Horror of Fang Rock (TV story)

Synopsis
The TARDIS arrives on Fang Rock, a small island off the English coast, around the start of the 20th Century. The Doctor and Leela seek shelter at a lighthouse where the island's only inhabitants - Ben, Vince and Reuben - operate the recently-installed electric lamp to warn ships off the treacherous rocks.

Vince has just seen a bright object fall from the sky into the sea. Ben then disappears and his body is later discovered hidden behind the generator - he has been electrocuted. A passing ship crashes on the rocks as a freak fog bank descends, and the survivors - Colonel Skinsale, Lord Palmerdale, Adelaide Lesage and Harker - stumble into the lighthouse. There they find themselves prey to a Rutan - one of the race engaged in a perennial war with the Sontarans - whose spaceship has crashed in the sea.

The Rutan can change its form at will and has been masquerading as Reuben, having killed the old keeper and hidden his body. Vince and the wreck survivors are also killed but the Doctor fights back by blasting the Rutan, now reverted to its natural form of an amorphous jelly, with a makeshift mortar bomb.

The Doctor then rigs up the lighthouse lamp with a diamond taken from a cache held by the now dead Skinsale, thereby creating a powerful laser beam to destroy the approaching Rutan mothership.

Plot
to be added

Cast

 * The Doctor - Tom Baker
 * Leela - Louise Jameson
 * Reuben - Colin Douglas
 * Vince - John Abbott
 * Ben - Ralph Watson
 * Lord Palmerdale - Sean Caffrey
 * Skinsale - Alan Rowe
 * Adelaide - Annette Woollett
 * Harker - Rio Fanning

Crew

 * Assistant Floor Manager - Bill Hartley
 * Costumes - Joyce Hawkins
 * Designer - Paul Allen
 * Film Cameraman - John Walker
 * Incidental Music - Dudley Simpson
 * Make-Up - Jackie Hodgson
 * Producer - Graham Williams
 * Production Assistant - Peter Grimwade
 * Production Unit Manager - John Nathan-Turner
 * Script Editor - Robert Holmes
 * Special Sounds - Dick Mills
 * Studio Lighting - Bob Gell
 * Studio Sound - David Hughes
 * Theme Arrangement - Delia Derbyshire
 * Title Music - Ron Grainer
 * Visual Effects - Peter Pegrum

Story Notes

 * This story had the working titles; The Rocks Of Doom, The Monster Of Fang Rock and The Beast Of Rang Rock.
 * At the end of the final episode, as the TARDIS leaves the island, the Doctor recites some lines from "The Ballad of Flannan Isle" by Wilfred Gibson.
 * The "pigment dispersal" scene at the end of the story when Leela's eyes change from brown to blue was a practical (rather than story) motivated event, it was so Louise Jameson did not have to continue wearing brown contact lenses.

Ratings

 * Part 1 - 6.8 million viewers
 * Part 2 - 7.1 million viewers
 * Part 3 - 9.8 million viewers
 * Part 4 - 9.9 million viewers

Myths
to be added

Location Filming

 * Pebble Mill studios, Birmingham

Discontinuity, Plot Holes, Errors
to be added

Continuity

 * The Rutans were previously mentioned in The Time Warrior and The Sontaran Experiment.
 * In NA: Shakedown the Rutan host mentions to the Doctor the events of this story.

DVD and Video Releases
The Horror of Fang Rock was released on DVD by BBC Worldwide in 2005.

Target Novelisations

 * Novelised as Doctor Who and the Horror of Fang Rock by Terrance Dicks in 1978.