Rating: 
Summary: McCoy's Best Offering
Review: "Fenric" is probably the best episode starring Sylvester McCoy as the Doctor. This story actually has some depth and a decent script! The incidental music is thankfully not written by Keff McCullough, and there are some truly exciting plot twists. The film quality, unfortunately,looks as though it was shot entirely with a camcorder. This story could really have benefited from some night filming. The weather is bright and cheery throughout, and this detracts from the dark atmosphere the story tries to create. Also, Sophie Aldred's boring Ace character takes away from the drama. However, if you only watch one McCoy story, this one is probably your best bet.
Rating:
Summary: "Faith is more than just words...."
Review: "The Curse of Fenric" truly stands out in the McCoy era. Could it be a World War II story, a spy story, a story about faith, a horror story, sci-fi, morality? Or maybe I'm just reading into it too much. All I know is that every time I watch this story, I discover something new about it. The depth of this story never ends. Direction, design, acting and execution of the whole production is superb. The inclusion of Norse mythology as the genesis of the main characters is done with style(did Ian Briggs watch Monty Python's Njorl's Saga before writing this?). And Ace's character is handled very well, with her ignorance of '40's morality, and her revelation of the Doctor's manipulation over others. "I'm not a little girl" line to the Doctor scores high marks, and sets up one of the bravest scenes in the whole series until the Doctor's on-screen kiss in the FOX movie. Could "Curse..." be "Image of the Fendahl" of the eighties?
Rating:
Summary: McCoy's Best Offering
Review: "Fenric" is probably the best episode starring Sylvester McCoy as the Doctor. This story actually has some depth and a decent script! The incidental music is thankfully not written by Keff McCullough, and there are some truly exciting plot twists. The film quality, unfortunately,looks as though it was shot entirely with a camcorder. This story could really have benefited from some night filming. The weather is bright and cheery throughout, and this detracts from the dark atmosphere the story tries to create. Also, Sophie Aldred's boring Ace character takes away from the drama. However, if you only watch one McCoy story, this one is probably your best bet.
Rating: 
Summary: Downright Awful
Review: Alright. I have seen only a few of the Sylvester McCoy era episodes of Doctor Who. A few of them were okay ("Dragonfire", "Silver Nemesus") and others were dowright awful ("Paradise Towers", and whateveer that Bannermen thing was). Anyways, this story falls into the second of these two categories. The story line is slow and pedantic, and extremely uninteresting. I had never seen the original broadcast of this episode, but as I understand, it was far worse. The attempt to create a genuinely macabre atmosphere bears merit, but lacks in subtlety. As a previous reviewer noted, in all the scenes where there is supposed to be this eerie mist surrounding the area, the sky is bright blue and the sun is shining in the background. Now, I know British weather can be weird, but this appears to be more of an effect created by someone with a firhose pointed in the air. The musical score 9incidental music) is terrible as well. In the end, if you're new to Dr. Who, spend your money elsewhere. Try "The Stone of Blood", or "The Talons of Weng Chiang", (two of my all-time favorites), or any other Tom Naker, John Pertwee, or even Peter Davison episode. Yes, the effects are cheeiser, but the music, and the acting is much better.
Rating:
Summary: Downright Awful
Review: Alright. I have seen only a few of the Sylvester McCoy era episodes of Doctor Who. A few of them were okay ("Dragonfire", "Silver Nemesus") and others were dowright awful ("Paradise Towers", and whateveer that Bannermen thing was). Anyways, this story falls into the second of these two categories. The story line is slow and pedantic, and extremely uninteresting. I had never seen the original broadcast of this episode, but as I understand, it was far worse. The attempt to create a genuinely macabre atmosphere bears merit, but lacks in subtlety. As a previous reviewer noted, in all the scenes where there is supposed to be this eerie mist surrounding the area, the sky is bright blue and the sun is shining in the background. Now, I know British weather can be weird, but this appears to be more of an effect created by someone with a firhose pointed in the air. The musical score 9incidental music) is terrible as well. In the end, if you're new to Dr. Who, spend your money elsewhere. Try "The Stone of Blood", or "The Talons of Weng Chiang", (two of my all-time favorites), or any other Tom Naker, John Pertwee, or even Peter Davison episode. Yes, the effects are cheeiser, but the music, and the acting is much better.
Rating: 
Summary: A fatal Curse for Two Doctors...
