Doctor Who’s Bleakest Body Count
Why Horror of Fang Rock is a masterpiece of mood, despite turmoil behind the scenes.
Plot Summary
The Doctor and Leela arrive at a remote lighthouse, followed by fog, mystery, and death.
Notable for:
First story of Season 15, second one filmed
Filmed at BBC studios in Birmingham
First story produced by Graham Williams, post Philip Hinchcliffe
Terrance Dicks wrote 2 episodes of “The Vampire Mutation” before they were junked on account of the BBC doing a production of Dracula that year. He wrote this instead; the lighthouse suggestion came from Robert Holmes.
First (and only) story to include the Rutans, first mentioned in The Time Warrior
Leela’s eyes turn blue at the end of the story, to accommodate Louise Jameson’s real eye color (she wore red contacts in the previous season and for much of this story).
One of the only Classic Who episodes to be directed by a woman
One of the few episodes where every single guest character dies
Blu-ray version has updated effects for several scenes: the Rutan, their spacecraft, the lighthouse, the electrocution effects, the ship running aground.
Tom Baker did not get along well with Paddy Russell, calling her “sir” often.
Louise Jameson stood up to Tom Baker’s improvising in this story, which led to an improved relationship between them.
Annette Woollett insisted Louise Jameson give her a real slap rather than a fake one.
In the DVD commentary (recorded in 2004 or 2005), Dicks mentions Steven Moffat being a Doctor Who fan and including a reference in Coupling.
Pete commentary:
This one’s all mood. Horror of Fang Rock puts a lot of emphasis on the first word: it’s all about building up suspense, getting us to like characters and then kill them off one by one, increasing the sense of claustrophobia and helplessness. It succeeds decently, though it would be better helped if we had some idea of what the thing that’s hunting them wants.
Do we ever really learn why the Rutan kills everybody? It seems like it’s just securing the facility where it plans to send the signal to get the mother ship to home in on it. Which makes some kind of sense, though you wonder why it was at all sneaky about it. It can be hurt by firearms, so it’s probably just afraid of too much resistance. When it scoffs at the Doctor’s suggestion that he can hurt it, it’s all bravado.
I think it would have worked better if the Doctor and the others assumed it was more animal-like with primal instincts or physical need for flesh/life-force/etc. Then when it speaks, and it’s simply killing them because of cold military necessity, it’s more of a surprise.
We get some nice world-building with Rutan, similar to Linx in The Time Warrior: They’ve been withdrawing because of the Sontaran offensive. They refer to themselves as “we” even when there’s only one of them, and it doesn’t seem to have a name. The seem to lack emotions. Its shape-shifting techniques are a military invention and require “training,” implying they’re not inherent to the Rutan race.
One curious implication of the description of the war between these empires is that most of the galaxy is occupied by one or the other at any one particular time?
The Rutan monster POV is pretty nice. I don’t think they were even doing this for the Daleks yet.
It sure is slow, though. Has trouble with stairs — common theme in Who monsters.
The guest cast are all very good, though they’re all stock characters. No one really has enough screen time or matter enough to the story to really come alive. Vince might be the most “real,” the stand-in for the everyman. He gets good scenes with Leela, his crewmates, and Lord Palmerdale.
The set and lighthouse bits are all very cool, and instill some verisimilitude. I remember this is the story where I first understood how the “telephone”/speaking tube works in an 19th century lighthouse.
I like the bit where Vince burns his money. He’s covering his ass, but I also think he has some moral regret for having compromised himself.
The characters from the boat almost come alive as a group, since they seem to be visiting from some other story entirely. Lord Palmerdale is clearly some unscrupulous businessbastard who his friends don’t really like. The script almost seems to be creeping up to a moment where he ends up betraying everyone to the Rutan just to get a message to London, but the closest it gets to doing that is the wrecking of the telegraph.
Leela’s Victoria dress looks great. Her sweater looks great too, which was clearly a costuming trick since it would have been insanely baggy if it really were made for a man.
