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DOCTOR WHO
HORROR OF FANG ROCK

Written by
Terrance Dicks

Part Four

(Overlap from the Doctor entering the coal bunker)

[INT. Lamp room]

(VINCE is still making futile pulls on the foghorn lever and trying to figure out what's gone wrong with the system. He hears someone on the stairs. It's not-quite-REUBEN.)
VINCE: Reuben! You all right now? You shouldn't have come up here. I'll hang on till morning. You go and get some sleep.
(Undeterred, the stone-faced figure continues advancing. VINCE stops smiling and starts backing away.)
VINCE: No, no.
(He falls to the floor and puts his arm in front of his face. Grabbing that arm in one hand, REUBEN places his other hand on VINCE's head. The young man cries out as he too is electrocuted. REUBEN releases the inert VINCE.
We cut back to the deader version of REUBEN.)

[INT. Generator room]

(LEELA is feeding the boiler.)
LEELA: This alien must have great powers to change its shape at will.
DOCTOR: (emerging from the coal bunker and closing the boiler door) It has. But it needed to study the human life pattern first.
LEELA: That is why it took the engineer.
DOCTOR: Organic restructuring is elementary physiology for Time Lords.
LEELA: Then there is nothing we can do!
DOCTOR: What?
LEELA: Well, if this creature is a Time Lord...
DOCTOR: (offended) No, not a Time Lord. Elementary physiology for us is something that lesser species might master after a few thousand centuries.
LEELA: Oh. Then we have nothing to worry about.
DOCTOR: We don't?
LEELA: No. You will easily dispose of this primitive creature, Doctor. You are a Time Lord.
DOCTOR: Yes, but it took Reuben's form for a reason.
LEELA: To kill us stealthily, one by one. (sharply) Doctor!
DOCTOR: What is it?
LEELA: Suppose we pretend that we still think Reuben is Reuben and not the alien. Then we can get close enough to it and kill it.
DOCTOR: No, no, no, no. We can't. If we got within touching distance of it, we're dead. It packs too many volts.
LEELA: What is it?
(He has held up a hand. Near the floor he has discovered a shiny metal cylinder that is making low-pitched noises, a device not of this time.)
DOCTOR: It's some kind of power relay.
LEELA: Does it belong to the alien?
DOCTOR: Yes, yes. Rule 1 after surviving a crash landing - set up a distress beacon. To do that, it would have needed a power source. That's why it came here. There must be a signal modulator somewhere, transmitting. To whom? To its own kind. Leela, get the surviving humans to the lamp room!
LEELA: To the lamp room.
DOCTOR: Yes, that's the easiest place to defend.
LEELA: (as she heads out) Oh, but Doctor, where shall we look for this mognal sigulator?
DOCTOR: I'll do the looking. Hurry - there isn't much time.
(Both head up the stairs.)

[INT. Crew room]

(SKINSALE paces steadily while ADELAIDE sits.)
ADELAIDE: Do keep still! It's like some terrible dream.
SKINSALE: A pity it's not a dream. We'd stand a chance of waking up.
(Someone is coming. He and LEELA run to the far wall, but it's only LEELA.)
SKINSALE: Is Harker dead?
LEELA: Yes. Like the others. The creature has got into the lighthouse. Now we must fight for our lives.
(ADELAIDE faints with a groan. LEELA responds by rolling her eyes.
The DOCTOR, meanwhile, is in the bunk room. He is going through the crew's belongings when he hears footfalls. Down go the lights, and the DOCTOR hides on a bunk, pulling the privacy curtain across. We see REUBEN enter and step through, to the window where he was standing earlier.
From outside, we see that the DOCTOR has hold of the window ledge outside.
REUBEN turns from the window.)
SKINSALE: Come on, Adelaide, drink this.
ADELAIDE: No.
SKINSALE: Come on, drink it.
LEELA: Hurry. The Doctor wants us to go to the lamp room.
SKINSALE: Why the lamp room?
LEELA: It is the easiest place to defend ourselves.
SKINSALE: Right. Come on, Adelaide.
ADELAIDE: No.
SKINSALE: Come on.
ADELAIDE: No.
SKINSALE: Come along.
ADELAIDE: No.
(SKINSALE has finally got ADELAIDE moving, but LEELA hears something.)
LEELA: Back! Back! Get back!
(They all back into the room, and we see REUBEN slowly step in, with a faint creepy smile.
Back in the bunk room, the DOCTOR pulls himself back inside, bringing inside a small antenna.
In the crew room, ADELAIDE is screaming and pretty much backs into REUBEN, who places his hand on her head. She is electrocuted and falls, without a peep.)
LEELA: Run! Run!
(SKINSALE does so, while LEELA throws the knife at REUBEN. His body repels the attack, with a green lenticular effect. The knife passes through him as if through air. She runs past him and out of the room.)

