The Horror of Fang Rock

1904

At last we come to the Doctor, that renegade Time Lord who has inspired both the longest running science fiction show ever and numurous beatings of young pimply boys wearing long scarfs.

I have written several blogs in other forums inspired by the recently revamped television series, and blabbered endlessly to friends about how great it is regardless of the fact that they could care less. Even my wife, who truly truly could care less about Doctor Who, has found herself caught up at times in the ongoing storylines and a few truly great episodes I forced her to watch. She once told someone that she enjoyed the Van Gogh episode. True story.

But I digress. Doctor Who is just too brainy (or geeky) and too British for the bulk of the American public. But I adore the show, both the original campy version and the new turbo charged series. And this is my blog, dammit. (Well, the blog belongs to all the Gentlemen, but we are allowed to write about any topic here. Should a fellow Fellow disagree, I encourage comments and intelligent debate. Heck, dumb insult comments would be great in lieu of knowing that no one is reading this.)

Historically, Doctor Who aired in twenty minute episodes on PBS here in the States. Generally, four of those episodes would make up a full story. The show usually seemed to air either in the middle of the night, or during the Cosby Show, making it virtually impossible for 12-year old me in the eighties to catch. As a result, I rarely had much of a clue what was going on.

So when 12-year-old me strolled into a little bookstore in the Fifth Street Market and discovered a large selection of Doctor Who novelizations, I was thrilled. These small $3 books became a major guilty pleasure. Now, even then as a kid, I was already reading Frank Herbert and AC Clark. I understood that a 60 page adaptation of a children's TV show was far from quality literature. In fact, most of them plain old stunk. But reading them clarified so many plot points- and they covered the really old storylines which never air on TV- in fact, many of those old shows from the 60's were completely lost or destroyed. Plus, the books featured great art and the collection looked nice on my bookshelf.

Soooo. The timeline. In no way have I worked at adding in a comprehensive Doctor Who listing. Just cataloging the basic episodes is a major undertaking- there are hundreds. Many of them are vague on the settings. And although most episodes are self-contained within one era, owning a time machine means one can jump around at will. The Who continuity timelines I use for reference online are even more overwhelming- including background dates on characters and every mention of the Doctor meeting a historical figure, no matter how vague or off-handed the remark.

Nonetheless I will always find myself surfing tidbits of Gallifreyan lore on the internet, and looking up detailed explanations of how the Doctor sealed the latest crack in time. And yes, when I happen to think about it, I will pull up one of the timelines and look for a good story that occurs in my current era and happens to have a novelization available for sale for 30 cents on Half.com.

Such is the case with The Horror of Fang Rock. I have no recollection of this episode, and am reasonably sure that even in it's prime it was considered a forgettable episode. It does feature Tom Baker, arguably the most popular, or at least best known, Doctor (#4) and his companion Leela, the 14th most popular companion (not to be confused with the Futurama one-eyed chick). *

Witness the trailer for the episode, which starts off good, then gets boring, then gets weird, then gets boring again, then gets kind of awesome at the end.

The thing I notice most about this episode is the notable fact that Leela is fully dressed. I think her character was introduced as a switch up from the pretty smarty-pants Sarah Jane Smith. Leela, by contrast, was a tribal sort, complete with a really big knife that she liked to use to carve up sabretooth tigers, alien invaders, and pimps. But mostly she wore a skimpy tribal outfit a lot. But I guess even female warrior bad-asses get chilly when stalking monsters near lighthouses at night. I also guess that the geek majority in the eighties liked their chicks brainy, because Leela was replaced by Romana, a beautiful but hyper-intelligent Time Lord like the Doctor. I have to admit that faced with a choice between the three, I would pass up the goodie-two-shoes Sarah Jane and the savage Leela for Romana. Ramona was the ideal woman for middle-school me. As a side note, I had almost forgot that Romana regenerated once. The pic is the Romana that I liked.

Nonetheless, I think we should pass on commenting on the story or adaptation of Fang Rock in favor of watching more videos of Leela doing her thing. This video features some sweet knife throwing, plus that awesome scene where Leela bitch-slaps the screaming lady.


* To answer the age-old question of which Leela I would rather have with me in a fight: Futurama Leela. The wikipedia entry I linked earlier states that Futurama Leela is a master of martial arts and is able to best most males of any species in a fight. She also has access and affection for various weapons of the 31st century. Doctor Who Leela, on the other hand, is more comfortable with a knife than a laser gun, and relies more on brute violence than fighting technique. And, when you Google the word 'Leela', all kinds of sexy fan-art pops up of Futurama Leela. So, there's that.