Horror of Fang Rock

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 This article needs additional citations for verification.
Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (April 2008)
092 – Horror of Fang Rock
Doctor Who serial

A Rutan undergoing a chameleonic metamorphosis.
Cast
Doctor Tom Baker (Fourth Doctor)
Companion Louise Jameson (Leela)
Production
Writer Terrance Dicks
Director Paddy Russell
Script editor Robert Holmes
Producer Graham Williams
Executive producer(s) None
Production code 4V
Series Season 15
Length 4 episodes, 25 mins each
Originally broadcast September 3–September 24, 1977
Chronology
← Preceded by Followed by →
The Talons of Weng-Chiang The Invisible Enemy

Horror of Fang Rock is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four weekly parts from September 3 to September 24, 1977.

Contents

[edit] Synopsis

The cursed island of Fang Rock off the south coast of England is a place of rumour and tales of beasts from the sea. Three lighthouse men at the turn of the century face their fears when something comes in from the sea which brings death to all it touches.

[edit] Plot

On the way to show Brighton to Leela, the TARDIS lands on the island of Fang Rock off the south coast of England. Noticing that the lighthouse isn't functioning properly, the Fourth Doctor decides to investigate, as well as to ask for directions as the TARDIS seems to have gotten 'lost in the fog'. Upon arrival at the lighthouse, and after introducing themselves, the Doctor discovers the dead body of one of the keepers, Ben. The other two keepers, old superstitious Reuben and the keen young Vince Hawkins, report that a light fell from the sky near the island. They also explain the electricity flow to the lamp on the lighthouse has become erratic and the Doctor deduces something is feeding on the flow. Reuben does not help matters with his constant references to the mythical Beast of Fang Rock which reputedly once terrorised the lighthouse. As the Doctor and Leela explore, something moves Ben’s body out of the lighthouse and onto the island, and they witness a curious electric crackling which seems to have killed fish nearby.

The loss of the electric light due to the unexplained draining of power from the generators causes a luxury yacht to crash on to Fang Rock. The four survivors are brought to the lighthouse: the bosun Harker; an MP named Colonel James Skinsale; the owner, Lord Palmerdale; and his highly strung secretary Adelaide Lessage. Over time it emerges Palmerdale has bought government secrets from Skinsale and was desperate to reach the stock exchange to make a killing – hence the reason the ship was travelling at such a pace.

Harker and the Doctor retrieve Ben’s body and the Time Lord deduces it has been used as an anatomy lesson for an alien life-form. He determines that their best protection is to secure the lighthouse to keep the creature out. Reuben then disappears for a time and then reappears a changed man, which the others put down to shock. But the pattern of death now speeds up. Palmerdale is killed in the lamp room by a glowing alien presence on the outside of the lighthouse, and then Harker is killed when Reuben corners him in the boiler room. From the alien light emanating from Reuben it is clear he has become possessed or transformed by the alien creature. The Doctor finds Harker’s body and then Reuben’s own – the latter cold for some time – which means the creature in Reuben’s form has chameleonic properties.

The creature now stalks down and kills the others in the lighthouse. Adelaide dies first, then Vince. With its presence now revealed, the alien among them sheds its disguise: it is a Rutan, a chameleonic life form, whose scout ship crash landed in the sea and is trying to summon its mother ship. The Rutan ship is seemingly unstoppable, but the Doctor, Leela and Skinsale come up with a plan. First they kill the Rutan Scout — but not before it kills Skinsale — and then the Doctor uses Palmerdale’s diamonds as a focus for a light beam, and convert the lighthouse into a high-energy laser by which the Doctor destroys the Rutan mother ship. The blinding flash even turns Leela’s eyes from brown to blue. The Doctor quotes Wilfrid Gibson's poem Flannan Isle as they take their leave.


