by Terrance Dicks
- UK
- Paperback
- Target Books
- March 1978
- (Book Number: 32)
Other Editions
Doctor Who and the Horror of Fang Rock
UK / Hardback / Longbow/WH Allen / 1978
Back Cover Blurb — Target Books
On a remote rocky island a few miles off the Channel coast stands the Fang Rock lighthouse. There have always been tales of the beast of Fang Rock, but when the Tardis lands here with Leela and the Doctor, the force they must deal with is more sinister and deadly than the mythical beast of the past.
It is the early 1900s, electricity is just coming into common usage, and the formless, gelatinous mass from the future must use the lighthouse generators to recharge its system. Nothing can stop this Rutan scout in its search and its experimentation on humans...
Television Story
Horror of Fang Rock
Script Writer: Terrance Dicks
4 × 25 Minutes / BBC1 / Colour
03/09/77 Part One
10/09/77 Part Two
17/09/77 Part Three
24/09/77 Part Four
All episodes exist and have been released on Region 2 DVD in the UK, and on Region 1 DVD in the United States.
Regular Characters
Fourth Doctor / Leela
Familiar Faces
The Rutans
Notes
- Horror of Fang Rock saw the only television appearance to date of a Rutan, one of the arch enemies of the militaristic Sontarans. The race had first been mentioned in Robert Holmes' The Time Warrior in 1973, which had first introduced the Sontarans.
Despite Horror of Fang Rock being the creatures only television appearance, they have been seen on screen on one other occasion, in the independent video spin-off Shakedown: Return of the Sontarans, which was later expanded and novelised for the New Adventures series by its script writer Terrance Dicks, and published as Shakedown.
The characters also made an appearance in Lance Parkin's The Infinity Doctors in November 1998, which may, or may not, actually fit into the established continuity of the various book series.