Doctor Who: Horror of Fang Rock (Story 92)
by Paddy Russell
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Louise Jameson, Tom BakerDirector: Paddy Russell
Brand: Warner Brothers
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Unknown; English (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Unknown
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 94 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2005-09-06
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Model: E2317
Studio: BBC Worldwide
Product features:
- The Doctor and Leela become top suspects in the mysterious deaths that occur when an eerie fog engulfs the Fang Rock lighthouse in this turn-of-the-century adventure.Running Time: 94 min. Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: TELEVISION Rating: NR Age: 794051231727 UPC: 794051231727 Manufacturer No: E2317
Movie Reviews of Doctor Who: Horror of Fang Rock (Story 92)
Movie Review: The Doctor in the land of fiction with a touch of Agatha Christie
Summary: 5 Stars
The penultimate pair of releases for 2005 in the Doctor Who catalogue brings together two stories made almost a decade apart from two different eras of the Doctor's long running saga. But both The Mind Robber and The Horror of Fang Rock do have a connection is so much as they come from troubled periods of the show's history.
The older adventure, The Mind Robber, was the second story from Patrick Troughton's final season as the intrepid Time Lord. Having spent three years in the role during the era when the show was almost continually on air, Troughton was tiring of the punishing schedule of turning out a weekly episode and in addition the show itself was considered by the BBC to have run it's natural course. Ratings were beginning to dip and viewer satisfaction with the series was waning. And yet, despite the rather lacklustre atmosphere surrounding the show, The Mind Robber proved to be one of the most innovative and original stories ever created for the show. Set in the world of fiction, this story really highlights the creativity of the production team and is a very unusual and brave attempt to do something well beyond the normal sci-fi genre. Visually, the show is astounding and even with the very limited budget, studio space, monochrome broadcast and technology; the land of fiction created by the designers is really very effective. Introducing characters from fiction that can only speak the lines of their text and conjuring up disturbing images and problems for the Doctor and his companions to solve, the show really is quite complex and works very well.
That's not to say there aren't challenges. Originally commissioned as a six-part story, the writer struggled to make it barely fill the amended requirement of four episodes. At the last minute, a fifth episode was needed, so the show's script editor (and later producer) Derrick Sherwin had to tag on another stand-alone episode to open the adventure, using nothing but the regular cast and the Tardis set. Subsequently, each episode runs for well under the normal twenty-five-minute length, with episode five coming in under seventeen minutes in length. At least the tedium of some of the longer six-parters is avoided! Frazer Hines was struck down with chicken pox before episode two recording could begin and producers came up with a truly brilliant way of replacing him with another actor for an episode and a half. Plus there are the usual goofs, continuity errors and fluffs that make the black and white era of Doctor Who so charming, but all in all, it really works very well.
The same can be said for The Horror of Fang Rock, the companion release made almost a decade later and featuring Tom Baker as the fourth Doctor. Opening the show's sixteenth season, Baker's fourth, this story was penned by Terrance Dicks, who although an infrequent writer for the show, as the script editor on the show from the final Patrick Troughton days through the entire Jon Pertwee era, he is probably the most prolific writer associated with the show. Always able to pen a script at short notice, this story was pulled together in record time when his earlier script (about vampires) fell through. Set entirely in a lighthouse and it's surrounding rocks, the claustrophobia of the piece is wonderfully atmospheric. Rather `Agatha Christie' like in it's set up, the story deals with the sudden one-by-one murders of the characters as the Doctor and his companion Leela try to work out the alien menace attacking the crew.
Although the season opener, this was the second story recorded in this block and is the first to go out under the production aegis of Graham Williams. Williams had been brought into the show when Philip Hinchcliffe had moved on after three years at the helm and arguably had taken Doctor Who to new heights and overseen it's most successful period. His reign had been deemed too controversial by the BBC and Hinchcliffe left the show on a ratings and critical high but not with much BBC support. Newcomer Williams had a very different view of the show and seemed to prefer slapstick and whimsy to the darker production style of Hinchcliffe. Williams certainly encouraged the playful side of Tom Baker who never took the role seriously from this point forwards and became more and more outrageous in his performance and dominant of the show. But this was early days and is certainly superior to much of what came later.
The restoration of the master tapes is as always flawless, with the earlier story being "vidfired" to recreate the original broadcast quality. Both stories have a number of extras included on the disc, most notably two truly interesting retrospectives of Terrance Dicks and the making of The Mind Robber. The commentaries are perhaps not as enjoyable as other releases, particularly for the earlier story featuring Frazer Hines & Hamish Wilson (Jamie), Wendy Padbury (Zoe) and director Michael Ferguson. It must be hard for the crew to recall what is happening almost forty years after the story was made, so this is forgivable, and Dicks, Louise Jameson (Leela) and a guest actor do a good job on the later story. Other extras about the careers of Frazer Hines and Paddy Russell are also quite interesting. The most bizarre inclusion is a sketch from another BBC classic "The Basil Brush Show" which seems to have no relevance at all to the Mind Robber or the era, other than it features a Yeti, seen in Doctor Who a year before this release. But it's a silly piece of nonsense that's certainly highly enjoyable.
All in all, a good pair of releases, but with only three more Troughton stories in the archives available, I think we'll be looking for more classic Tom Baker releases to fill the gaps in future issues.
Summary of Doctor Who: Horror of Fang Rock (Story 92)
The Doctor and Leela become top suspects in the mysterious deaths that occur when an eerie fog engulfs the Fang Rock lighthouse in this turn-of-the-century adventure.Similar DVD Movies
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