The Curse of Fenric

I've decided to go through (again, in no particular order) most if not all of the episodes listed here, barring ones I feel like I need to see other episodes beforehand to fully understand (i.e. Cybermen episodes - I'll get around to the Cybermen eventually). I'm starting with the Curse of Fenric, which promises to be good on the character development front. Plus, I can't get enough of Seven and Ace.

What the... what is Ace wearing? And why? She says she'd rather go rock climbing, and the Doctor says "Not in those clothes!" and laughs kind of maniacally and she kind of goes "Hey!" I'm not sure what's going on with them right now. Hee hee, she calls him the Professor so much she introduces him that way. I hope I haven't missed anything, I've no freaking idea why they're here. And what are these accents??

Aw, he's so like her authoritative father or uncle or babysitter. Cute. Oh, Ace is wearing period clothing I think. That seems like a first. I guess she's the only one who would already draw enough attention for breaking social standards without dressing like a punk. And she's made some friends. Girls! Just went up and said hello!

Hey! Don't stand on the grave! So disrespectful. Aw, man! The crazy old crone is right! She says Maiden's Point is where you can hear girls who lost their souls to evil, or something like that. And from screencaps and such I know she's right. Damn. And I understood that Russian word on the folder! It said "confidential"! And I didn't even need to sound it out or anything!

Hm. Pretty sure those girls are gonna die. The Doctor specifically said "Don't go in the water" and they're all going for a swim. Dead. Ah, and Ace isn't. Yep, they're definitely gonna die. And I think Ace may not know how to swim, because her response to their invitation to swim was "Swimming is stupid". Oh hey, the WWII girls are doing that thing where they drew lines on the backs of their legs to make it look like they were wearing stockings even though no one had stockings.

The Doctor just made a weird noise at Ace. And the Doctor is not dealing well with the presence of a baby. And Ace is pretty evidently damaged. She learns the baby's name is the same as her mother's and immediately hates the poor thing. Heh, he spends a lot of time holding her back from trying to beat the shit out of people.

Woah! Graphics! The letter appearing in the wall - special effects! And the Doctor, well, almost said "Что ты видел?" (What did you see?) but he said it kind of weird. And now he's acting like Ace's irritable tutor. He wants her to notice that these inscriptions they're looking at weren't there that morning, and he keeps prodding her like teachers do. Oh, whatever. Maybe he's missing having spawn now that he's over 953 and everything. Hm, you know they wouldn't even bother acknowledging the sexism of the past because it's inconvenient, seeing as all the companions are girls.

The Doctor is really against mass murder, even (especially?) in the context of war. This English guy wants to kill everyone in Moscow (basically) with this poison gas stuff to end the war. And the way he wants to do it is to rig the computer thing to self destruct when the Russians try to decode the word "love", which will be included in one of their cyphers. The Doctor astutely notes that it's "inhuman".

Those stupid girls are swimming in their jumpers. Woah... let's talk about odd glimpses into the Doctor's life... "Do you have any family yourself?" "...I don't know." "Oh, it's the war isn't it? It must be terrible not knowing." "...yes..."

Yup, the girls have been converted into water monster things. Sirens. They lure people into the water and they get eaten by water monsters. Vampires! They're vampires! They drained the old woman of blood. Vampires are always water monsters, I guess. Eugh, they're grody. Man, I think it's actually raining outside. The mics are picking it up. What a shame for the BBC. Mm... Ace and the Doctor are so cute. Argh! What's happening to Ace? She wanted to make sure the woman and the baby were ok, and then she said she wasn't sure any more that she never wanted to get married. Damn.

The Doctor is... speaking an incantation that repels the water monster vampire people. And Ace just set off more explosives and the Doctor goes "I'll talk to you later" with this expression of mock anger. And that soldier guy is repelling the vampires with the power of his communist ring! Doctor, what do you mean the Russians are our allies? I mean, for the moment, but you do in fact know what happens after the war. Not that they ever actually posed enough of a real actually threat for this poison thing to be anywhere near justifiable.

Ace says "I can distract the guards" and the Doctor says "How?" and she says "I'm not a little girl" and I go, does she mean...? And then... yes. Yes she does. In a weird, cryptic, I'm not sure it would really work kind of way. Except she maybe just be confusing him, really. she's certainly confusing me. Oooh... he was the one who already had a crush on her.

Aw, man. They got the vicar in the end. I knew they would. This is really intense.

What the...? Woah! Fenric takes the old guy's body and says "We play the contest again, Time Lord. You left me in the shadow dimensions, trapped for seventeen centuries. But now, I've found a body again, and the preparations are complete." I actually gasped. This is so cool!

Um, does Rock-a-bye Baby have a different tune in Britain?

I think that guy just gave Ace a genuine communist badge! Cool, but, huh. I dunno. Ok, the faith (in just about anything) combined with an emblem (ideally) repels the vampires. The guy gave his thing to Ace, so he doesn't have the emblem anymore... but... the sickle and hammer are right on his hat. Like, right there.

Woah... I just realized... I think that baby is Ace's mum. The timing works out, right? She's got the same name and Ace just sent the woman and the baby to go be looked after by her (Ace's) nan in London. I think she just set in motion the events leading to her own birth. And... then she watched two nice girls who'd been turned into vampires melt before her eyes. Nice.

Myerg... it's getting all dark and stuff. True evil, pawns in his game, creating using people, using Ace. Since the baby lived, Ace was born, and since Ace was born, she accidentally gave Fenric the answer to the chess puzzle, and he wins the game. So the wolves of Fenric have released him, or something. And Ace's faith in the Doctor kills the Ancient One (who is a vampire)! AND IT ALL MAKES SENSE! HOLY GOD! EVER SINCE ICEWORLD, WHERE THE DOCTOR FIRST MET HER! SHE WAS A PAWN! AND THE DOCTOR IS BLUFFING, RIGHT? RIGHT???

You see, Ace was a plant by Fenric, who needed her to figure out the puzzle, and for that there needed to be a chess set, and the baby needed to live so Ace could be born. And the Doctor may or may not have figured that out, but in any case he needed Ace to loose her faith in him so the Ancient One wouldn't be crippled by it, because the Ancient One really wanted Fenric dead, because Fenric was the one who caused the Earth to be all poisonous and destroy the world as the Ancient One knew it. So the Doctor said a bunch of mean things about Ace so she would lose her faith and the Ancient One would kill Fenric!

Wow, that was damn good. Damn damn good. That should have been the last episode, I think. Well, after that I don't think I have a choice but to move on to the actual last episode... oooh, should I? Or should I save it??? TELL ME!!

Quotes:
"I can see you've never been handicapped by great intelligence."