Review: BBC Video continues to turn out the quarterly releases of the Doctor Who back catalogue on DVD and the latest pairing brings two stories from the latter years of the series lengthy broadcast run. Although technically featuring stories from two different eras of Doctors (and featuring a third in a guest role) both The Two Doctors and The Curse of Fenric come from the very troubled final years of the show's 26 year run when even the fans found it hard to find favor with their hero's antics and the general viewing public made it clear that they could care less!The Two Doctors was unfortunate enough to be on air when the show was famously cancelled by the BBC, albeit to return 18 months later in a revised and truncated format. Perhaps it is for this reason that this story is not that highly rated, but in all honesty it's more likely to be that the adventure was typically symptomatic of everything that seemed to be wrong with the production at this time. The first six part adventure to be made and broadcast since 1978, this lengthy story was in fact broadcast in three double-length episodes at the beginning of 1985 in the first full season to feature the controversial sixth Doctor, played by Colin Baker. I've always believed that Colin had the personality and charisma to be a very, very fine Doctor indeed and had he followed Tom Baker and not Peter Davison, things could have been very different for him. As it is, his characterization was horribly misconceived, as was his truly appalling costume and he successfully alienated the very loyal and devoted fans of the show and the general public alike. By the time The Two Doctors was on air, one third of the audience had switched off from the start of the season and the BBC was naturally looking to see why. They blamed the violence enveloping the show and watching this story, they wouldn't be far wrong. Written by probably the greatest writer ever associated with the show, the late, great former script editor Robert Holmes, this story had so many elements that could have made it a success, but was completely let down by some gratuitous violence, grisly, unnecessary deaths and far too complex a plot. Even the return of one of the show's most popular incumbents, second Doctor Patrick Troughton and his popular sidekick Jamie were unable to save the show. More's the pity since Troughton died the following year and this is hardly a fitting tribute to his contribution to the show. When the program did make it back on to air in 1986 it was a shadow of its former greatness and although it staggered onwards for another four seasons, the death knell was never far away. The Curse of Fenric comes from the very end of the show's run and is possibly the greatest example of everything that was wrong with the production at the time. Essentially, from day one, the production team had always worked with their backs to the wall, with never enough time or budget to achieve what they were striving for, and yet, in 26 years, they'd always managed to find entertaining and popular stories that worked against all the odds. The Curse of Fenric was simply a mess. A good mess; a promising mess; but a mess nonetheless. It's staggering to think that a professional TV producer would pull together a script that was so incredibly complex and essentially unworkable under the show's format and then be surprised that the material couldn't be worked into the show's slot. It's only thanks to home video and DVD that we can now see the show how it was intended, which rather ignores the fact that it is a TV show intended for a much wider audience. The DVD set contains the four episodes as they were transmitted (itself a first for home video) plus a (second) attempt to restore all the deleted material and re-order the scenes to make more sense. Certainly it does just that, but I'm still baffled 15 years after it was made and I doubt it will ever truly make sense! Thankfully the writer has recorded a long explanation of how his story was meant to be. Thanks, but that doesn't and didn't help the viewers of BBC1 back in 1989! But as always with the Doctor Who DVD's, it's the extras that make these releases so worthwhile, regardless of the quality of the stories themselves. With the Two Doctors there are all sorts of goodies, including a great commentary from the main cast and director and all sorts of out-takes, behind the scenes information and (perhaps unwisely) a lengthy piece by the producer's ex-partner explaining at length how they unnecessarily set the story in Spain so as to get some fabulous vacation time for themselves. Oops! The Curse of Fenric commentary from Sylvester McCoy, Sophie Aldred and Nicholas Parsons is also highly entertaining and the extras on this two-disc set certainly prove most interesting, even it is all a bit long winded. Doctor Who was never very good when it took itself too seriously. The fans love all the in-jokes and references to the past. But it hardly works for the general viewer who simply is baffled because they didn't see the story from last season that ties into this, or can't remember something from 10 years ago that drives the whole plot. Sadly, that's what Doctor Who in its final years was all about. At least these discs go someway to making it a little clearer!
Rating:
Summary: The best of a bad bunch
Review: By the time the original series got around to the 7th Doctor (Sylvester McCoy), the series was a shadow of its former self, which can be seen in the currently available on dvd Pyramids of Mars, The Talons of Weng-Chiang, The Aztecs, etc.... Still, the 7th Doctor "era" which lasted the equivilant of 1.5 seasons in the Tom Baker era, had the occasional high point. This story is the top of the heap when it comes to the 7th Doctor. My advice is to watch the special edition version of the story, on disc 2 instead of the orignial version on disc 1. The new version has added scenes, updated music and some better post production work making it flow and look better.
Rating: 
Summary: Terrible
Review: Doctor Who....cool looking monsters on the cover...so good, so far...until you try to watch it. The acting is HORRIBLE, its cheesy, and worst of all....terribly slow and boring. It takes forever to even see a monster, I found myself fast-forwarding through the crappy plot just so I could see some action. Absolute waste of money. It takes a totally die-hard DW fan to stomach post-1981 Doctor Who. Buyer beware.
Rating: 
Summary: Dark is good
Review: For anyone who stopped watching the McCoy era because of a few mediocre episodes in the first 7th Doctor season, well I must say that they are missing some excellent stories. The Curse of Fenric is one of the best of the McCoy stories, if not the whole show. The best aspect of this episode is perhaps the uncharacteristic dark atmosphere; when I first watched it, I wondered if this was a Doctor Who story at all. Everything in this story has dark aspects: the story, the minor characters, the main villian(he is the first Evil after all), and even the Doctor presents a hidden dark side. All in all, dark is good. After thirty years of basically the same thing, I was happy to see Doctor Who embrace a different style. It is unfortunate that the BBC cancelled the program when it did; who knows where the story could have gone if allowed to continue.
Rating:
Summary: A Real Horror Story
Review: I actually taped this from TV. I have seen horror movies that have vampires in them, but none like the haemovores. I can certainly call this a horror movie with a futuristic time machine like the TARDIS comming into it. I found it real scary when the crippled Dr. Judson being possessed by Fenric and rising on his two feet and walking and eyes glowing. I found it even scarier when the possessed Judson letting the haemovores kill the nurse that "patronized" him and taking pleasure at her torment. Forget "Friday the 13th" and "Halloween", they're amatures compared to this.
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