DOCTOR WHO:  THE HORROR OF FANG ROCK

commentary by Judy Harris

visit my home page at   http://judyharris.net/index.htm

or E-mail me at foosie@bestweb.net

index of all Tom Baker WHO stories:  http://judyharris.net/whoindex.htm

#18:  THE HORROR OF FANG ROCK (4 Parts)
ORIGINALLY AIRED:  9/3/77 to 9/24/77
WRITTEN BY:  Terrence Dicks	
DIRECTED BY:  Paddy Russell
PRODUCER:  Graham Williams	
SCRIPT EDITOR:  Robert Holmes

This is the first show with new producer Graham Williams. It is also Louise Jameson's least favorite story, because the companion role in it was originally meant for Sarah Jane Smith. Jameson feels the script was not adjusted for the totally different character of Leela--mainly because the role called for a lot of screaming, which is not typical of Leela. WHO scripts frequently underwent a metamorphosis in rehearsal. Despite Louise Jameson's protests, it's hard to picture Sarah in this story. Certainly the dialogue is typical Leela, suggesting Jameson had a lot of input on how the character developed. When she was offered the role, she was promised it would be a sort of Emma Peel character from THE AVENGERS; in her pants, sweater and boots, this story is the closest Leela ever came to Emma Peel.

Around 1900 off the Channel coast, a light flashes across the night sky and something crashes into the sea near a lighthouse on Fang Rock. Out on the lamp gallery, Vince Hawkins, a young keeper, sees this object through his spyglass.

The lighthouse miniature, seen mostly at night, and frequently in fog, is pretty convincing and rather attractive. From time to time we see it from the point of view of the creature who crashed into the sea.

In the crew room, Ben--the principal keeper and engineer--argues the merits of electric lights versus oil with Reuben, an old timer. A fog comes up, and Vince notifies Reuben over a speaking tube, which connects the various levels of the lighthouse. He thinks the fog and cold have come from where the glow in the sky fell. The lamp in the lighthouse goes out.

The TARDIS lands on some rocks nearby. Leela emerges in an Edwardian sailor suit and straw hat, announcing, "You said I would like Brighton; well, I do not." The Doctor follows, wearing a bowler hat, telling her, "It's not even Hove; it could be Worthing." "The machine has failed again?" Leela asks. "Oh not really, not failed. We're on the right planet at the right time, roughly in the right general direction, assuming this is Worthing," the Doctor says, adding, "A localized condition of planetary atmospheric condensation caused a malfunction in the visual orientation circuits; put it another way--we got lost in the fog."

The Doctor is ready to pop back in to the TARDIS and try again when he catches sight of the lighthouse without a light.

In the ground level generator room of the lighthouse, Ben putters around the generator but the lights come on by themselves. As he goes upstairs, something which glows greenly enters the generator room.

The Doctor and Leela head for the lighthouse to get directions. Leela senses something is wrong.

The light goes out again and Ben returns to the generator room, where he's killed by the glowing creature.

The Doctor and Leela arrive at the lighthouse. "The generator's working; I wonder what's happening to the power?" the Doctor rhetorically asks. "I"m not a Teshnician," Leela replies, causing the Doctor a delayed double take. They head up the stairs and introduce themselves to Vince, who invites them to the crewroom.

Just as Trevor Baxter in THE TALONS OF WENG-CHIANG had a Terry Jones air about him, so John Abbott as Vince comes across as a boyish Michael Palin.

The Doctor volunteers to fix the generator, as Ben has disappeared. Leela asks Vince for some dry clothes, which he hastens to provide as she begins to disrobe, to his embarrassment. She changes into a sweater and long pants.

The lights come back on. "Curiouser and curiouser," the Doctor says, echoing Harry in ROBOT (not to mention ALICE IN WONDERLAND). Vince and Leela come down to the generator room and Vince asks if the Doctor's found the trouble. "Yes, I always find trouble," the Doctor says; he's found Ben dead--electrocuted.

Vince takes the death tearfully and goes to tell Reuben. The Doctor doesn't believe the generator killed Ben. He checks out a coal hole but finds nothing. Near the body, he finds Ben's lantern, which has been flattened.

Reuben puts a shroud around Ben, while the Doctor speaks to Vince in the lamp room. Vince tells him about the fireball. Leela slips outside to scout around. She finds dead fish floating nearby and hears a noise like crackling static; she's observed by the creature.

