Ah, you have to love the Gothic Horror era of Doctor Who. I finished the back half of Horror of Fang Rock today, and it was just as dark and moody as you could ask for. Ultimately the fate of the entire Earth laid in the balance (a bit of a sudden escalation, that), but for most of the running time it plays as a classic horror story with a cast of characters ready set to be picked off one by one.

Let's talk about that.

Horror of Fang Rock - Parts 3 & 4

(TARDIS Data Core recap)

By the end of the second episode there are six living humans in the lighthouse in addition to the Doctor and Leela. Half of them are killed by the alien beast in the third episode. In the fourth, the Doctor finally identifies the menace as a Rutan Host -- the nemesis of the Sontarans. it turns out that the crashed ship at the beginning of the story was a Rutan scouting vessel, as the Earth is being staged as a battle site in their war with the Sontarans. So, kind of a problem.

In the end, everyone in the lighthouse is killed by the Rutan before the Doctor finally manages to not only defeat it but to also turn the lighthouse itself into a weapon to destroy the Rutan rescue ship that comes calling at the climax. Leela makes the mistake of looking at the explosion, and is initially blinded for a few minutes. Her vision does return, but as a side effect the blast has caused a pigmentation dispersal in her eyes changing her brown eyes blue.

And now I have this damn song stuck in my head...

What was really going on with that plot device is that actress Louise Jameson had been wearing contacts for the previous season and they were becoming increasingly painful. She agreed to come back for a second series, but only if she could stop wearing the contacts and leave her eyes their natural color. Bang, flash, and now Leela has blue eyes. Problem solved.

Another problem solved while filming these two episodes: Tom Baker had made it very clear from the beginning that he didn't feel he needed a companion after Elisabeth Sladen left the show. He though he could carry the entire series on his own, and was frankly not very nice to Ms Jameson during the filming the previous series. While filming the third episode of Fang Rock she had finally had enough and put her foot down. There was one particular scene which had gone well enough during rehearsal, but during filming Tom Baker deliberately came in early and upstaged her. She insisted on three successive retakes, insisting that it was not what they had rehearsed. Finally on the fourth take Tom came in at the correct time as rehearsed, and he reportedly had a great deal more respect for her after that. She says that from that point onward their working relationship was much smoother. You go girl.

Now, I'm not saying I am looking forward to tomorrow's new story or anything. I'm just saying that I do, in fact, own this t-shirt and will be proudly wearing it in the morning. I'll catch you then!

STATS:

Doctor(s): Fourth
Companion(s): Leela
Episode(s): The Horror of Fang Rock - Parts 3 & 4
Steps Walked: 7,180 today, 1,569,213 total
Distance Walked: 3.64 miles today, 782.25 miles total
Weight: 258.32 lbs (five day moving average), net change -48.98 lbs