Time to tackle another personal favourite of mine with “Horror of Fang Rock”, a classic claustrophobic base under siege (or in this case, lighthouse under siege) story with an eclectic cast of characters slowly being picked off by a mysterious creature. It only features about five sets but everything is written and directed so well that you don’t notice, or if you do, you don’t care. It also introduced the Rutans visually at last in currently their only TV appearance, oddly enough! Let’s take a look.
Young lighthouse keeper Vince (John Abbott) spots a “shooting star” crashing into the ocean but only receives mocking from the other two staff Reuben (Colin Douglas) and Ben (Ralph Watson), but while they go down and try and sort out the newfangled electric lighting system (Reuben is very much in the “it worked better the old way” camp) a mysterious thick fog comes out of nowhere to blanket the area. At the same time the TARDIS lands and The Doctor (Tom Baker) and Leela (Louise Jameson) arrive thinking they were getting Brighton beach but instead a foggy rocky shoreline with a lighthouse that keeps blinking out. The duo arrive in the lighthouse and talk to Vince, who was surprised they didn’t meet Ben on the way in as he was supposed to be in the generator room getting things going again. We the viewer know what happened though as we got a classic POV monster shot of Ben being attacked by the mysterious creature that arrived in the ocean. The Doctor soon discovers Ben’s body, saying he died of a massive electric shock but he personally doesn’t believe it was the machine that did it, but it all becomes moot when everyone’s attention is drawn to a yacht that crashes on the rocky shore (it’s a weird cliffhanger because we hear a lady scream as the boat hits the shore but, you know, we have no idea who they are… hardly likely to care about them being in peril!)
“Sorry Reuben, but… Why is your hair glowin’?” “Never mind the CSO backgrounds boy! Get back to work!”
The four passengers are soon brought to the lighthouse and they’re MP Colonel James Skinsale (Alan Rowe), rich snobby businessman Lord Palmerdale (Sean Caffrey), Palmerdale’s sectary Adelaide (Annette Woollett) and Harker (Rio Fanning), who piloted the yacht under Palmerdale’s orders. It soon becomes clear why they were making such haste: Palmerdale had found out some information from Skinsale that will allow him to make a fortune at the Stock Exchange so he was pushing Harker to go as fast as he could despite the unfavourable conditions, but Skinsale isn’t thrilled about his career most likely coming to an end when how Palmerdale got the information no doubt comes to light. Adelaide on the other hand is the most over-the-top helpless woman character you could ever hope to meet, squealing, screeching and generally nearly or actually fainting over every little thing. Very annoying, but possibly worth it for a scene where Leela has enough and just gives her a hard slap across the face. Anyway, this is your set up, The Doctor and Leela are trying to find out about and stop an alien creature while the rich boys are fighting over politics and money. Skinsale even destroys the telegraph machine to make sure Palmerdale can’t get word back to London, despite the danger everyone faces.
The Doctor realises the severity of the situation… or remembers he’ll have to talk to Adelaide again, one of the two.
Eventually the creature takes over the body of Reuben as it kills several more people in the lighthouse, one by one, and The Doctor soon recognises it as a Rutan, oddly far from the Sontaran-Rutan warfront. The Rutan has set up a distress beacon to be picked up by his people, and that although the Rutans are making a “strategic withdraw” from the battlefront they will conquer Earth and use it to launch a counterattack…
As I said it’s a really fun, close-quarters horror story slightly let down by the admittedly naff-even-for-the-time special effect job on the Rutan (there is now an optional practical effects replacement if you’re watching the Blu-Ray like I am, though I do tend to stick with the “warts and all” approach to Doctor Who I do appreciate they didn’t go down the CG route!)
The Continuity:
Not sure if this is “Argh!” or “Ahh-choo!”...
As mentioned this the first and currently only on-screen appearance for the Rutans. They did later appear on Audio in the Fifth Doctor story “Castle of Fear” and then again much, much later in a series of stories dubbed “Sontarans vs. Rutans”, specifically the Eighth Doctor story “The Battle of Giant’s Causeway” and the Third Doctor story “The Children of the Future”. That’s about it though!
Overall Thoughts:
Skinsale and Palmerdale have an “obnoxious prick-off” which ends in a draw.
“Horror of Fang Rock” is a standout in an admittedly mostly poor season (apart from one other great story tucked away). It has a great sense of claustrophobia as the Rutan starts to slowly whittle the guest cast down one by one as they’re trapped on the foggy lighthouse at night, it’s just dripping with atmosphere and great lines from The Doctor. Highly recommended if you’re just trying to watch the greats, and recommended to anyone else who might be interested in watching Tom Baker in the lead role, or just Doctor Who in general really, so long as they know what they’re in for, special effects wise…
After Palmerdale is killed shortly after trying to bribe the super naïve and sweet Vince (who then is later killed himself) The Doctor goes about trying to disable the distress beacon but only succeeds at getting caught holding on to the ledge of the lighthouse window. As more and more of the guest cast is killed it falls to The Doctor, Leela and Col. Skinsale to fight off the beast, which they do via a makeshift canon and a bag of diamonds to use as shrapnel, though Skinsale is soon killed trying to grab the diamonds for himself afterwards. The Doctor then rigs the lighthouse light to act as some sort of ray projector to take out the Rutan ship as it approaches, though in the process Leela looks up at the explosion and seems to lose her sight, immediately giving The Doctor her knife and telling him to kill her as she has become lame (damn…)
Jeez, even The Doctor’s giving no respect to the green blob. At least act scared, it has feelings too you know!
The effect is just temporary though and she’s soon fine, though her eye colour has changed (this is due to Louise Jameson not wanting to wear contact lenses any more, for the record). The two soon depart as The Doctor recites Wilfrid Gibson’s poem Flannan Isle (yes I had to look that up…) as we close. One of the few stories where literally every character other than The Doctor and his companion are killed off…
Hogan Reviews 