Vince hears a dragging noise in the generator room; when he goes to investigate, he finds Ben's body missing.

In the lamp room, the Doctor spots a steam yacht off the rocks, and alerts Reuben to man the siren. Reuben sets off flares, but it's too late. The ship strikes the rocks.

The Doctor, Reuben and Vince go to rescue the survivors, leaving Leela to keep the siren going. On his way out, the Doctor stops to pick up some rope and is almost electrocuted.

In the lamp tower, the light comes on. Leela notices something climbing on the rocks below. It looks like a glowing green jellyfish.

Three survivors stumble into the crewroom: Lord Henry Palmerdale, his secretary Adelaide Lesage and an associate, Colonel James Skinsale. They're wearing wooden life preservers, a nice period detail.

Leela tells the Doctor about the creature she saw. Reuben overhears and says it's the Beast of Fang Rock.  The Doctor smiles skeptically, while Leela looks worried.

The Doctor and Leela go down to the crewroom. Palmerdale asks if the Doctor is in charge. "No," he replies, "but I'm full of ideas."

Vince has to stoke the boiler. "Off you go," the Doctor tells him. Vince is nervous, so the Doctor sends Leela with him.

Palmerdale and Skinsale argue. "Just a moment," the Doctor breaks in suddenly, "we haven't been introduced."

Palmerdale was headed for Southampton, where a train waits to take him to London. He must be there before the market opens. "You've no chance in this fog," the Doctor tells him.

Harker, the coxswain, arrives, dragging all that's left of Ben. The Doctor tells Leela the Beast Reuben spoke of is just a superstition. He thinks someone has done a post mortem on Ben's body "to make a detailed study of human anatomy." So as not to frighten the already nervous Vince, the Doctor lies, saying he must have been wrong about Ben's being dead.

On the lamp deck, Reuben tells Vince the last time the Beast was seen on Fang Rock was 80 years ago, when two men died and one went mad.

Leela leads the Doctor outside to where she saw the luminous creature. The Doctor puts a compass down; it spins crazily, indicating an electrical field strong enough to kill a man on contact--also explaining the phosphorescent glow. The Doctor doesn't know what it is, but feels it's desperate and cunning.

The Doctor thinks the fireball Vince saw was a spaceship. The creature dragged Ben's body away after killing him. "An alien creature which has never before encountered human beings might just behave that way," he tells Leela, adding it's "behavior pattern is furtive." The Doctor thinks the fog has been contrived by the alien to isolate Fang Rock, where the creature was attracted because of the electricity. "I think we're in terrible trouble," the Doctor says.

Skinsale has given Palmerdale inside information in return for which Palmerdale has torn up his IOUs. Now Palmerdale can't act on the information because he can't get to London. He tries to talk Harker into sending a coded message to his broker on the telegraph, but Harker blames Palmerdale for wrecking the ship and losing the crew and refuses.

The Doctor arrives in the crew room and smilingly announces, "Gentlemen, I've got news for you. This lighthouse is under attack, and by morning we might all be dead." He adds no one is to leave the building.

It gets colder, signalling the approach of the creature, who attacks Reuben in the coal hole. The Doctor and Leela run to the generator room. Reuben isn't there, but the outside door is open. They go out to search.

Reuben emerges from the coal hole, looking glassy-eyed and walking rigidly. "Leave me be," he tells Harker, who is stoking the boiler. Reuben heads to his room and locks himself in.

The lights come back on, and the Doctor and Leela return. "Got it!," the Doctor shouts, "U by Q over R." The Doctor touches the generator and gets a mild shock. He tells Harker and Leela, "In the space which surrounds an electrically charged body, there occurs an electric potential which is proportional to the distance R from the center."

When he learns from Harker Reuben is alive, the Doctor realizes he doesn't need this formula to work out the creature's size; he can just find out from Reuben. He asks Harker to try to secure the outer door.

Palmerdale tries to get Skinsale to use the radio, but Skinsale refuses. If Palmerdale gets through, Skinsale will be ruined.

The Doctor and Leela knock on Reuben's door; he's standing in his room glowing greenly. The Doctor thinks he doesn't answer because he's in shock. He sends Leela to tell Harker to keep the boiler pressure up.

