Day 232 — August 20th 2021
Horror of Fang Rock Parts Three and Four
Horror of Fang Rock — Part Three
I always worry that I sound a bit like a broken record sometimes on this blog, because when I’ve picked up on something I really enjoy in a story I have a tendency to bang on about it for an age. In this case it’s the relationship between Doctor Who and Leela. I’ve already gone on at length about how much warmer it is than in the last story, but I can’t not mention it again because I think we reach new heights in this episode. I’m especially keen on this exchange;
Doctor Who: ‘Why am I standing here wasting my time trying to work out its size? If Reuben’s seen it, he can tell us.’
Leela: ‘That is what I thought, but of course I am only a savage.’
Doctor Who: ‘Come on, savage!’
The story which often gets told — even by Tom Baker and Louise Jameson themselves — is that the pair didn’t get on very well during their time together on the series, but that they became firm friends later on in life. I don’t know how much that story might have been played up over the years, but if there was any animosity then it doesn’t come across on screen in the slightest. Leela is as much Doctor Who’s best friend as Sarah Jane ever was.
I feel like Leela is written as nicely mature in this one as a whole, which feels again like a world away from the often child-like characterisation of the last story. There’s a particularly nice moment where she tells Adelaide that Doctor Who has opened her eyes to the way the universe works;
Adelaide: ‘I told him we shouldn’t have come, but he wouldn’t listen. He laughed when I said Miss Nethercott had seen tragedy in my stars.’
Leela: ‘In your stars?’
Adelaide: ‘If only we’d stayed in Deauville. I knew something ghastly would happen. Her predictions are never wrong.’
Leela: ‘I understand. She is your shaman.’
Adelaide: ‘What? No, Miss Nethercott is an astrologer. The finest. I consult her every month.’
Leela: ‘A waste of time. I too used to believe in magic, but the Doctor has taught me about science. It is better to believe in science.’
I wonder how much time has passed for Leela since The Face of Evil? This certainly doesn’t feel like her fourth adventure in time and space — I know she has loads of Big Finish adventures, so I’m going to guess that they take place in the gap between seasons.
This episode is something of an exercise in ramping up the tension, and I can’t recall the last time we had such an effective ‘base under siege’ tale. You really do feel the threat the characters are placed under, and when Doctor Who utters his terrible realisation in the cliffhanger — that instead of locking the enemy out he’s accidentally locked them in — you really feel the weight of the revelation. It’s quite an underplayed cliffhanger on the whole, but somehow it manages to be far more effective than either of the previous pair.
I don’t have a great deal more to say on this one, so I’m going to score it an 8/10 and move on to the final episode.
Horror of Fang Rock — Part Four
I’d forgotten just how bleak this story is in the end — every single member of the guest cast (that’s seven people, a monster and a whole back up fleet) is killed before the end, and some of them get especially nasty demises. Poor Reuben technically even dies twice — both in his human form and again as a Rutan duplicate! It adds a bit of weight to the story, but it does make Doctor Who’s oddly cheery larking about in the final scene feel slightly out of place. It’s like a whole new take on that ‘Olympian Detachment’ I keep banging on about, but we’ll come back to the final scene in a bit.
My main problem with this final episode is that it all feels a bit too easy. Part Three was an absolute masterclass in ramping up the tension, making it feel as though there was no hope of escape, and the mounting body count serves only to strengthen that idea. But somehow, when the scope is widened to embrace the idea that there’s a whole Rutan fleet on the way it spoils the story.
All the way through the first three-quarters of the narrative the threat comes from a single creature, and we’re encouraged to think that it poses a very serious threat to the world. But when a whole fleet of them start showing up over the horizon you very quickly realise that they’re going to have to be disposed of far too easily. I wonder if they’d have been better off taking the Sontaran Experiment approach, and having the invasion put off before they get anywhere near the Earth?
The final defeat of the Rutan in the lighthouse does feel fairly underwhelming in the end, too. Doctor Who rigs up some explosives, and while the first merely stuns the creature, the second is enough to finish it off. Threat over. It all seems a bit easy to me, after such a lot of concern about just how they were going to get out. I think I’d have accepted it more had the entire lighthouse blown up at the end — and that might have been a more fitting end for a story by one of the men who steered the Pertwee years…!
Oh I can’t complain too much, though, because there’s still lots in here to enjoy.
The major thing — and here I go sounding like a broken record again — is the relationship between Doctor Who and Leela. This might be the best episode we’ve had yet for interplay between the pair of them. My absolute favourite moment comes when Leela suggests a solution to the roadblock Doctor Who is facing;
Leela: ‘Why don’t we use this?’
Doctor Who: ‘What?’
Leela: ‘This.’
Doctor Who: ‘That? Are you suggesting I convert the carbon arc beam?’
Leela: ‘Well, obviously.’
Doctor Who: ‘Leela, that’s a beautiful notion.’
The way the pair of them smile at each other afterwards, and hold those grins for ages is a little bit magical.
And then there’s the final scene which I’ve already touched on. Doctor Who quotes Wilfred Gibson at her as they practically skip their way back to the TARDIS. As I’ve mentioned it feels a little out of place given that they’ve just watched so many people die, but I can’t help loving the scene all the same. Dare I say it, there’s even a fission of sexual tension between the pair which I don’t think we’ve seen with previous companions before.
I also find myself surprised by how much I’m enjoying Leela as a character, given that she’s so bloodthirsty. When she’s successfully attacked the Rutan here and it’s slinking off to die, Leela takes the opportunity to give chase and gloat. It should be a fairly unattractive streak in a companion, but somehow she gets away with it.
Rutan: ‘Your triumph will be short, Earthling. Our mother ship will blast this island into molten rock.’
Leela: ‘Empty threats, Rutan. Enjoy your death as I enjoyed killing you.’
Rutan: ‘We die for the glory of our race. Long live the Rutan empire!’
Overall, I’m going with a 7/10 for this final episode, which is a drop from the first three but still enough to ensure this story makes it into my Top 20. I worried at length about Season Fifteen, but it’s off to an incredibly strong start here.