Love Baker’s bowler hat, too. Feels like they’re saying, “Remember Talons of Weng-Chiang? That was great, wasn’t it? This is that show!”
Leela gets lots of nice Leela lines:
“I am no lady”
“You will do as the Doctor instructs, or I will cut out your heart.”
“Enjoy your death as I enjoyed killing you.”
And the science line
“I’m not a teshnician” is a delightful reference — reminds the fans that the people making the show are fans, too (or at least simulate it well). The double-take line, far from undermining it, lets casual fans know it wasn’t a mistake.
Apart from Invasion of Time, this could be Tom Baker’s most idiosyncratic performance. And that’s saying something. It might be that Paddy Russell got in his head, and he decided to show her how HE plays the Doctor, and he does pure, uncut Tom Baker — rarely looks at anyone when speaking, delivers lines in totally unexpected ways, says random stuff and random pace. Yet it all works.
Just one example: the line, “Gentlemen, I've got news for you. This lighthouse is under attack, and by morning we might all be dead. Anyone interested?” is perfect: He delivers it like it’s the absolute BEST news. Which in his mind, it kind of is, since it SHOULD focus them all and start playing his game, not theirs.
The updated effects are good, although I don’t know if the new CGI Rutan works. It ends up being more octopus-like than jellyfish-like. I kind of like the blob that just sits there, plus the “death” scene with Leela as it melts. The new tentacled Rutan looks a little too unreal — hard to tell how it’s supporting itself on its tentacles.
That said, the new lighthouse/sailing ship/flare effects are terrific. No more collapsing models and unrealistic flares in fog.
The Doctor dangling outside the lighthouse window looks the same, and I like how this is played with the Doctor struggling and really exerting himself.
This story has some of the worst cliffhangers. The first two are rubbish — the ship running aground and the scream-in-the-distance from Ruben. The third one, with the close-up on the Doctor musing how he’s locked the Rutan in with them, is passable.
Speaking of, why not throw open the doors and head for the hills if the Rutan is in there with them? Why head to the top and try to make some kind of defense when you KNOW someone’s going to die (turns out everyone)?
Annette Woollett understood the assignment: Be hysterical at every opportunity, to the point where, when the savage slaps you, the audience will cheer.
It’s a shame, however, that Annette has a fairly lame death scene. I will dock marks from Paddy Russell for not trying harder to make the death scenes of Vince and Annette more interesting. Ruben just walks up and electrocutes them with virtually no resistance.
One more good FX upgrade is Leela’s knife-throw at Ruben, which sees his form split down the middle briefly to avoid getting hit by the knife. I like it because it suggests the knife WILL hurt it if it actually impacts, which helps set up the end.
Leela gives a great line that I think is emblematic of Doctor Who to a lot of people:
“I too used to believe in magic, but the Doctor has taught me about science. It is better to believe in science.”You almost want an uplifting movie score behind this line, it’s so good.
Tom Baker mispronounces “chameleon” and then promptly mislabels the Rutan’s shape-shifting ability as lycanthropy! He also mispronounces Gallifrey!!!
Speaking of, why can no one agree on how to pronounce Rutan.
There’s a nice bit of subtlety where Leela gets to send up the Doctor for his arrogance when he reveals the Rutan is alien but not a Time Lord. It works doubly well since the Doctor was just dismissing humans (and Rutans) as a “lesser species” a minute ago. He’s still young.
The Doctor turns the lighthouse into a laser cannon with a diamond? Yes, you CAN get away with this, but it really needs more of an x factor. There doesn’t seem to be any Time Lord technology that he’s connected to the thing, implying that any human — provided they know what they’re doing — could do the same. One more draft to say the Rutan ship will need to aim its navigation beam at the lighthouse to land, so the reflectors in the lighthouse light could amplify the “space” energy and reflect it back on the ship. And somehow it’s on a timer? So nonsensically convenient.