[INT. Stairs]

(The DOCTOR is heading downstairs, and SKINSALE is on his way up.)
SKINSALE: Adelaide, Doctor. It's got Adelaide!
DOCTOR: Where's Leela?
LEELA: (out of breath) Doctor, the creature! Behind us. We must find weapons.
DOCTOR: Sshh. Shh. Now listen. (to SKINSALE) When you reach the service room, you'll find a locker full of maroons. I want you to break them open and scatter the powder down the lamp room stairs. Vince'll help you. Off you go.
SKINSALE: Right.
LEELA: It's coming.
(SKINSALE and LEELA run up the stairs for the service room, below the lamp room. The DOCTOR sits on the stairs, blocking the way.)
DOCTOR: May I help you? Having trouble, Reuben, hmm? Not easy holding the human form stable, is it?
REUBEN: (not moving, in a not-quite-Reuben voice) No longer necessary. We can abandon this ridiculous shape.
DOCTOR: (chuckling) Good idea. You'll find it a lot comfier.
(REUBEN greenly phases out, and the glowing sphere replaces him.)

[INT. Lamp room]

(LEELA and SKINSALE are standing over VINCE.)
SKINSALE: Just like the others.
LEELA: Then there is nothing we can do. The maroons.
SKINSALE: This terrible thing will destroy us all. Poor chap.
LEELA: You must forget him now.
(LEELA is removing the maroons from a box.)
LEELA: It is time for us to fight.
(SKINSALE starts helping her open them. We hear a crackling sound outside the room.)
LEELA: Listen.

[INT. Stairs]

(The sound is coming from here.)
DOCTOR: Now I remember. Reuben the Rutan.
RUTAN: (crackly) You know our form?
DOCTOR: Well, when you've seen one Rutan, you've seen them all.
RUTAN: We are a Rutan scout. We are specially trained in the new metamorphosis techniques.
DOCTOR: (as viewed by the Rutan) Well, I expect you'll get better at it in time. What are you doing in this part of the galaxy anyway?
RUTAN: That doesn't concern you. You are to be destroyed.
DOCTOR: Got it! You're at last losing that interminable war with the Sontarans.
RUTAN: That is a lie.
DOCTOR: Is it? You used to control the whole of the Mutter's Spiral once. Now the Sontarans have driven you to the far fringes of the galaxy.
RUTAN: The glorious Rutan army is making a series of strategic withdrawals to selected strong points.
DOCTOR: Rutan, that's the empty rhetoric of a defeated dictator, and I don't like your face either.
RUTAN: Your mockery will end with your race, Earthling, when the mighty Rutan battle fleet occupies this planet.
DOCTOR: Why invade an obscure planet like Earth? It's of no value to you.
RUTAN: The planet is obscure, but its strategic position is sound. We shall use it as a launch point for our final assault on the Sontaran rabble.
DOCTOR: But if you set up a power base here, the Sontarans will bombard it with photonic missiles.
RUTAN: That is unimportant. It will serve the cause of our final, glorious victory.
DOCTOR: And what about its people?
RUTAN: Primitive bipeds of no value. We scouted all the planets of this solar system. Only this one suits our purpose.
DOCTOR: I can understand your military purposes, but why murder a hatful of harmless humans?
RUTAN: It is necessary. Till we return to our mothership and the mothership informs the fleet, no-one must know of our visit to Earth.
DOCTOR: But you crashed, didn't you, just as you made your discovery? You failed.
RUTAN: Failed? We are sending a signal to the mothership with the power from the primitive mechanism below.
DOCTOR: You're not, you know.
(He has the antenna.)
RUTAN: It's of no importance. The ship will home in on the primary signal.
DOCTOR: I'm sorry to disappoint you. I fixed that as well, oyster-face.
RUTAN: All your interference is useless. The beam was transmitting long enough for the mothership to trace the signal.
DOCTOR: You can't be certain of that.
RUTAN: It will come.
DOCTOR: But by then, you'll be dead.
RUTAN: What could you Earthlings possibly do to us?
DOCTOR: Well, if you'll just step this way, I'll show you.
(He starts up the stairs. The somewhat gelatinous Rutan has a harder time of it.)

