:
  • Ace jumps into the sea because Sophie Aldred wanted to do it this season. Same with her appearing the entire serial in an appropriate period outfit (complete with hairnet), as Aldred had yet to really dress up in period garb on the show.
  • Tomek Bork, who grew up in Soviet-controlled Poland, had issues with the cod-Communist dialogue and had rows with the writer and director about changing them. John Nathan-Turner intervened and placated.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Ian Briggs originally wanted Dr. Judson to be gay like his inspiration Alan Turing. Because it wasn’t considered suitable to show a character's struggle being closeted in an all-ages show, Turing’s frustration was channeled into Judson’s resentment of being crippled.
  • Briggs originally suggested a 1970s setting. Andrew Cartmel dismissed this as being too recent.
  • Martin Jarvis and David McCallum were considered for Judson.
  • Shooting on the serial went over-length to such a degree that consideration was briefly given to editing the story into five rather than four episodes, which would've made this the first serial to surpass four parts since "The Armageddon Factor" a decade prior (discounting the then-unreleased "Shada"). However, Briggs strongly opposed this, feeling that the narrative flow would be badly disrupted (it is not known if the BBC would have given permission for an extra episode, in any case).
  • The serial was intended to end with an implication that Fenric had found a way to escape, with a shot of the floor of the chamber showing the Ancient Haemovore's remains, but nothing of Fenric. Unfortunately the tape with this and other close-up shots was damaged and unusable.
  • Briefly, the weapon hidden in the Ultima machine was an atomic bomb.
  • There was originally a coda where an older Ace is putting a baby to bed when she catches a glimpse of the Doctor watching over her.
• Word of Gay: Ian Briggs stated that he wanted to show the history between Judson and Millington and their love, but this was not realised in the finished programme.
• Working Title: The Wolves of Fenric and Wolf-Time (the former, at least, was changed because John Nathan-Turner believed it was problematic, given it did not become apparent what it meant until quite late in the story).
  • The title change actually happened quite late in production, as TV advertisements for the first episode used the "Wolves of Fenric" title for part one.

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