Inspirations - Horror of Fang Rock

Season 14 saw the end of Philip Hinchcliffe's tenure as producer of Doctor Who. He decided to go out with a lavish production - leaving his replacement, Graham Williams, to foot the bill. Hinchcliffe had allowed The Talons of Weng-Chiang to go well over its budget. This plus spiraling inflation would pose problems for Williams in his first season in charge. He had hoped to have a themed season, coming up with the idea of the White and Black Guardians and the Key to Time as part of his pitch for the new role, but seasons had to be planned too far in advance, so this idea would have to wait until the following year. Rattled by the complaints about horror and violence in recent stories, Williams was ordered by his bosses to steer the show towards lighter adventures, with more fantasy and humour.
Robert Holmes had agreed to help bridge the transition by staying on as Script Editor for a number of stories, as a replacement for him was sought.
Straight away, Williams and Homes hit a snag. Terrance Dicks was now a freelance writer, and he was commissioned to write the first story of the new season - his first contribution since the upset over the redrafting of The Brain of Morbius. What he came up with was a story which would have fitted well with the themes of the previous two years - a tale involving vampires. Tentatively titled "The Witch Lords", this story was to have seen the Doctor and Leela encounter vampires on an alien planet.
However, the BBC were at this time planning a lavish production of Bram Stoker's Dracula, to be produced by Morris Barry (director of three Patrick Troughton Doctor Who stories) and set to star Louis Jourdan as the Count, and Frank Finlay as Van Helsing. The Doctor Who production office were suddenly told to discontinue their vampire story for fear it might be seen as a send-up of the costly new Stoker adaptation. We'll hear more about Dicks' original story when we get to Season 18...

Holmes met with Dicks and asked him for a new story at short notice, to be set in a lighthouse. Terrance Dicks DVD Extras Anecdote No 433 coming up...
Back when Dicks was Script Editor he had asked Holmes to write a story set in Medieval times. Holmes said he did not know anything about this, so Dicks gave him a copy of the Boys' Own Book of Castles and told him to get on with it.
Jump forward a few years and the roles are reversed. Dicks is asked to write a story set in a lighthouse and claims he does not know anything about them, so Holmes hands him a copy of the Boys' Own Book of Lighthouses, and tells him to get on with it...
In a neat bit of symmetry, that Holmes story introduced the Sontarans, and mentioned their long-running war with the Rutans, whilst Dicks' story actually introduces the Rutans and mentions their long-running war with the Sontarans...
The other issue at the time was a lack of studio space at Television Centre, so Dicks' story was going to be recorded in Birmingham, at the Pebble Mill studios. The director chosen for the story was Paddy Russell, who had already directed Tom Baker in The Pyramids of Mars. She discovered that a lot had changed with the actor since their last work together, and she found him a lot less agreeable. This was the beginning of the "hell to work with" period for Baker. Hinchcliffe had managed this developing trait, but for Williams it was to be a slow war of attrition which he would ultimately lose.
Louise Jameson had only initially been booked to appear as Leela for the second half of the previous season. She had been reluctant to stay on longer due to the hostility from Baker towards her character, which manifested itself in a coldness towards her as an actor. One of her conditions for doing the new season was that she be allowed to dispense with the red contact lenses which she had to wear to make her blue eyes appear brown. A sequence was inserted into the end of Horror of Fang Rock where she fails to heed the Doctor's warning not to look at the destruction of the Rutan mothership and is temporarily blinded. Her sight clears, but she has suffered a change of pigmentation in her eyes.

The inspiration for many Doctor Who stories lies close to the surface a lot of the time. Few would have failed to spot the Frankenstein story behind The Brain of Morbius, for instance. The main inspiration for Horror of Fang Rock is even more explicit, as the Doctor actually quotes from the poem which lies behind it at the conclusion. This is Flannan Isle (aka The Ballad of Flannan Isle) which was written by Wilfred Wilson Gibson and first published in 1912. Set in 1900, it tells of the mysterious disappearance of three keepers from the Flannan Isle lighthouse. The Flannan Isles lie in the Outer Hebrides off Scotland's north west coast, and are also known as The Seven Hunters. The lighthouse keepers vanished without trace in December 1900.
The Doctor quotes one of the passages from the poem:

   "Aye: though we hunted high and low,
    And hunted everywhere,
    Of the three men's fate we found no trace
    Of any kind in any place,
    But a door ajar, and an untouched meal,
    And an overtoppled chair".