[INT. Lamp room]

LEELA: Here he comes!
DOCTOR: I've brought someone to see you. Give me one of those fuses, quickly.
SKINSALE: (standing as the crackling grows louder) Is this advisable, Doctor?
DOCTOR: Probably not, but we've no choice. I'm so sorry to bother you. Could you oblige me with a light?
SKINSALE: A what?
DOCTOR: A match.
SKINSALE: Oh yes, of course. Here.
DOCTOR: Thank you. Move over.
(The survivors stand at the top of the stairs.)
LEELA: How did you hold it back on the stairs?
DOCTOR: Oh, a little militant chit-chat.
(He strikes the match on the wall and lights the fuse, as the Rutan comes around the twist of the staircase, glowing mightily.)
DOCTOR: What kept you?
RUTAN: The time for talk is over.
DOCTOR: Correct.
(He throws, and the gunpowder on the stairs assists in creating a brilliant flash. The Rutan howls. When the DOCTOR has cleared the smoke from the air with his scarf, the creature is no longer in sight.)
LEELA: Where is it? Have you killed the thing?
DOCTOR: Unlikely.
SKINSALE: That's the most horrible thing I've ever seen. What the devil is it?
DOCTOR: It's an intelligent, highly aggressive species from Ruta 3.
LEELA: Was it a sea creature?
DOCTOR: Well, it evolved in the sea, adapted to land. Any more gunpowder, Colonel?
(In the box are four more flares.)
LEELA: We are lucky that it fears flame.
DOCTOR: Well, Ruta 3 is an icy planet. Its inhabitants find heat intensely painful. Now, if we had a flamethrower.
SKINSALE: Well, there, there is this, Doctor.
DOCTOR: What?
SKINSALE: I carried it up from the service room. It looks like a kind of mortar.
DOCTOR: It's an early Schermuly.
SKINSALE: An early Schermuly?
DOCTOR: Yes, an early Schermuly. A Schermuly box that fires a rocket and line.
SKINSALE: A projectile weapon.
DOCTOR: Yes. It won't do, though. Stay calm, Skinsale.
(He goes out into the gallery and returns with a device consisting of an upward-pointed cylinder on a tripod. It could make an acceptable cannon.)
DOCTOR: Here, take this.
SKINSALE: Right, got it.
DOCTOR: Loaded with a few odds and ends, it should cover the stairs. Empty your pockets, and mine.
(The two start doing so. LEELA is pulling plenty of random items from the DOCTOR's pockets and placing them in the cannon affair.)
DOCTOR: Of course, it's not just this Rutan I'm worried about. It's the others.
SKINSALE: Others?
DOCTOR: Yes.
SKINSALE: You mean to say there are more of these beasts?
DOCTOR: There's a whole battle fleet out there. By the time the Rutans and the Sontarans-
SKINSALE: Sontarans?
DOCTOR: Yes. By the time they've finished with it, this planet'll be like a cinder hanging in space.
SKINSALE: You mean to say that there's a whole battle fleet coming here?
DOCTOR: Yes, unless, of course, we could knock out both the mothership and the scout ship. If we could do that, they just might conclude that this section of space was too dangerous.
LEELA: How can we do that?
DOCTOR: I don't know. We've nothing here that would stop a Rutan spaceship in its tracks. Rutan ships have a crystalline infrastructure, you see. Shielded, of course. Still, landing on a planet like this, they might just cut off the energy fields to save power. No, I'd need an amplified carbon oscillator.
LEELA: What is an, erm, what did you say?
DOCTOR: It's like a laser beam but much more destructive.
SKINSALE: A laser beam?
DOCTOR: Yes.
LEELA: Yes, that's some kind of very powerful light. Isn't it, Doctor?
DOCTOR: Well, yes, put in its simplest terms.
LEELA: Why don't we use this?
DOCTOR: What?
LEELA: This. (She gestures to the lamp.)
DOCTOR: That? Are you suggesting I convert the carbon arc beam?
LEELA: Well, obviously.
DOCTOR: Leela, that's a beautiful notion. (she smiles) Unfortunately, I'd need a focusing device, a fairly large piece of crystalline carbon.
LEELA: Crystallised carbon?
SKINSALE: A diamond.
DOCTOR: Yes.
(He starts undoing his cufflinks.)
DOCTOR: No, that's too small. I'd need a much bigger one for the primary beam oscillator.
SKINSALE: Palmerdale.
DOCTOR: What?
SKINSALE: Palmerdale. He always carried diamonds.
DOCTOR: He did?
SKINSALE: He called them his insurance.
DOCTOR: The crew room.
SKINSALE: Yes.
DOCTOR: Yes. Yes. Well, let's get this working first.
(They move the cannon-like affair to the staircase. We can see that the Rutan is on its way up again. The top of a flight of stairs is within its sight, though not clear.)

