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. Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor, from The Masque of Mandragora Thomas Stewart Baker (born January 20, 1934) is an English actor. ... The Fourth Doctor is the name given to the fourth incarnation of the Doctor seen on screen in the long-running BBC television science-fiction series Doctor Who. ... Terrance Dicks Terrance Dicks (born 1935 in East Ham, London, England, UK) is a British writer, best known for his work in television and for writing a large number of popular childrens books during the 1970s and 80s. ... Paddy Russell Paddy Russell is a British television director. ... This entry is about the television scriptwriter. ... Graham Williams was a British producer and script-editor, whose best know work was on the BBC science fiction television series Doctor Who. ... This is a list of Doctor Who television serials. ... September 3 is the 246th day of the year (247th in leap years). ... September 24 is the 267th day of the year (268th in leap years). ... For the album by Ash, see 1977 (album). ... The Talons of Weng-Chiang is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in six weekly parts from February 26 to April 2, 1977. ... The Invisible Enemy is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four weekly parts from October 1 to October 22, 1977. ... This is a list of Doctor Who television serials. ... A broadcast of the long-running and popular British science-fiction series Doctor Who. ... Doctor Who is a long-running British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC about a mysterious time-travelling adventurer known only as The Doctor, who explores time and space with his companions, fighting evil. ... September 3 is the 246th day of the year (247th in leap years). ... September 24 is the 267th day of the year (268th in leap years). ... For the album by Ash, see 1977 (album). ...

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. Royal motto (French): Dieu et mon droit (Translated: God and my right) Englands location (dark green) within the United Kingdom (light green), with the Republic of Ireland (blue) to its west Languages English Capital London Largest city London Area – Total Ranked 1st UK 130,395 km² Population –mid-2004...

Plot

A Rutan undergoing a chameleonic metamorphosis

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. Image File history File links A Rutan undergoing a chameleonic metamorphosis in Doctor Who Horror of Fang Rock. File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... Image File history File links A Rutan undergoing a chameleonic metamorphosis in Doctor Who Horror of Fang Rock. File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... Brighton is a town on the south coast of England, which together with its immediate neighbour Hove forms the city of Brighton & Hove. ... Leela is a fictional character played by Louise Jameson in the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. ... The Third Doctor emerging from the TARDIS in the 1970 serial Spearhead from Space. ... Royal motto (French): Dieu et mon droit (Translated: God and my right) Englands location (dark green) within the United Kingdom (light green), with the Republic of Ireland (blue) to its west Languages English Capital London Largest city London Area – Total Ranked 1st UK 130,395 km² Population –mid-2004... The Peggys Point lighthouse in Nova Scotia, Canada An aid for navigation and pilotage at sea, a lighthouse is a tower building or framework sending out light from a system of lamps and lenses or, in older times, from a fire. ... The Fourth Doctor is the name given to the fourth incarnation of the Doctor seen on screen in the long-running BBC television science-fiction series Doctor Who. ...

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 Time Lords are a fictional race of humanoids, originating on the planet Gallifrey, seen in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. ...

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 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 about the Flannan Isles mystery as they take their leave. The Rutan Host, or Rutans are a fictional extraterrestrial race from the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. ... Wilfred Wilson Gibson (1878-1962) was a British poet, associated with World War I but also the author of the popular Flannan Isle. ... The Flannan Isles (Scottish Gaelic: na h-Eileanan Flannach) are an island group in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland, lying several miles west of Lewis. ...

Cast

• Doctor Who — Tom Baker
• Leela — Louise Jameson
• Vince Hawkins — John Abbott
• Reuben — Colin Douglas
• Ben — Ralph Watson
• Lord Palmerdale — Sean Caffrey
• Colonel Skinsale — Alan Rowe
• Adelaide Lessage — Annette Woollett
• Harker — Rio Fanning

The Doctor is the central fictional character in the long-running BBC television science-fiction series Doctor Who, and also featured in a vast range of spin-off novels, audio dramas and comic strips connected to the series. ... Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor, from The Masque of Mandragora Thomas Stewart Baker (born January 20, 1934) is an English actor. ... Leela is a fictional character played by Louise Jameson in the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. ... Louise Jameson Louise Jameson (born 20 April 1951) is a British actress, most famous for playing Leela, the leather-clad barbarian warrior companion of the mysterious Doctor in the long-running science fiction television series Doctor Who. ... John Abbott (born 19 April 1945) is a British actor. ... Sean Caffrey (born 15 April 1940 in Belfast, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom) is an actor. ...

