Day 721: Fear Her

Fear Her is relentlessly disliked. In a recent survey in Doctor Who magazine, ranking all Doctor Who episodes from worst to best up until The Time of the Doctor, Fear Her was ranked 240th out of 241. The only story that it was better than was The Twin Dilemma, which is arguably a story that helped to speed along the cancellation of Doctor Who. So that should give you some idea of how much this story is hated. But why is there so much vitriol for this story? It's a question that I've asked myself time and time again, because I honestly can't see it.

Granted, this story isn't particularly good. It's a cheap episode, and it clearly shows, given that the episode goes out of its way to avoid showing effects shots, at one point substitution the monster with a red light. Similarly, while the episode does have an interesting hook to it: being that a child can draw pictures that kidnap people, it doesn't quite work on screen because it never really follows up on the premise by looking at the people affected by it. Compare Fear Her with The Idiot's Lantern, for instance. The Idiot's Lantern quite clearly shows people distressed by the threat of people being taken away in vans to some undisclosed location, and that shows itself in some emotionally charged scenes peppered throughout the episode. For Fear Her, we get a few scenes of people looking worried, and that's that. It's a failure both in terms of the story, because it should have clearly thought about the emotional impact of what is happening and the acting, which never truly is able to convey the emotion of having children abducted on a regular basis from that street.

But the story does succeed in some areas. It does have an interesting undercurrent dealing with an abusive father, which is a very different area for the series to go into, and I feel that if this sub-plot were part of a better written story, then it would be more well regarded. Also, the 'love conquers all' ending, whilst relentlessly cheesy, is still rather fun, and whilst I may have been laughing at certain moments (the line "We did see a flash of lightning earlier that seemed to strike him" never fails to make me laugh by how understated it is) rather than laughing with certain moments, at least I'm enjoying the story. Overall, it's not as bad as its reputation suggests, and certainly not the second worst episode of Doctor Who ever (<cough> Warrriors of the Deep <cough>). It's just a bit of light relief as the calm before the storm...