Day 457: Horror of Fang Rock Part 4

The conclusion of this story features a couple of things. One of them is the revelation of the villains behind the piece: The Rutans. The Rutans are the enemies of the Sontarans, and yet they couldn't be more dissimilar. While the Sontarans are short, stocky, and look like typical alien soldiers, the Rutans are more blob like in nature. This gives some insight into their conflict: a dislike for the unlike, as it is fairly obvious that there is no point of similarity between the two species. Even their mides of attack are different, with the Sontarans preferring all out attacks and strong weaponry while the Rutans take a stealthier approach, knocking out their enemies one by one. However, their love of war is the one thing that they do have in common, with dire consequences for bystanders.

This is evident when you look at the amount of death that surrounds this story. Every single character save for the Doctor and Leela gets killed over the course of this story, it's fairly depressing stuff although it's worth noting the way in which the Doctor and Leela take this in, as they accept it and move on to their nect adventure with barely a look back. They won and there's no time to dwell on the loss. It's interesting to note this because back in the Hartnell era this sort of destruction would be recognised by the TARDIS crew, and we shall certainly see much more mourning in the future, but for now we move on to face new foes, off on another adventure.