Horror of Fang Rock - Episode 4

The final episode of this story is perhaps the darkest that there has been in a Doctor Who episode. It takes less than 1 and a half minutes for Vincent to become the first death of this episode which features a lot of death. I actually made a note of when the deaths occur. Vincent dies at 01:45, Adelaide is put out of her misery at 06:28 and Skinsale is the last to fall at 16:50.

The whole thing about the Rutan is that it has crashed landed and used the lighthouse to start a rescue relay. We learn a lot about this solitary Rutan in a short amount of time and it turns out that they are having a war with the Sontarans (they were mentioned in the previous Sontaran stories). The Rutans seem like they are just as stubborn as the Sontarans so its easy to see why they are at war with each other.

Adelaide is annoying from the very moment she’s on screen as she faints. Leela’s reaction is perfect and matches what I was feeling. Her death is a highlight and that might be harsh but there was nothing likeable at all about her. It seems that Terrance Dicks has put the character in just for this moment because we all know how he likes the female roles to be fairly clichéd in needing rescued or being in peril.

The Doctor hanging out of the lighthouse to hide from the Rutan Reuben is a rather odd thing for the Doctor to do but on the plus side the CSO effect/shot is quite good.

The sit down scene between the Doctor and the Rutan is one of those scenes that I have seen countless times and its one of the best scenes in the entire serial. Whilst I haven’t been entirely won over with the effect of the Rutan, the effect to get it up the stairs is well done.

The Doctor’s plan is to try and scare off the Rutans, this is thought up at the midway point of the episode. This means that the story has very little time to waste and the Rutan is dealt with very quickly and the rescue ship is done with in quick time. Yesterday I was mentioning about how this could have been extended to maybe five episodes and they could have spent an episode just on the Rutan.

The Doctor’s gag about throwing the diamonds on the ground didn’t last long as it led to the death of Skinsale. You could argue that the Doctor caused his death. Skinsale is the last of the supporting cast and this means for the final five minutes or so the story features just the Doctor and Leela. Without any supporting characters the final scene sees Leela’s eye colour change. To be honest I never noticed her eye colour. It’s a shame that no time was taken to focus on the fact that everyone is dead. It’s one of the things that slightly bothers me about this story but that aside, I still think that it’s a great story and has some great performances. Looking at the list of stories coming in this season, I think that this is going to be the best story of the season. I think the next month is going to be a struggle.