The story has gone on to inspire a number of ghost stories and horror movies, plus an opera by Peter Maxwell Davies (The Lighthouse) and even an early song by Genesis.

A number of theories exist to explain the disappearances, including abduction by UFO, which is closest to what happens to the hapless crew of the Fang Rock lighthouse, who fall prey to the shape-shifting alien Rutan.
The most commonly held opinion is that the men were washed out to sea by a wave. Their log reported severe storms a day or two before Christmas. Another popular theory is that there was some kind of argument, and one of the men killed the others before doing away with himself.
Another theory claims that they were the victims of espionage - killed or abducted by German spies.
More fanciful ideas include a ghostly intervention - either the Devil himself or the Phantom of the Seven Hunters - or attack by some kind of sea monster.
Dicks chose to increase the population of his lighthouse by having a ship wreck itself on the rocks during one of the power shortages which the electricity-devouring Rutan causes. The only member of the ship's crew to survive the wreck is named Stoker - an in-joke about the story which was to have filled this slot. The passengers who survive all have some disagreeable trait, so it is clear that they are being set up as Rutan fodder, necessary to maintain the tension for four episodes.
In order to tie the story to its source poem, it was necessary for Dicks to have every character other than the Doctor and Leela killed off. However, unlike the Flannan Isles mystery, there would have been plenty of dead bodies for the authorities to find when they arrived to investigate.
Next time: the Graham Williams era really takes off with a bit of a space opera. The Doctor falls ill then goes to see a man about a dog. Contact will be made...

The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith - SJA 3.3

In which Sarah Jane Smith's recent actions cause her young companions to become suspicious. Luke, Clyde and Rani believe that Sarah is hiding something from them, so one evening they decide to ask Mr Smith to trace her car. They see that it has stopped in the centre of town and set off to follow her. She is traced to a restaurant, where they see her having dinner with a man. She is on a date. Clyde hears a strange wheezing, groaning sound in the distance. Back at the attic, Mr Smith lets slip that Sarah has been tracked, so she decides to tell them about her new boyfriend - Peter Dalton. She decides to introduce him to Luke, but wants to keep her alien-fighting life a secret from Peter. Clyde and Rani are still suspicious, and want to know more about him. They go to his home, and find it deserted. At another dinner date, Peter proposes to Sarah. He gives her a ring with a red gemstone, which affects her mind. She tells Clyde and Rani that Peter's home is empty because he usually lives in a flat nearer to his work. She announces her forthcoming wedding, and that she is totally giving up her work with aliens. Mr Smith attempts to warn her and Clyde about the ring she is wearing, but Sarah orders him to shut down permanently.

Two weeks later, the attic is cleared, and Sarah and her guests assemble at a country hotel for the wedding. Clyde has brought K9 along. Luke becomes angry at the hostility which Clyde still bears towards Peter. When the point comes in the ceremony when those present are asked if there is any objection to the wedding going ahead, the doors burst open and the Doctor dashes in. A fierce wind blows through the room and K9 announces alien activity. Suddenly the Trickster materialises in a white costume. He, Sarah and Peter then vanish...
Luke, Clyde and Rani find themselves alone with K9 and the Doctor, all the other guests including Rani's parents having disappeared. They discover that they are trapped within a second in time - and Sarah and Peter are trapped in a different segment of time with the Trickster. The Doctor tries to get his TARDIS back. Sarah realises that she has been duped by the ring and takes it off. Peter reveals that he had fallen down the stairs one evening, but had been saved from death by the Trickster, who he really believes to be a benign creature. The Trickster tells Sarah that her friends will only be released if she agrees to marry Peter and give up her old life.

