38 Cool Things about "Horror of Fang Rock"
(and 12 Stupid Ones)
(But we're not telling you which is which) 
(We're expecting you to work that out for yourselves)

By Alan Stevens and Fiona Moore

Originally published in Celestial Toyroom Issue 543/4

1. The opening model shot of the lighthouse is beautifully gothic and atmospheric. Right up until the shocking pink visual effect drops in.

2. Even though it's hugely bright, two out of three of the lighthouse crew apparently didn't see it. When you consider how many mariners are depending on their powers of observation to avoid shipwrecks, it's a little worrying.

3. There's a nice contemporary touch as lighthouse keepers Ben and Reuben argue about the respective merits of coal and oil.

4. Meanwhile the discussion of electricity as a new source of illumination nicely sets up the Rutan as this serial's alien antagonist.

5. "Does this look like Brighton?... it's not even Hove. Could be Worthing." Classic Doctor Who really has it in for the seaside.

6. The actor giving the coarsest performance dies first: everyone, including the Rutan, is a critic.

7. Although the fact Ralph Watson also played Captain Knight in "The Web of Fear" and Ettis in "The Monster of Peladon" as well as having a very good career as a character actor, shows he was capable of better.

8. "I go out sometimes and talk to the seals, just to get a change from Reuben and Ben." Even Leela thinks this a little silly.

9. After shedding her Victorian garb, this is arguably the only adventure where Leela actually dresses sensibly, in trousers and a jumper, rather than being either under or overdressed.

10. Though she keeps her own boots, because, presumably, Vince has bigger feet!

11. The interior doors in the main body of the lighthouse are curved to fit the rounded walls, which is a nice touch.

2. Tom Baker is portraying the Doctor very much in detached mode, seeing the whole thing in terms of problems to work out and not bothered about the people involved.

13. Leela is playing a similar game, albeit in her case treating it as a hunt and the monster as her quarry.

14. Whereas other companions, e.g. Sarah Jane, would have called the Doctor on his lack of emotional reactions, providing a moral compass for the audience, Leela is more aligned with the Time Lord, leaving the viewer to rely on Vince.

15. Despite the prevailing idea that the Doctor was educating Leela, and in spite of his occasional microaggressions about her tribal origins, their relationship here does seem very egalitarian.

16. The lighting and effects people are taking every opportunity to use the possibilities presented by the setting.

17. ...and then we get the green volleyball with tentacles, and you just have to laugh.

18. Even the Doctor can't quite keep a straight face when Reuben grimly blames the shipwreck on the "Beast of Fang Rock."

19. In the best horror film tradition, the refugees from the yacht are such thoroughly despicable capitalists and imperialists, one quite looks forward to seeing them picked off by the creature.

20. And in true social commentary fashion, they squabble and obsess over money and status while completely ignoring the genuine threat which creeps up from out of the coal hole.

21. (As an aside, let's remind people who think critiques of capitalism are somehow a thing of the present day, that this was typical both for 1970s folk horror stories and for the nineteenth-century Gothic tales which inspired them.)

22. It's perfectly in character for Palmerdale immediately to contrive some method of blaming the very people who rescued him for an accident he caused himself.

23. There is something wonderful in watching a mashup between those two mid-to-late-Seventies archetypal television/movie dramas: the folk horror movie, and the Edwardian class-prejudice drama. Like watching the cast of Upstairs, Downstairs wandering into The Blood on Satan's Claw.

25. Somewhat undermined by the next scene, as the Doctor and Leela manhandle a tailor's dummy smeared with stage blood, before then accidentally dropping it with a loud crash!

27. 27. Interesting parallels between the Doctor and Leela hunting the Rutan, and the Rutan hunting them, while the Earth people stalk each other over money and status.

28. The Doctor is paternalistic towards the working-class characters and contemptuous of the upper-class, yet deeply offended when the Rutans are compared to the Time Lords.

29. During Reuben's description of the parallels between what happened in the 1820s and what's taking place now, he says "There's three of us, there were three of them..." suggesting the Doctor, Leela and the four people from the yacht are all entirely superfluous to his worldview.

30. This is definitely one for the long cliffhanger recaps.

31. "Adelaide, you ought to lie down." "Up in that room? Alone? Have you taken leave of your senses?" She's got a point.

32. There is, however, some good entertainment value in watching Skinsale play Adelaide like a violin.

33. Leela's nicknames for Palmerdale ("the cowardly one") and Reuben ("the old one") are entertainingly blunt.

35. Leela gets some great lines: "I too used to believe in magic, but the Doctor has taught me about science. It is better to believe in science", and (as Adelaide has hysterics at the sight of Palmerdale's corpse) "Has she never seen death before?"

36. It's also nice to watch the way the Doctor rapidly puts together the whole situation between Skinsale and Palmersdale and figures out who destroyed the telegraph and why.

37. "Leela, I've made a terrible mistake. I thought I'd locked the enemy out. Instead I've locked it in, with us" is a great line on which to end an episode.

38. Nonetheless, how is what the Rutan does, in any way "lycanthropy"? It takes the form of a dead lighthouse keeper, not a wolf.

39. Possibly the malevolent version of Ruben walking about, is a shoutout here to Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, though it lacks Stevenson's metaphor of a doppelgänger representing the evil or bestial impulses within.

40. If the effect of the Doctor hanging off the lighthouse in Part Four is to be believed, Tom Baker has very weird, extendable arms.

41. In fact, the serial wouldn't suffer if most of the effects shots were deleted, and would arguably be improved by it.

42. "Reuben the Rutan" is a rather silly example of nominative determinism.

43. The irony of the Rutan reverting to its own form is that, had it maintained Reuben's shape, it would have climbed the stairs more quickly, giving the Doctor and Leela less time to mount a defence.

44. Leela puts the Doctor's packet of jelly babies into the rocket launcher, which means they are indeed deadly jelly babies.

45. There are elements of "The Time Warrior" (alien crashes on Earth as part of a wider battle and gets caught up in a local class-based conflict) and "The Sontaran Experiment" (an alien scout preying and experimenting on the people it finds on Earth) present in the script.

46. The season begins with a story concerning the Rutans, and ends with one about the Sontarans. This seems appropriate somehow.

47. Given its black-and-white monocular eyesight, one must conclude that Rutans never discovered 3D cinema or colour television.

48. Skinsdale dies scrabbling for diamonds, which isn't "dead with honour" by anybody's standards. The Doctor describing him as such is presumably a rare flash of compassion.

49. Let's not play the who-wrote-what game, and just accept Terrance Dicks and Robert Holmes between them scripted a rather wonderful adventure.

50. At the end of it all, the story is about class prejudice and xenophobia. Reuben's prejudice against foreigners is reflected by the Rutan, and the Doctor's arrogant Time Lord superiority is exposed by his behaviour towards all the other characters.