THE STORY
The TARDIS arrives on Fang Rock, a small island off the English coast, around the start of the 20th Century. The Doctor and Leela seek shelter at a lighthouse with a recently installed electric lamp and occupied by three keepers - Ben, Vince and Reuben, the only inhabitants of the island. Vince has recently seen a bright object fall from the sky into the sea, and something is draining the power from the lighthouse generator. Ben is killed, electrocuted, and the body is hidden behind the generator. A passing ship crashes on the rocks as a freak fog bank descends, and the survivors - Colonel Skinsale, Lord Palmerdale, Adelaide Lesage and the sailor Harker, are brought into the lighthouse.
The small group finds themselves prey to a Rutan, one of the alien race at constant war with the Sontarans . The Rutan can change its shape at will and impersonates Reuban to gain access to the lighthouse. Vince and the wreck survivors are killed off one by one, but the Doctor fights back, blasting the alien with a makeshift mortar. He then rigs up the lighthouse lamp with a diamond taken form Palmerdale, creating a powerful laser beam to destroy the approaching Rutan mothership.
CAST:
The Doctor (Tom Baker), Leela (Louise Jameson), Vince (John Abbott), Reuben (Colin Douglas), Ben (Ralph Watson), Lord Palmerdale (Sean Caffrey), Skinsale (Alan Rowe), Adelaide (Annette Woolett), Harker (Rio Fanning).
FACTS:
Leela, looking at the explosion of the Rutan ship is temporarily blinded, her eye colour also changes from brown to blue.
This was the only Doctor Who story to have been recorded at the BBC's Pebble Mill studios in Birmingham, rather than London.
OTHER FORMATS:
The Fourth Doctor Novelisations
Back to the Fourth Doctor Programme Guide
Back to 'The Talons of Weng-Chiang'.