Palmerdale goes to the lamp room to offer Vince 50 pounds to send a radio message. Skinsale overhears so he returns to the crew room and makes insulting remarks about Palmerdale to get Adelaide to leave. When she's gone, he wrecks the telegraph.

The creature climbs up the side of the lighthouse. The Doctor comes into the lamp room to see Vince, so Palmerdale ducks out onto the lamp gallery. Palmerdale is electrocuted by the creature and falls off the deck.

Leela starts to smash Reuben's door down with a large mallet. On a backswing, the Doctor catches it to stop her. "The Malicious Damage Act, 1861, covers lighthouses," he tells her.

Vince looks for Palmerdale and realizes he's fallen over. In a panic, he burns the 50 pounds.

The Doctor returns to the crewroom and tells Adelaide and Skinsale, "Somewhere out there there's a hostile alien from a distant planet, and I believe it intends to destroy us." Skinsale takes this humorously and refers to H. G. Wells. "Herbert may have a few unimportant facts wrong," the Doctor says, "but his basic supposition is sound enough. You think your little speck in the galaxy's the only one with intelligent life?" In a future story, TIMELASH, Colin Baker's Doctor gets to meet H. G. Wells, although the character's identity isn't revealed until the last possible moment.

Vince uses the speaking tube to tell the Doctor about Palmerdale. Adelaide has hysterics, so Leela slaps her.

Skinsale, Harker and the Doctor go out to fetch Palmerdale's body, which the Doctor carries to the crewroom. Adelaide has hysterics again, when she sees her employer's body. "Has she never seen death before?" Leela wonders.

"Reuben" returns to the generator room and kills Harker with a touch. Vince can't get the siren to work because there's no boiler pressure.

The Doctor tells the gathering in the crewroom, the creature can "not only climb sheer walls, it's amphibious, it has some affinity with electricity and the technological ability to adapt its environment to optimum thermal levels," adding when he's greeted by blank stares, "It likes the cold. Not enough data to place the species, but heat might be a method of defense."

Vince uses the speaking tube to tell the Doctor the boiler pressure has fallen and the siren won't sound. The Doctor fears for Harker. He and the others go to the generator where they find him dead. Adelaide has hysterics again, so Skinsale leads her back to the crewroom.

The Doctor finds the body of the real Reuben in the coal hole; he's been dead for hours. "The chameleon factor," the Doctor says, "sometimes called lycanthropy. Leela, I've made a terrible mistake. I thought I locked the enemy out; instead I've locked it in with us."

"Reuben" goes to the lamp room and kills Vince with a touch. Below, Leela stokes the boiler.

The Doctor tells Leela the alien "needed to study the human life pattern first," adding, "Organic restructuring is elementary physiology for Time Lords," which is something "a lesser species might master after a few thousand centuries."

The Doctor finds an alien device attached to the generator. "It's some kind of power relay," he notes, adding, "Rule 1--after surviving a crash landing, set up a distress beacon." The alien needed a power source so it sought out the lighthouse. "There must be a signal modulator somewhere, transmitting," the Doctor says.

He tells Leela to get the surviving humans to the lamp room, which is the easiest place to defend. The he goes searching Reuben's room for the transmitter. "Reuben" returns, so the Doctor hides, hanging by his hands outside Reuben's window, high above the rocks. He finds the transmitter out there and removes it.

"Reuben" goes to the crew room and kills Adelaide with a touch. Leela throws her knife at him, but his body loses physical substance and the knife goes right through him.

Everyone heads to the lamp room. The Doctor tells Skinsale, "When you reach the service room, you'll find a locker full of maroons. I want you to break them open and scatter the powder down the lamp room stairs," adding, "Off you go." Maroons are fireworks which explode with a loud report.

"Reuben" heads up the stairs and encounters the Doctor. "May I help you?" the Doctor politely asks. "Reuben" says it's no longer necessary to hold its human shape and reverts to its true form--a glowing green jellyfish. The Doctor recognizes it as a Rutan, who are "at last losing that interminable war with the Sontarans."

Rutans were first mentioned in the Pertwee story, THE TIME WARRIOR, and again in Tom Baker's story THE SONTARAN EXPERIMENT, but this is the first time (and the last, so far) they've been shown.

The Rutan denies the war is being lost. "Rutan, that's the empty rhetoric of a defeated dictator; and I don't like your face either," the Doctor mocks.

