Welcome to your summer vacation through space and time, all from the comfort of your couch and TV. We’re spending our COVID-19 summer winding our way through Doctor Who history, focusing on one episode from each Doctor’s tenure through to the Capaldi era. (Want to know what we’re watching? Here’s the schedule!)
Today’s installment is best enjoyed with a bag of jelly babies and a very long colorful scarf. (Perfect if someone in your house has the AC on really high!) We’re visiting with Fourth Doctor Tom Baker in the serial “Horror of Fang Rock,” which aired in four weekly installments from September 3 to 24, 1977. It’s been over forty years since this aired but here’s your warning: Spoilers!
1. We Interrupt This Recap
One night in November 1987, an installment of this simple serial found itself at the heart of an American broadcast television mystery.
At around 9:00 PM in Chicago, a hacker interrupted the signal of television station WGN during their newscast. The screen went black, and then appeared a person in a Max Headroom mask swaying back and forth in front of a corrugated panel simulating his background. Accompanied by a buzzing sound, this strange scene lasted for all of around 30 seconds before the WGN engineers regained control.
But Faux Max was not done yet. Later that evening, he returned to interrupt a broadcast of “Horror of Fang Rock” by Chicago PBS station WTTW, this time with some distorted and nonsensical audio about everything from a Pepsi slogan to the theme song to Clutch Cargo. This all ended with a scene of the prankster’s naked buttocks and a spanking with a fly swatter. The whole incident lasted 90 seconds, longer than the WGN hack because no one from WTTW was on duty at the time at their transmitter, located at the top of the Sears (now Willis) Tower. By the time technicians at the WTTW headquarters got control of the signal, the entire performance ended.
The Oddity Archive has a great overview of the entire affair, along with a follow up episode revisiting it on its 30th anniversary and some theories as to who was behind the event. To date, it remains unsolved.
(I also shamelessly admit that this was the sole reason I picked this serial for the Fourth Doctor. And when I was conceiving this project, it was the first one I had on my list!)
2. Shiver Me Timbers
En route to a seaside holiday The Doctor and Leela find themselves off course, blaming the fog. They discover a lighthouse without a light and without one of its lighthouse keepers, who is dead. The lamp itself is tempermental, turning on and off at random times. Something seems to be after the electricity – – and the organic life, as many of the local fish are also dead. The locals think it is the Beast of Fang Rock, a creature of local lore that terrorized the lighthouse once before. The Doctor seems to think it is something not of this world – – and it is, an alien called Rutan looking to set up Earth as a base for counterattack in their war against the Sontarans.
Owing to the fact that this was a late entry into the season (you’ll find out why in our TARDIS Trivia section), the sets and costumes don’t seem to be as of high quality compared to other installments. As a result, it was hard to hold my attention at first, particularly with all the dark sets and fog-shrouded exteriors.
But the actors do make the best of the limited sets they’re given. Confining the majority of the action to the lighthouse allows for the familiar to become both unfamiliar and frightening, the horror to be unseen and all psychological. The result is a pretty chilling story that ratchets up tension slowly and beautifully.
3. Galli-free??
For some reason, Baker’s pronunciation of Gallifrey bothers me. He keeps saying “Galli-free” instead of “Galli-frey” used by Doctors before him. It’s an odd blip in continuity for me and my ears aren’t a fan of it.
4. The Doctor and Leela
The Doctor of this era is very much a Bohemian, with a laissez-faire attitude towards life and authority, and a strong wanderlust. With all that in mind, one would either find his pairing with the primitive warrior woman Leela either a match made in heaven or a nightmare of clashing similar personalities, two people motivated by their id.
Continued belowWhen it comes to Leela, though, he dedicates himself to teaching her, giving her some form of structure. As she says to one of the Fang Rock residents, “it is better to believe in science, ” and shows she listens to what the Doctor teaches her, adapting the light in the lighthouse to be similar to a laser beam to defeat the Rutan. Her warrior tendencies come in handy as well, as she’s able to take charge and devise a plans for the residents to defend themselves.
As for his other attitudes does put these aside several times while at Fang Rock, growing more authoritative towards the other residents to help convince them of the seriousness of the alien threat, and even showing a quiet fear upon the revelation that the lighthouse telegraph has been cut, severing their one way to call for help as bodies pile up and he realizes the enemy is locked in the lighthouse with them: “We’re on our own now.”
5. Flannan Isle
The poem the Doctor quotes in the final scene is Wilfrid Wilson Gibson’s poem Flannan Isle, which details an incident at the turn of the 20th century on the Outer Hebrides of Scotland where three lighthouse keepers disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Coupled with the period clothing and the reference to the Horror of Fang Rock making its appearance “eighty years ago, in the twenties,” we can assume this did take place circa 1900. Were they at the actual Flannan Isle, perhaps? That is a mystery left to the fog. If that is the case, the Doctor’s actions (saving the lighthouse but letting all its occupants die) suggest that this is a fixed point in time that cannot be changed. This is an important part of Doctor Who continuity that we will see more and more in the revival era.
TARDIS Trivia (our “Afterthoughts” section)
– A longtime myth of “Horror of Fang Rock” was that it was originally written for Elisabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith), but scriptwriter Terrance Dicks confirmed this was not the case.
– This ended up being a replacement for another Terrance Dicks script set in the vampire realm. An upcoming BBC adaptation of Dracula put the idea on the shelf for about three years. That script finally saw the light of day in 1980 as the serial “State of Decay.”
– Although there are passing references to the Rutans in other serials, this is the only time they are seen on television.
– The scene in which Leela’s eyes change from brown to blue (the pigmentation dispersal) was not related to the story. Louise Jameson was wearing brown contact lenses for her character, which were uncomfortable. The discomfort led her to give serious thought to leaving the show, so the writers devised the pigmentation dispersal to rid her of the uncomfortable eyewear.
Next week, we get some time with Peter Davison, with a look at the Fifth Doctor serial “The Caves of Androzani.” Feel free to share your thoughts on this episode in the comments or on social media with our #12Weeks12Doctors hashtag.
If you want more classic Doctor Who, you can check out the streaming subscription service Britbox (available in the U.S., Canada, and the U.K. at the time of this writing). If you’re in the U.S., Latin America, Puerto Rico, and Europe, you can also get your classic Who fix via the free streaming service Pluto TV, which has its own Doctor Who channel!
