Four Episodes
Aired between 3rd September 1977 and 24th September 1977
Written by Terrence Dicks
Produced by Graham Williams
Directed by Paddy Russell
Synopsis
A lonely nineteenth century lighthouse at Fang Rock is the scene where a strange comet comes crashing down and a mysterious fog soon rises from the sea.
The Doctor and Leela take a detour when the TARDIS gets lost in said fog, and it's not long before they discover that the lighthouse is being terrorised by the so-called "Beast of Fang Rock".
The lighthouse keeper - Ben is found dead and they are the prime suspects.
Strange things begin to happen when the power keeps tripping out and poor Ben's body disappears and gets dissected. The superstitious lighthouse deputy - Reuben fears the worst.
Things are shaken up a bit when a yacht crashes into the rocks. The survivors are brought to the lighthouse to recover. It turns out that a well-to-do Lord Palmerdale is desperately trying to get back to Southampton to capitalise on an account of blackmail he's got on Colonel Skinsale, and make a load of money. In his haste, they crashed, stranding Skinsale, himself, his secretary, Adelaide and the shipman Harker.
The Doctor for the most part ignores Palmerdale's attempts to get back to the bank by daybreak, instead focusing on the presence of static electricity around the generator, and working out the plans of their would be killer, a monster that is skulking around outside.
The monster manages to kill and take the form of Reuben, and begins to off the survivors one by one, until the Doctor faces it. It turns out to be a Rutan, sworn enemy of the Sontaran's.
Although crashed into the sea, the Rutan intends to call its mates and use Earth as a staging area for a final attack on the Sontaran's, even though the planet will probably be wiped out as a consequence.
The Doctor uses the contents of his pockets and a flare gun to kill the creature, and uses a diamond that Lord Palmerdale extorted out of Colonel Skinsale to annihilate the Rutan mothership that arrives.
The resulting blast affects Leela's eyes, turning them blue.
Trivia
- Robert Holmes turned to his friend Terrence Dicks to write this serial. It was originally going to be a vampire story, but the BBC were doing an adaptation of Dracula, and forbade the Doctor Who Production Team from doing such a story. This script was put to one side, but used later (see The Sate of Decay).
- Terrence was asked to go back to the drawing board and Robert Holmes told him he wanted a story about a lighthouse. Terrence told him he knew nothing about them and so it would be difficult. Some speculate that Robert took perverse pleasure in getting revenge on Terrence by telling him to get a kids book of lighthouses and doing some research, in reference to how Dicks had treated him when he was forced to write the Time Warrior.
- The disagreements between Tom and Louise came to a head around this story, with Director Paddy Russel forcing them to thrash the situation out, and telling Tom in certain terms that he would have to have a companion and that was that (presumably with the agreement of incoming producer Graham Williams). Tom begrudgingly accepted the situation but called Paddy "Sir" from that point on (Paddy was a woman).
- As noted in the previous story, part of Louise Jameson's conditions for staying on for another year was her getting rid of the contact lenses that caused her discomfort. A hasty reason was concocted and used at the end of the story.
- In 1987, the story was being re-broadcast in the Chicago area when it was interrupted by a strange event. A TV hacker in a Max Headroom mask appeared on the screen and began spouting a lot of random sentences and getting his bottom spanked by a french maid! To this day, no one knows who the culprit was, or why they did it.
The Review
Given that in the previous story, I argued that Victorian era Doctor Who feels right because the resonances with Sherlock Holmes fit very well, it's no surprise that I'm going to say this is a good story. What might surprise you is how much of a good story I think it is.
On the surface of it, this is a standard base under siege story that was done to death in the Patrick Troughton era, so what makes it stand out above those? Atmosphere my friend, atmosphere. Troughton's bases were more often than not a space station with the odd oil-rig thrown in. "Well, this is just a lighthouse" you might say. Yes, it is, but it's a Victorian lighthouse. That means lots of darkened sets and fog, and that is excellent stuff for ramping up tension and fear. Plus, the lack of any identifiable weapons raises the stakes even further. Okay, Leela has her knife, but she's thrown it in every story she's been in and it's never killed a monster once, so we know this will be no use.
The Horror of Fang Rock excels at raising the stakes. You never doubt that the Doctor will get out of it, but it does make you consider the cost. When we start to see humans dropping like flies, there's no guarantee Leela will be so lucky. This is compounded by the fact that Terrence Dicks puts the Doctor in a situation where he hasn't much sense of the monster's goals at all until right at the end, indeed he makes him fallible by locking the monster inside.
Another thing that's great about the Horror of Fang Rock is the sub-plot. Most stories waddle along with the main plot until the Doctor pulls a mcGuffin out of his pocket and saves the day, with any side-characters being restricted to interacting with the main plot. This story takes it to the next level where almost every character feels real. They have motivations and goals and most of them don't have a thing to do with the monster outside. This is a superb feat to accomplish in four episodes. Each character has a unique and definable personality, and has flaws too - Palmerdale is too greedy, Skinsale is too proud, Adelaide is...well, too annoying.
None of this is token nods such as the love interests in the Wheel in Space. This is good plotting, pure and simple.
I mean, the story structure is just great. This is a family show, yet the death toll is huge, to the point where Eric Saward could have written it! And that's good. It never talks down to you, and as a result, you feel the tension. Anyone could die at any point, especially if you're in the generator room on your own.
So, is there any problems with this story? Yes, and they mainly come at the end. The diamond death ray is one, as is the eye colour shift. Both seem to be last minute additions to the script just to get it over and done with. You could also say that the inability for everyone to just stay in one room and shore up the door a lot earlier, but I would argue that the Doctor didn't want to scare the inhabitants and he was still figuring things out at that point so wanted to be able to move about.
As with any story, some love it, some don't. On measure, I LOVE this story. It offers everything that the Talons of Weng-Chiang does, and keeps it tightly compacted into four episodes. For that reason, I would argue that this is possibly the best Doctor Who story that has been created so far and I think it's an absolute tragedy that the story hasn't received as much praise as it should.
Rating
10 out of 10!
Rewatchability Factor
10 out of 10!
Watch this if you liked...
- The Moonbase
- Fury from the Deep
- The Talons of Weng-Chiang
- The Crimson Horror (Doctor Who, Series 7)