The Doctor confronts the Trickster and identifies him as belonging to the Pantheon of Discord - a group of alien creatures who thrive on chaos and want to break through into this universe. The Trickster wants Sarah to stop defending Earth so that the planet will be left open to alien attack. He warns the Doctor that he knows that "the Gate" is waiting for him. The Doctor manages to retrieve the TARDIS, but is unable to stabilise it. As Clyde tries to get inside he is blasted by Artron energy and thrown back. The Doctor had said that Arton energy could be used against the Trickster, so Clyde pretends that he wants to join him. When he grabs the creature, he weakens him with the energy he had absorbed from touching the TARDIS. Sarah manages to convince Peter that the only way to save her friends is if he renounces his pact with the Trickster - even though this will mean his death. Peter proves his love for her by agreeing, and he throws the ring at the weakened Trickster, who vanishes screaming in agony. Peter disappears as time reasserts itself. Sarah is reunited with Luke, Clyde, Rani, K9 and the Doctor. The guests reappear, none the wiser for what has just happened. Sarah announces that the wedding is off.
Back in the attic later that day, the TARDIS materialises. The Doctor emerges to say that he would never leave without saying goodbye. Luke, Clyde and Rani get to see inside the ship. They want to go for a trip, but Sarah refuses - pointing out that Clyde and Rani have been grounded by the Judoon. The Doctor departs, telling Sarah that their paths are sure to cross again...

The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith was written by Gareth Roberts, and was first broadcast on the 29th and 30th October, 2009. It forms the third and final part of the Trickster trilogy, the character having appeared in the previous two seasons in stories with Sarah's full name in the title, and all written by Roberts. It is significant for having the Doctor make a full appearance, making it a proper cross-over story. The Doctor had never featured in Torchwood as that was a series intended for post-watershed adult audiences, and the BBC did not want to encourage younger viewers wanting to watch it. (This is also why Doctor Who Magazine had not featured that spin-off series to any great extent).
2009 was the year when Doctor Who would not have a full series - just a number of specials spread through the year leading up to David Tennant's departure from the role, so having a cross-over episode meant a little bit extra Doctor Who for fans. In fact, this story was recorded after The End of Time, so marked the last time Tennant played the Doctor (prior to returning in the 50th anniversary story). According to Tennant his last lines as the Doctor were "You two with me. Spit spot!".

The principal guest artist, laying Peter Dalton, is Nigel Havers. Paul Marc Davis once again portrays the Trickster. Zenia Merton plays the Registrar. Best known for her appearances in Space:1999, she had also played Ping-Cho in Marco Polo back in 1964.
Overall, a special episode with a heartbreaking finale.
Things you might like to know:

• Nicholas Courtney was due to reprise his role as the Brigadier as a guest at the wedding, meaning he would have got to appear with the Tenth Doctor. However, the actor suffered a stroke just before filming and so was unable to participate. The character is said to be back in Peru (as he was during the recent Sontaran invasion attempt) so unable to attend the wedding.
• When Peter comes to visit Bannerman Road Sarah has just received a package containing a centipede-like alien. This is a Travast Polong, which had been mentioned in the Series 2 story Mark of the Berserker.
• It had been planned for the Trickster to make a fourth appearance at the conclusion of the fifth series, in a story to be called "The Battle of Bannerman Road".
• The conversation between the Doctor and Sarah at the end of the story mirrors that between her and the Fourth Doctor at the conclusion to The Hand of Fear.
• The "Gate" to which the Trickster refers would turn out to be the Immortality Gate, which the Master used to turn the world's population into versions of himself.
• We learn that K9 has a hover mode, though it is never shown on screen. The day after part two of this story was broadcast saw the showing of the first episode of the K9 spin-off show, in which the new version of K9 Mark I was often seen to fly.
• The Trickster mentions that the Doctor once held the Key to Time in his hands - referring to the Season 16 story arc.
• The TARDIS prop seen here is actually the new one built for Matt Smith's Eleventh Doctor, but with the St John's Ambulance sticker removed.