Notes

1. Working titles for this story included The Monster of Fang Rock and The Beast of Fang Rock.
2. 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 cancelled 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.
3. Challenged to quickly write a story based in the claustrophobic setting of a lighthouse, Dicks took inspiration from the real-life mystery of the Flannan Isles and the poem written about it, adding more characters to die mysteriously and relocating to the other end of the UK, but retaining the period and using the poem itself within his script.
4. The serial is the only one of the original series to have been produced at BBC studios outside of London; the only 1970s story not done at BBC Television Centre. Engineering work meant that it was made at the Pebble Mill Studios of BBC Birmingham instead.^[1]
5. A showing of the story on the Chicago PBS station WTTW-TV Channel 11 in November 1987 gained particular notoriety when the broadcast was interrupted for eighty-eight seconds by a pirate television transmitter overriding the station's transmission signal to broadcast a video of himself in a Max Headroom mask being spanked. This incident has subsequently gained a degree of cult myth about it.
6. 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.
7. 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.
8. A notable aspect of this story is that, apart from the two regulars, all the characters are dead by the conclusion. A Doctor Who story with the opposite resolution is The Doctor Dances (2005).
9. This story was released on Region 2 DVD in the United Kingdom on January 17, 2005, in Australia on Region 4 DVD on April 7, 2005, and in the United States on Region 1 DVD on September 6, 2005.
10. A novelisation of this serial, written by Terrance Dicks, was published by Target Books in March 1978.
11. 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.
12. According to the DVD commentary supplied by Louise Jameson, a scene in Part Three was crucial to the behind-the-scenes relationship between her 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.

Terrance Dicks Terrance Dicks (born 1935 in East Ham, London, England, UK) is a British writer, best known for his work in television and for writing a large number of popular childrens books during the 1970s and 80s. ... Abraham Bram Stoker (November 8, 1847–April 20, 1912) was an Irish writer, best remembered as the author of the influential horror novel Dracula. ... Alternate meaning: Dracula (orchid genus) Dracula is a fictional character, arguably the most famous vampire in fiction. ... State of Decay (1980) is a four-part serial in the science fiction television series Doctor Who, starring Tom Baker as the Doctor and Lalla Ward and Matthew Waterhouse as the Doctors companions Romana and Adric respectively. ... For other uses, see London (disambiguation). ... The 1970s decade refers to the years from 1970 to 1979, inclusive. ... BBC Television Centre (sometimes abbreviated TVC or TC) in London is home to much of BBC television output and, since 1998, almost all of the corporations national TV and radio news output by BBC News. ... Pebble Mill Studios were located in the leafy suburbs of Birmingham, England. ... The Mailbox, current home to BBC Birmingham BBC Birmingham is one of the oldest regional arms of the BBC. It was the first region outside of London to start brodcasting both the corporations radio (in 1922) and television (in 1948) transmissions from the Sutton Coldfield television transmitter. ... Chicago (officially named the City of Chicago) is the third largest city in the United States (after New York City and Los Angeles), with an official population of 2,896,016, as of the 2000 census. ... PBS re-directs here; for alternate uses see PBS (disambiguation) PBS logo The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is a non-profit public broadcasting television service with 349 member TV stations in the United States. ... WTTW (Channel 11) is the Chicago, Illinois, member station of the Public Broadcasting Service. ... Max Headroom doing a promotion for Cinemax Max Headroom is the name of a fictional artificial intelligence, known for his surreal wit and a stuttering, distorted, electronically sampled delivery. ... The Sontarans are a fictional extraterrestrial race from the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. ... The Invasion of Time is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in six weekly parts from February 4 to March 11, 1978. ... Louise Jameson Louise Jameson (born 20 April 1951) is a British actress, most famous for playing Leela, the leather-clad barbarian warrior companion of the mysterious Doctor in the long-running science fiction television series Doctor Who. ... The Doctor Dances is an episode in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast on May 28, 2005. ... The following is an excerpt of the article entitled DVD. For the sake of convenience, the terms Region 0, Region 1, Region 2, Region 3, Region 4, Region 5, Region 6, Region 7 and Region 8 redirect to this page. ... DVD (also known as Digital Versatile Disc or Digital Video Disc) is an optical disc storage media format that can be used for data storage, including movies with high video and sound quality. ... January 17 is the 17th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The following is an excerpt of the article entitled DVD. For the sake of convenience, the terms Region 0, Region 1, Region 2, Region 3, Region 4, Region 5, Region 6, Region 7 and Region 8 redirect to this page. ... April 7 is the 97th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (98th in leap years). ... 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The following is an excerpt of the article entitled DVD. For the sake of convenience, the terms Region 0, Region 1, Region 2, Region 3, Region 4, Region 5, Region 6, Region 7 and Region 8 redirect to this page. ... This article is about the day of the year. ... 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Terrance Dicks Terrance Dicks (born 1935 in East Ham, London, England, UK) is a British writer, best known for his work in television and for writing a large number of popular childrens books during the 1970s and 80s. ... Target Books was a British publishing imprint, established in 1973 by Universal-Tandem Publishing Co Ltd, a paperback publishing company. ... Edward VII (Albert Edward) (9 November 1841 – 6 May 1910) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, King of the Commonwealth Realms, and the Emperor of India. ...

References

1. ^ Howe, Stammer, Walker (1994). Doctor Who: The Seventies. Virgin Books.

External links

• Horror of Fang Rock episode guide on the BBC website
• Page on the 1987 Chicago PBS station broadcast interruption