[edit] Cast

Alan Rowe later appeared as Garif in the episode "Full Circle"

[edit] Continuity

  • The story's exact year is never made explicit, but a reference to the beast being seen "eighty years ago" in the "twenties" suggests the early 20th century, as does a reference to King Edward, who reigned from 1901-1910. Lance Parkin's unofficial chronology AHistory dates it to c.1902. Colonel Skinsale also refers to his feeling uneasy in the presence of Balfour, Salisbury and Bonar Law while Lord Palmerdale makes him feel uneasy when he is not in his presence - Lord Salisbury died in 1903, Balfour was PM in the second half of the first decade of the 20th century and had been First Lord of the Treasury under Salisbury, and Bonar Law was a notable MP already in that decade and early that decade was Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade, although yet to be in the cabinet. All three were prominent Conservatives who became Prime Minister. Marconi's Wireless Telegraph prominently featured in the story and was the latest thing in the first decade of the 20th century most notably being used on the Titanic. Electric lamps in lighthouses started to replace oil at the turn of the 20th century.
  • This serial marks the first and only appearance of the Rutans, but they are mentioned in every appearance of the Sontarans except The Invasion of Time, and have appeared in various spin-off media.
  • Louise Jameson (Leela) stops wearing her brown contacts at the end of this serial, with the sudden change in colour being explained away as resulting from a pigment dispersal caused by looking directly into a bright explosion. Curiously enough, at the time this story was being broadcast Crystal Gayle was in the UK charts with the song Don't it make my brown eyes blue. Jameson had found the contacts painful to wear, and made their removal a condition for her agreeing to play Leela for another season.
  • An Eighth Doctor audio story written by Paul Magrs for Big Finish Productions, broadcast on BBC 7 on 14 January 2007, is entitled Horror of Glam Rock, a play on this serial's title.
  • The Fourth Doctor eventually does visit Brighton with Romana in The Leisure Hive -- though the TARDIS still misses the opening of the Pavilion by some 200 years.
  • This is the one of two Doctor Who story where all the characters, other than the Doctor and his companion, die. The other is "Warriors of the Deep"

[edit] Production

  • Horror of Fang Rock was the only story of the classic series run to be made entirely outside of London. Due to engineering work at BBC Television Centre, the programme's usual production base, it was made at Pebble Mill Studios in Birmingham.[1]
  • Working titles for this story included The Monster of Fang Rock and The Beast of Fang Rock.[1]
  • Horror of Fang Rock was in fact a late replacement for the scripts Terrance Dicks had originally submitted, a vampire-based tale entitled The Witch Lords, which was canceled close to production as it was feared it could detract from the BBC's high-profile adaptation of Bram Stoker's classic novel Count Dracula, which was due for transmission close to when the serial would have aired. A re-written version did, however, eventually see production in 1980 as State of Decay, part of the eighteenth season of Doctor Who.[1]
  • According to the DVD commentary supplied by Louise Jameson, John Abbott and Terrance Dicks, a scene in Part Three was crucial to the behind-the-scenes relationship between Jameson and co-star Tom Baker. In one scene, he consistently came in ahead of his cue, thereby upstaging her. On the grounds that this move was "not what they had rehearsed" she insisted on three successive retakes until he came in at the rehearsed time. This eventually won his respect. From that point forward, she claims their working relationship was much smoother.

[edit] The Ballad of Flannan Isle

[edit] In print

Doctor Who book
Book cover
Doctor Who and the Horror of Fang Rock
Series Target novelisations
Release number 32
Writer Terrance Dicks
Publisher Target Books
Cover artist Jeff Cummins
ISBN 0 426 20009 8
Release date 30 March 1978
Preceded by Doctor Who and the Face of Evil
Followed by Doctor Who and the Tomb of the Cybermen

A novelisation of this serial, written by Terrance Dicks, was published by Target Books in March 1978.

[edit] Broadcast, VHS and DVD release

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c Horror of Fang Rock. A Brief History of Time (Travel) (2004-03-21). Retrieved on 2006-09-08.
  2. ^ The Ballad of Fang Rock. Time Space Visualiser issue 3. Retrieved on 2007-09-13.

[edit] External links

[edit] Reviews

[edit] Target novelisation

v • d • e
Doctor Who season 15 serials