G is for... Governor (of Varos)

Like all his predecessors, the Governor of the former penal colony of Varos was elected to the post from amongst the officer elite. Conditions were harsh, and the people discontent, so a programme of televised torture and execution was devised to keep the populace under control. Governors also had to submit to televised votes. A vote against them saw their bodies bombarded by harmful radiation. Most died after just a couple of these procedures. This meant that few officers wanted to be promoted to the role. The Governor who was in place when the Doctor and Peri arrived on the planet, seeking one of its minerals to repair the TARDIS, had already faced two defeats. A representative of the Galatron Mining Corporation was on Varos, attempting to push down the price of their ores. This was Sil, a member of the Mentor race. He was in collusion with the Governor's Chief Officer, to keep prices low. The Governor attempted to gain more for their mineral, Zeiton 7, which brought him into conflict with Sil. He failed a third vote, but managed to survive. The Doctor was able to convince the Governor that he could get higher prices and so alleviate the hardships faced by his people. When Sil and the Chief staged a coup, the Governor was faced with a fourth irradiation, which would surely have killed him. However, he was able to make one of the officers rebel and free him - after convincing him that he might be next to face this impossible role. The discovery of Zeiton 7 on another planet gave the Governor the leverage he needed to get higher prices out of Sil, and he put an end to the televised transmissions from the Punishment Dome.

Played by: Martin Jarvis. Appearances: Vengeance on Varos (1985).

• Third and final (to date) appearance of Jarvis in the show. He first appeared under heavy make-up in The Web Planet, playing the Menoptra captain Hilio. His second appearance was as Butler, assistant and henchman to Professor Whitaker in Invasion of the Dinosaurs.

G is for... Goth

Chancellor Goth was a high ranking member of the High Council of Time Lords, and political leader of the Prydonian Chapter - the same house to which the Doctor had belonged. he was widely tipped to succeed as President when the present incumbent stepped down. On the day this was due to happen, the President was assassinated, with the blame being placed on the Doctor, who had come to Gallifrey after experiencing a vision of the event. Goth was eager for the Doctor to be tried quickly and put to death, but he claimed the Presidency himself and so was able to remain at large to investigate further. he knew that the real assassin had actually been someone standing close to the President. It transpired that the Master was back on Gallifrey, working on a scheme to extend his life. Knowing that the Master had access to the Matrix, the Doctor mentally joined with this in order to find out where he was hiding. The Master's assassin was also in the Matrix, and was hunting him. This proved to be Goth. When the Master realised that Goth had been defeated, he tried to trap the Doctor in the Matrix - fatally wounding Goth in the process, as he was of no further use to him. The dying Chancellor was found in the catacombs, where he revealed that he had found the dying Master on the planet Tersurus. He smuggled him back to Gallifrey to help him, as he had learned that he was not going to be chosen as the new President. The Master had merely used Goth so that he could gain access to the Presidential regalia, which would have enabled him to access the Eye of Harmony and so gain a new regeneration cycle.

Played by: Bernard Horsfall. Appearances: The Deadly Assassin (1976).

• Fourth and final appearance by Horsfall in the series, all in stories directed by David Maloney.
• His second appearance was as one of the Time Lords at the Doctor's trial in The War Games, leading many fans to assume that this character was also Goth.
• Tersurus is the setting for events in the Comic Relief adventure "The Curse of Fatal Death", wherein we learn that the indigenous population communicate through breaking wind.

G is for... Goronwy

An eccentric old man who lived in the Welsh countryside, where he kept bees and made honey. He got caught up in an alien incursion when the brutal Bannermen, led by Gavrok, arrived in the area in search of Delta, last but one of the Chimeron race. Goronwy gave shelter to the Doctor and his friends, and allowed him to set a trap for the Bannermen. This involved luring them into a storeroom where they were covered in honey, before being attacked by the bees. The Doctor had earlier noted that the Chimeron life-cycle was similar to that of terrestrial bees. Goronwy seemed to take all of the strange happenings in his stride.

Played by: Hugh Lloyd. Appearances: Delta and the Bannermen (1987).

• There is a popular fan theory that the enigmatic Goronwy might have been another Time Lord in self-imposed exile on Earth, like K'anpo in Planet of the Spiders, or Prof. Chronotis in Shada.
• One of Lloyd's last roles was as a Time Lord in the fan-made film "Devious", which concerns an intermediate Doctor between his Second and Third incarnations.

