Horror of Fang Rock (TV story)

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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

Crew


References

  • This is the first appearance of the Rutans, who were at war with the Sontarans.

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

DVD and Video Releases

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

Target Novelisations

See also

to be added

External Links

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