Tony Fyler
gets green and slimy.
‘Everybody
lives, Leela! Just this once – everybody lives!’
Err
– sorry, wrong story.
Way,
way, waaaaaay
wrong story.
There
are the usual ‘top story’ lists, but what every fan knows is that beyond all the
obvious contenders, there are the stories so good you almost don’t dare
to watch them too often, in case you wear the greatness off them. Some of those
are on the usual lists – Pyramids of Mars is there. Robots of Death is there.
Genesis of the Daleks less universally so, because for all the glory and
grimness, there’s a lot of faffing about in the middle. But the other stories
that make up your ‘Only Watch Occasionally’ list are personal to you, and
no-one can judge you for them – Hell, The Time Meddler is on mine, if that
tells you anything.
Horror
of Fang Rock is so on that list. People almost universally rave about The
Talons of Weng-Chiang, and to be sure, it’s entertaining as all get-out. But it
does have the least convincing giant rat in history in it – just saying.
Horror
of Fang Rock takes all the things the Fourth Doctor and Leela do well together,
and then almost single-handedly proves that they do some other things so much
better. It’s the ultimate base under siege story, but in an Edwardian style. A
lighthouse stands in for the likes of a futuristic sandminer, and rather than
relying on dozens of creepy mechanical men, there’s just the one enemy.
But
it could be anywhere.
And
it could be anyone.
The
tone is an odd thing, that shouldn’t work but really, really does – it’s all
grimness, death and shadows, but rather than slowing the pace down, that just
gives the Doctor, Leela and the people they encounter – lighthouse keepers
Reuben, Ben and Vince and stranded posh folk Lord Palmersdale, Colonel
Skinsdale and the innocent Adelaide, along with Bosun Harker – a backdrop
against which to rush around being urgent and desperate, and worrying about the
fact that by morning, they might all be dead.
I’ve
called it the ultimate base under siege story, but really, in tone, it’s like
the very best of Agatha Christie – like And Then There Were None, for instance
– strangers and people with connections, thrust into a tight environment
together despite differing social classes in turn of the twentieth century
England, forced to work together to defeat a killer they know is trapped in
with them, and that could look like anyone. It’s a lesson in clammy, creepy
paranoid psychological drama, pretty much designed with the singular goal of
scaring the bejesus out of everyone who watched it, and pretty much succeeding
to this day.
The
costumes and acting are or the most part impeccable – period drama being
something the BBC did insanely well in 1977 – but really it’s that clammy
‘we’re all going to die and there’s no way out’ sensation that builds Horror of
Fang Rock’s atmosphere, and that makes it a classic to this day. Plus of
course, when we first met the Sontarans in The Time Warrior, they were
explained in a throwaway line as being involved in a perpetual war with the
Rutans. Pretty much no detail about the Rutans was given, but just as The Time
Warrior was originally written by Robert Holmes under a degree of sufferance
and with little historical knowledge on the instructions of Terrance Dicks, who
was script editor at the time, so Horror of Fang Rock was Holmes’ revenge when
he became script editor, throwing Dicks the challenge of a lighthouse story –
when Dicks himself was keen to write a vampire story (which he did, only to
have it pulled due to schedule-clash, and re-emerge in later years as State of
Decay). So Dicks decided he would take the line about the Rutans and see if
they had the… erm… legs?... to take on the Doctor themselves. As The Time
Warrior introduced us to the whole Sontaran race through the person of one
lost, crashed warrior, so Horror of Fang Rock mirrors its structure, giving us
a single stranded Rutan, and showing us exactly the kind of danger they could
pose. Little Green Men have long been a science-fiction cliché, but little
green jellyfish of shape-changing, electrically-charged death? Oh hellyeah. It
was such a bizarre alien for the stompy, potato-headed Sontarans to be at war
with that it recommended the Rutans to us as something special – and crucially,
Horror of Fang Rock showed us exactly why they would be such a menace. While The Time Warrior told a story that had
plenty of time to breathe across a number of locations, Horror of Fang Rock was
tight, building its scares relentlessly in a breathless, misty, cold, wet,
closed-in world. If The Time Warrior instantly made you want another Sontaran
story, to see more of them, Horror of Fang Rock made you want to be pretty
careful with any return of the Rutans – in case you did irreparable damage to
your Fang Rock memories. Dicks created a monstrous species that could have come
back, but that you’d have to have done something entirely different with – the
ending of Horror of Fang Rock was so complete in and of itself that it drew a
line under the story. Any Rutan return would have to be surprising in a whole
new way. As yet, on screen at least, nothing has ever been done with them
again. The memories of Fang Rock last long and cast imposing shadows – it’s
that good.
It
would be wrong to close any look back at this story of mounting sweaty fear and
culture-clash without touching on the way that all sides spin the wheel of
fear. Reuben, the old lighthouse keeper, brings a touch of the Hammer
Transylvanian villager to the piece, with his folk tales of the Beast of Fang
Rock. The posh passengers, with their bright, Edwardian rationalism and, to be
fair to them, their concerns about the wretched rocks on which they’ve been
marooned, show us how unprepared they are for what they’re facing, and the
Doctor and Leela, with their advanced knowledge of the universe, stand in front
of them all and still feel fear. As the Doctor says – ‘Gentlemen, I have some
news for you – this lighthouse is under attack and by morning, we might all be
dead.’ Baker is on superb form here, the base under siege scenario feeding him
thespian meat and drink, and Louise Jameson – as, to give her her due, she was
for most of her time in Doctor Who, is fantastically believable. Watch Leela
when the camera’s not on here, and see Jameson’s commitment to the drama.
The
perfect monster. A tight, deadly situation. Cultural clashes between classes
that still existed when the show was broadcast. The exhausting tension of a
paranoid murder mystery. A huge body count. And stars that committed to turning
up the scare-factor at every turn.
That’s
why Horror of Fang Rock is as good as people say it is – still, today. That’s
why you don’t want to watch it too often – just in case it ever
stops working for you. That would be a terrible thing.
Still…
Maybe
once more couldn’t hurt…
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