G is for... Gorgons

An ancient alien race which had visited the Earth thousands of years ago. They inhabited human bodies, giving them a prolonged lifespan, and they had the power to turn people to stone. It was they who gave rise to the Greek myth of Medusa and her sisters. The last of their number was being looked after by the nuns of the Abbey of St Agnes. She was dying, and wished to reopen the portal which had brought her to Earth so that others could follow - but the talisman needed to do this had been lost. It had been found in the Middle East in the 1930's by an archaeologist named Nelson-Stanley and his wife Bea. She now lived in an old people's home, and the nuns of St Agnes had traced the talisman there. Bea gave the object to Sarah Jane Smith's son Luke for safekeeping. He was later abducted by the nuns, and Sarah was then captured when they came to her home - when Maria Jackson's father Alan was transformed to stone. The nuns intended to use Sarah as the new host for the Gorgon. She was able to use a mirror to cause the Gorgon herself to turn into stone, and the talisman was removed to stop the portal from re-opening fully. The nuns were freed from her influence. The talisman was able to restore Alan Jackson.

Played by: Audrey Ardington. Appearances: SJA 1.2: Eye of the Gorgon (2007).

Inspirations - The Talons of Weng-Chiang

During rehearsals for The Robots of Death, Tom Baker was introduced to a man named Graham Williams. He was rather taken aback to learn that Williams was about to become his new producer.
The BBC had bowed to the pressure of attacks by Mary Whitehouse and her ilk, and had decided that a change of producership was needed on Doctor Who. Williams had been developing a new hard-boiled detective drama series which was to rival competition like The Sweeney - Target - which he hoped to produce. He suddenly found himself being taken off the project and moved over to produce Doctor Who, whilst his role on Target would go to Philip Hinchcliffe. A swap, basically.
Season 14 would therefore be Hinchcliffe's last, and he decided to go out with a bang. The final story of the season was to be the third commission from Robert Banks Stewart, who had written the previous two season finales (though Terror of the Zygons had been held back to launch Season 13).
Banks submitted a story titled "The Foe from the Future", whose villain was masked. The writer then got up in work setting up his own projects and had to pull out of further development on this story.
With the clock ticking, Hinchcliffe asked his script editor Robert Holmes to write the season finale himself, as there was not enough time for anyone else to do it. Holmes took some of Banks' ideas - such as the villain being masked and hailing from the future, but the rest is all his own material. he and Hinchcliffe had originally envisaged the Doctor's new companion to be a sort of Eliza Doolittle character, from Victorian times, whom the Doctor would mentor. The Victorian era was a favourite of Holmes' and he decided to cram in as many Victorian Gothic elements as he could.

Back in 1970, when planning Season 8, Barry Letts and Terrance Dicks had discussed how the Doctor had more than a hint of Sherlock Holmes about him, with the Dr Watson role going to the Brigadier. This had prompted thoughts of introducing a Professor Moriarty character to become his arch-enemy - equally clever but on the side of evil. This, of course, led to the creation of the Master.
In Talons, the parallels with Sherlock Holmes become even greater, as the Doctor steps from the TARDIS into the fog-shrouded alleyways of Victorian London in a deer-stalker hat and cape.
As with any six part story overseen by Bob Holmes, Talons has a main setting for four of the episodes, before transferring to a new locale for the other two, to give the viewers something new and stop the story dragging. The first section of Talons is set in and around a music hall - the Palace Theatre. A hugely popular BBC TV series of the time was an entertainments programme called The Good Old Days. This was filmed as though it were taking place in a Victorian music hall, with the artistes and the audience in appropriate period costume. There was a master of ceremonies - Leonard Sachs, who had appeared in The Massacre and would later play one of the incarnations of Borusa - would amuse the audience with amazing alliterations. In Talons, this role is replicated by the theatre owner Henry Gordon Jago. Comic magician Ali Bongo (real name William Oliver Wallace) was brought in to act as magic supervisor for the sequences where we see Li H'sen Chang performing his act. Bongo used to wear a turban, and to sport a drooping oriental moustache.