Due to its strategic position, Earth is the target of a large Rutan expedition. When the Rutans set up their power base, the Sontarans will bombard Earth with photonic missiles, which will destroy the planet. Calling the Rutan "oyster face," the Doctor challenges it to come into the lamp room.

He heads there himself and borrows a match from Skinsale to set off the powder, knocking the Rutan down the steps. The Doctor tells Skinsale--who has just had his first look at the Rutan--"It's an intelligent, highly aggressive species from Ruta 3," an icy planet whose inhabitants find heat intensely painful.

Skinsale discovers what he thinks is a mortar, but the Doctor tells him it's an "early Schermuly,"--which fires a rocket and a line--a projectile weapon. He has everyone empty their pockets to stuff the Schermuly with sharp objects to fire at the Rutan.  (I am indebted to Trevor French who was smart enough to research this and found out that there is such a thing as an "early Schermuly", a rocket invented by William Schermuly, 1857-1929.  I was so sure this was a joke inserted into the script by Tom Baker, it is almost a disappointment to find out it's not!)

The Doctor tells Leela and Skinsale a whole battle fleet of Rutans are on the way, "unless, of course, we can knock out both the mother ship and the scout ship," which "have a crystalline infrastructure, you see, shielded, of course."

The Doctor needs an "amplified carbon oscillator," which is like a laser beam, but much more destructive. Leela suggests using the carbon arc beam of the lighthouse lamp. "Leela," the Doctor says, "that's a beautiful notion." But he also needs a focusing device: a fairly large piece of crystalline carbon for the primary beam oscillator. Skinsale tells him Palmerdale always carried diamonds.

They get their makeshift rocket launcher loaded, then he and Skinsale go to the crewroom. The Doctor calls over his shoulder, "Remember, Leela, don't fire until you see the green of its tentacles." Skinsale finds the diamonds in a body belt on Palmerdale. The Doctor takes the largest one and tosses the others away. Skinsale can't resist going after them and is killed by the Rutan.

Leela sets off the rocket, fatally injuring the Rutan. "You singed my scarf," the Doctor tells her. While he rigs his makeshift laser, Leela checks out the Rutan, which dissolves like gelatin. She tells the Doctor, "It is fitting to celebrate the death of an enemy."

The mothership comes into view; it is not very impressive--just a glowing ball of light. "When it gets within range, this will lock onto its carbon resonator and knock out its antigrav, I hope," the Doctor says, making last minute adjustments. He tells Leela they have 117 seconds to get out of the lighthouse and warns her not to look back. He switches the contraption on and they run; Leela stops in the crew room for the knife she threw at the Rutan.

They hide behind some rocks; Leela peeks out as the mothership explodes. "That'll teach them," the Doctor says, as debris rains down on them.

Leela points the knife at her heart. "Slay me, Doctor, I'm blind." The Doctor takes the knife from her and laughs, telling her the effects of the flash will pass. Leela blinks and can start to see.

"That's interesting," the Doctor notes, "Pigmentation dispersal, caused by the flash. Your eyes have changed color."

Lest you think Terrence Dicks, who also wrote a blinding scene for Sarah in THE BRAIN OF MORBIUS, has a fetish about blinding DOCTOR WHO companions, this scene was inserted at the request of Louise Jameson. Someone decided the name Leela meant "brown eyed" and so she had to wear brown contact lenses, which she didn't like. This scene was to relieve her of having to wear them again, by explaining how her eyes changed to blue.

As they head back to the TARDIS, the Doctor recites THE BALLAD OF FLANNEN ISLE by Wilfred Gibson. The TARDIS dematerializes.

Alan Rowe, who plays Colonel Skinsale, played Edward of Wessex in the Pertwee story THE TIME WARRIOR; Dr. Evans and the Space Control Voice in the Troughton story THE MOONBASE; and Garif in a future Tom Baker story FULL CIRCLE.

Colin Douglas, who plays Reuben, played Bruce in the Troughton story THE ENEMY OF THE WORLD.

Ralph Watson, who plays Ben, played Ettis in the Pertwee story THE MONSTER OF PELADON; and Knight in the Troughton story THE WEB OF FEAR (the role Nicholas Courtney was originally cast in, before he was promoted to Col. Lethbridge-Stewart. For details, see notes on the cast for TERROR OF THE ZYGONS).