[INT. Stairs]

DOCTOR: Are you sure you've got it?
LEELA: Mmm-hmm.
DOCTOR: Good.
SKINSALE: Doctor, I'm coming with you.
DOCTOR: That's not necessary.
SKINSALE: I want to. You'll need someone.
DOCTOR: All right. Remember, Leela, don't fire until you see the green of its tentacles.
LEELA: Doctor?
DOCTOR? Hmm?
LEELA: How are you going to get past the Rutan?
DOCTOR: With discretion. Come on, Colonel.
(LEELA bends down and gets into position at the cannon.)

[INT. Crew room]

(The DOCTOR and SKINSALE creep down into the crew room. The DOCTOR stands beside the door while SKINSALE heads for PALMERDALE's body and reaches into the trouser pockets, then jacket pockets.)
DOCTOR: (sotto) Hurry! Hurry!
(The Rutan is wiggling up the stairs still.
Back in the crew room, SKINSALE hasn't found anything in the corpse's pockets.)
DOCTOR: (sotto) Body belt. Body belt!
(Around the waist is indeed a body belt. SKINSALE unties a pouch and pulls out a little velvet bag, which he takes to the DOCTOR. The DOCTOR looks through the diamonds. One is suitable. The rest he throws onto the floor before heading back out to the stairs. SKINSALE bends down to collect them. He then hears the crackling of the approaching Rutan, and one of the four tentacles wraps round his neck. He grabs at it and screams as he is electrocuted.
On the stairs, the DOCTOR pauses and then hurries up to the lamp room.)

[INT. Lamp room]

DOCTOR [OC]: Ready, Leela?
LEELA: Yes.
DOCTOR [OC]: Now!
(She strikes a match on the stone wall as the DOCTOR runs in. The Rutan isn't far behind. With a flash, it is sent downward again, crying out, as the DOCTOR and LEELA crouch.)
LEELA: Are you all right?
DOCTOR: You singed my scarf.
LEELA: And the colonel?
DOCTOR: Dead with honour.
LEELA: Then at least we have avenged him.
DOCTOR: Yes.
LEELA: And the diamond?
(The DOCTOR shows her, and she smiles. She starts down the stairs to check on things as the DOCTOR disconnects the lighthouse's beacon.)

