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Horror of Fang Rock Format Reviewed: DVD Review Horror of Fang Rock kicks off season 15 of Doctor Who, the fourth season of the fourth Doctor's reign. By this time, Tom Baker was one of the most recognisable characters in British Television, with Doctor Who being one of the most popular and influential shows. Louise Jameson had also become a staple of the show, having arrived in skimpy leathers, ostensibly to keep the Dad's happy, but she had fast proved to have a good rapport with Tom Baker. On a lighthouse, one of the keepers observes a light in the sky, like a meteor that hits the sea. Soon after, an intense thick fog descends over the lighthouse combined with freezing conditions. The Doctor and Leela then arrive to find one of the three keepers mysteriosly dead of a massive electric shock. The electricity in the lighthouse is also being intermittently interrupted, despite the generator running well. This leads a ship to crash on the rocks, bringing two politicians and businessmen, a secretary and a seaman to the lighthouse. The businessman and politician are at each others throats, and the Doctor discovers that the enemy is A Rutan, trying to establish a base in their war with the Sontarans. Whilst killing several of the remaining Humans, the Rutan takes the form of the main lighthouse keeper, Reuben, and is eventually defeated by an improvised projectile weapon. The Doctor then has to stop the subsequent invading force, doing so with an intense heat and light produced from the lighthouse which changes the colour of Leela's eyes. The overriding feature of this story is the dark and tense atmosphere throughout. In places such as lighthouses, and in situations such as heavy fog, the scenes should also feel claustrophobic. The production team successfully manage this throughout and the air of tense nervousness, and dark imagery continued from a growing trend of dark gothic type horror in this era of Doctor Who. This is rightly celebrated by fans as excellent, and a magnificent use of the Doctor Who vehicle. The rapport between Louise Jameson and Tom Baker is excellent, and again comes out here. The two also do very well apart from each other, as the scripts often dictate that the Doctor trusts Leela enough to do many things whilst he goes about his own business. The pricipal member of the guest cast is Colin Douglas as Reuben, and he does a good job both as Reuben the Human and Rutan. Of the rest, the best performances were from Sean Caffrey and Allan Rowe as Lord Palmersdale and Skinsale respectively. Both do very well and really give the story a different edge. Unfortunately, the less said about Annette Wollett's performance as Adelaide the better, and I was actually relieved when the Rutan killed her. Not everything is positive about this story though. There is a sense that not a lot actually happens in the story, aside from the last 15 minutes. There is also the largely irrellevant plot lines of the passengers of the crashed ship and the beast of Fang Rock. This is a trend somewhat of author Terrence Dicks, who loves to be quite wordy sometimes getting too enthusiastic about the stories he is creating. All tend to have wonderful concepts, charcters and great atospheres, but there always tend to be dead ends of some plotlines that are left unexplained in the stories. Overall, Horror of Fang Rock is rightly remembered as a great story that is another from this era to stand the test of time. There are a couple of poor acting performances, and some needless padding in the story, but this is definitely one show that will stand well up to repeat viewing. Rating:  |