Why does the Doctor say Skinsale died “with honor?” He was helping himself to diamonds.
Final scene is great: only with Leela could you have a triumph where everyone dies. And the Doctor reciting Gibson is fabulous.
Just this once, Leela: EVERYBODY DIES!
What did Pete’s family think?
“Pretty good” was Grace’s reaction. She was properly impressed/won over by Leela’s lines, and properly detested Adelaide. She used the term “gaslighting” when the Doctor tells Vince that Ben probably was OK, then died outside.
Four Questions to Doomsday - Pete
Why did the Randomizer take us here? Completing the Tennant-Baker-Tennant-Baker sequence? Also, continuing a run of stories where the companions really shine: Lady Christina, Romana, Donna.
What if the evil plot had succeeded? The Rutan isn’t so dumb as to ascend the stairs again and instead goes out the window. It takes them all unawares from the lamp room. The Rutans make good on their promise and use Earth as a strategic base. The Fifth Doctor then needs to repel the Sontaran missile attack while persuading the Rutans to leave by summoning the Daleks (can’t have their invasion in the 22nd century disturbed).
Where's the Clara splinter? She’s Vince’s former girlfriend, which is why there’s a sweater that fits Leela perfectly available at the lighthouse.
Dalek, Ogron, Professor Hayter, Viscount Banger, Fixed Point in Time, Lady Cassandra, or Zarbi? Dalek with a cool POV. Well paced, with a cast that knows how to make scary fun.
Chris commentary:
This teeters on the brink between absolute laughingstock – Reuben especially is a cliche now – and dark AF arthouse genius. The latter is mostly an accident, channeling the misery on set, nobody looking at anyone, the Doctor especially. It kind of has the darkest things to say about human (and Time Lord?) souls.
Terence Dicks imports 3 characters from an Agatha Christie play and then kills them off. None of them have anything likeable about them. This is a class narrative plain and simple, and it's quite amazing that he gets away with killing them all. "Elite Toff Execution Hour" is apparently more acceptable to Mary Whitehouse than Hinchcliffe's versions of horror and suspense.
but even the working class characters are unlikeable – stubborn and resistant to change (Reuben), naive and easy to corrupt (Vince).
Skinsale: kind of a punk name, kind of the ultimate silver fox hair/beard thing. I was mesmerized by it. And by the way, he's a
The Doctor is at his maddest and most remote. He does like to tweak the nose of the toffs. But even being nice to Vince = condescending and lying.
Did he effectively kill Skinsale by throwing those diamonds? My ex likened this to being mean to a dog. He should have known that this "pet" human would have run after them.
You think Leela is the hero here, the most sympathetic character, and then she takes so much glee in the killing of the Rutan that you wonder.
Let's talk about the eye color change. First of all, "don't it make my brown eyes blue" by Crystal Gale was in the charts at the time – spooky! Secondly, what does it mean that someone in power at the BBC thought a "savage" could not have blue eyes in the first place? There were racist, Aryan assumptions hiding in plain sight … this was the age of the children's illustrated bibles with blond, blue-eyed Jesus …
Racism right out in the open in the lighthouse. Skinsale fancies Leela and is effectively told that it's because he went native in India.
Errr … if it's an electric lighthouse, couldn't they have just followed the cables to the nearest power station?
Who would have received the Marconi message, exactly? There had already been one set up in a lighthouse, but it was specifically as a test to communicate with one ship.
History Corner on Flannan Isle!
Let's talk about Vince, the … married lighthouse keeper?
A Single Question to Doomsday - Chris
Why did the Randomizer take us here? Oh let's see: it's got a corrupt "conservative" politician, an arrogant businessman who thinks he can get away with anything, "othering" with out-in-the-open sexism and racism, and it shows us a dark world where life is cheap. No, I've no idea why … Ood connection with the unlikeable businessman, Planet of Dead connection with the diamonds.