[INT. Stairs]

(LEELA sees the gelatinous Rutan oozing down the stairs, leaving behind little bits of its now misshapen body.)
LEELA: It is here, Doctor. I did it! Finished!
RUTAN: Your triumph will be short, Earthling. Our mothership will blast this island into molten rock.
LEELA: Empty threats, Rutan. Enjoy your death, as I enjoyed killing you.
RUTAN: (haltingly) We die for the glory of our race. Long live the Rutan empire!
(She smiles as the green glob oozes further down the stairs.)
DOCTOR [OC]: Leela? Leela!
(She runs back up.)

[INT. Lamp room]

(The DOCTOR is inside the lamp fitting.)
LEELA: They are hard to kill, these Rutans.
DOCTOR: Been celebrating, have you?
LEELA: It is fitting to celebrate the death of an enemy.
DOCTOR: Not in my opinion. I haven't got time to discuss morality. Look out there.
(Through the window we can see an orange ball crossing the sky. From outside, we see it slow as it nears the level of the sea.)
LEELA: Is that the Rutan mothership?
DOCTOR: It is. When it gets within range, this will lock onto its carbon resonator and knock out its anti-grav, I hope. We've got about a hundred and seventeen seconds to get out of here. Understand?
LEELA: Perfectly.
DOCTOR: Good. So when I switch on, you run for it, all right?
LEELA: Yes. It's getting nearer, Doctor!
(He aims the lamp's reflector at the glowing ball outside as it grows larger in the window. He then jumps down.)
DOCTOR: Come on. Whatever you do, don't look back. I said don't look back! Let's go. Now!
(He throws the switch for the lamp and runs downstairs, followed by LEELA. She takes a moment to grab her knife from beside ADELAIDE's body.)

[INT. Generator room]

DOCTOR: (on the stairs) Leela, come on!
(He runs to the door to the outside and pulls it open. We can see the orange light from the ship shining onto his back as he turns round to shout.)

[EXT. Outside the lighthouse]

DOCTOR: Leela!

[INT. Generator room]

(LEELA reaches the bottom of the stairs, where she slides the knife into the top of her boot.)
DOCTOR [OC]: Leela!
(The DOCTOR runs in, looking for her, just as she runs out the door.)
LEELA: Come on!
(He follows her outside.)

[EXT. Shore]

(They run across the orange-bathed rocks, heading for the shore, where they take refuge behind some tall rocks. LEELA peeks out to see what's going on, just as a beam from the lamp room causes the Rutan ship to explode in the sky outside the lighthouse. Seagulls cry out, and LEELA ducks again.)
DOCTOR: That'll teach them. (as some debris falls) I thought I told you not to look back.
(LEELA draws her knife and holds it out to the DOCTOR.)
LEELA: Slay me, Doctor.
DOCTOR: What?
LEELA: I'm blind. Slay me now! It is the fate of the old and crippled.
(The DOCTOR takes the knife and starts laughing.)
DOCTOR: You're neither old nor crippled. The effects of the flash will pass.
LEELA: You are sure?
DOCTOR: Mmm. Blink. (he notices something) That's interesting.
LEELA: What is?
DOCTOR: Pigmentation dispersal caused by the flash. Your eyes have changed colour. Leela, stop blinking now. Let's go.
LEELA: What colour are they?
DOCTOR: Blue. 'Aye; though we hunted high and low, and hunted everywhere.'
LEELA: What?
DOCTOR: 'The Ballad of Flannan Isle', by Wilfred Gibson.
LEELA: Who?
DOCTOR: Wilfred Gibson. 'Aye; though we hunted high and low, and hunted everywhere, of the three men's fate we found no trace'...
(He steps into the TARDIS, with LEELA behind him.)
DOCTOR [OC]: 'In any time, in any place, but a door ajar, and an untouched meal, and an overtoppled chair.'
(The TARDIS dematerialises, leaving the dark, silent lighthouse behind.)

The above notes, transcription, etc. by Anna Shefl

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