Horror of Fang Rock

Horror of Fang Rock will always be the most special episode of Doctor Who for me as it is the first one I ever watched and I still remember it clearly to this day. It was 1981 and our local California PBS station was playing Who late at night. The way I found out about it was reading my Dad's paper magazine he got in the mail every week called TV Guide. I was growing tired of Star Trek as I have seen every episode and I did a search for Science Fiction and Doctor Who was the only other thing listed. See, we didn't have the Internet (no one did) and aside from going to the library there wasn't a lot of Sci-Fi available. Star Wars : The Empire Strikes back was still in the theaters yet it nor the original were out on video tape yet. Our local library only had 3 episodes of Star Trek on video (I checked those out and re-checked them out so many times that I probably wore the tapes out on my Dad's new VCR). So I was really starving for some science fiction on TV.

I recall not being able to understand a damn thing anyone was saying due to the British accents but it was scary and funny at the same time. The man with the long scarf and eyes that pointed outward in different directions looked like a hippy with his crazy afro and that woman with him was oddly attractive to this then teenager. I had no idea that she would start to dress less conservatively than in this story, like she wasn't expecting it to be cold outside and that further cemented my attention with the next episodes I would watch.

People always ask "What's the first episode you ever saw?" and "Whose your Doctor?". My Doctor would be Tom Baker and this is the first episode I ever saw.

As night descends, fiendish creatures attempt to imitate something greater than themselves...
Of course, I'm talking about the Horror of Fang Rock and not Graham Williams' picking up the mantle of the Hinchcliffe era! Robert Holmes maintains his role as script editor; Paddy Russell returns to direct and Terrance Dicks returns to pen. The dialogue occasionally fizzles (particularly episode three), but from the mouths of some dependable character archetypes, the fireworks of TOWC aren't quite here. Similar gripes can be levied at the direction - great, but nothing exceptional. Lighting - great, but not quite Talons.
Paul Cornell praised Horror of Fang Rock for its expertly slick script, with every mcguffin playing a vital role and every character holding a deeper seated motivation, dovetailing and revealing more as the serial ramps up the suspense.
This is why I'd hold back from giving HOFR a glowing 10/10 simply because whilst superb, its very much an afterglow of the Hinchcliffe & Holmes magic. Everything works superbly, but there's no sense of radical spirit - trying something new and daring.

A perfectly weighted story with a death count to rival anything from the Saward era. Using the diamond with the lighthouse light to destroy the Rutan ship is like using a lighter and deodorant to flame a fly out the air.

"That is the empty rhetoric of a dictator, and I don't like your face either."

This just gets sweeter with time. A great, atmospheric tale with fun characters and some stellar moments for companion Leela. It doesn't preach, it has little or no political agenda, it has some great intentional (Leela's efforts to get Ruban to leave his room) and unintentional (the green jello in a plastic bag alien) comedy but it was FUN, something Doctor Who forgets to be a lot these days.