Chang is based on a number of Victorian and Edwardian stage magicians, most of whom were really Caucasian artists who dressed as Chinese, and often acted as such outside the theatre to maintain the illusion. China was so little known that the general public could believe that people really did have supernatural powers there. Probably the most famous of these was Chung Ling Soo. He was born plain William Ellsworth Robinson, in Westchester County, New York, in 1861. He began his magical
 career on stage at age 14 under his own name, before adopting a more exotic Arabian persona. The famous magician Ching Ling Foo advertised that he would offer $1000 to anyone who could replicate his tricks. Robinson had worked out to copy the illusions, but failed to get the reward. Around 1900 he got a job at the Folies Bergere in Paris, and created a new act based on Foos - changing his name to the similar sounding Chung Ling Soo. Famously, Soo died on stage when he performed his illusion of catching a bullet between his teeth. This was on the stage of the Wood Green Empire in London, in March 1918. When he called for the curtain to be lowered, it was the only time he ever spoke English in public. In Talons, Chang performs a "catching a bullet" trick with the Doctor. A number of stage magicians have died performing this. In 1820 it was the magician's assistant, Madame Delinsky, who perished, whilst Arnold Buck died when, in 1840 the volunteer from the audience invited to load the gun replaced the bullet with some nails.

The theatrical setting allows Holmes to add another classic Horror character to be added to the mix - the Phantom of the Opera. The villainous Magnus Greel, a war criminal from the 51st Century, has been transported back in time to the 1800's, and the journey has left him horribly disfigured. He has lost his Time Cabinet, but has given Li H'sen Chang enhanced mental powers, after Chang had saved him when he arrived in China. Chang has hidden him away in the cellars beneath the Palace Theatre, after tracking the missing cabinet to London. Greel uses illusions to make it seem as though the cellar is haunted - to scare people away - but he also emerges from to time to time to prowl around the theatre at night. The Phantom of the Opera was written by Gaston Leroux, and was first published in serialised form from September 1909 to March 1910, with a book form later in 1910. It tells the story of Erik, a murderous music lover who lives in the ancient vaults deep below the Paris Opera. He champions the talents of a young singer, and kills anyone who prevents her gaining stardom. It was first filmed in 1925 by Universal, starring Lon Chaney, gaining a remake from the same studio in 1943 with Claude Rains. A Hammer version in 1962 featured Herbert Lom as the Phantom, and Patrick Troughton has a role as a rat catcher in the sewers. It is probably best known nowadays for the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical which has been running somewhere in the world since 1986, and was filmed in 2004 with Gerard Butler as the Phantom.

Greel kills people in order to drain their life force to keep himself alive. He preys on young women, and a number of them have been reported missing in the area around the theatre in recent weeks. This prompts Casey, the stagehand, to surmise that "Jack" might be back. This is a reference to Jack the Ripper, who murdered five prostitutes in the Whitechapel district of East London between August and November, 1888. He was never caught, and many are the theories as to what his real identity might be. Some claim he killed far more than the five women attributed to him. The method Greel uses to despatch his victims leads the Doctor to describe him as a "vampire" - enabling Holmes to add Bram Stoker's Dracula into the mix. More on him next time.

The setting for Talons is said to be Limehouse, which lies just a little further east than Whitechapel, although the Doctor and Professor Litefoot's description of the theatre's location actually places it closer to Holborn, as the old River Fleet never extended so far east. If the Venerable Bede really did share a salmon from the Fleet with the Doctor then he must have taken it up to the North East of England, as there is no record of Bede ever leaving Tyneside. Limehouse was the location for London's Chinatown in Victorian times. Conan Doyle has Sherlock Holmes visit an opium den in the area in one of his stories - The Man With The Twisted Lip. Limehouse is also the setting for many of the stories by Sax Rohmer, which chronicle the dastardly machinations of the super-villain Fu Manchu. As well as a criminal mastermind with control over Chinese secret societies like the Tongs, Fu Manchu is also a brilliant scientist, who prefers to do away with his enemies through exotic poisons rather than bullets or knives.
The character first appeared in 1913 in the novel The Mystery of Dr Fu Manchu, which was comprised of a number of linked short stories published the year before. Fu Manchu's nemesis is the Scotland Yard detective Nayland Smith, who is assisted in his exploits by Dr Petrie, who narrates the story - just as it is Dr Watson who narrates the adventures of Sherlock Holmes. The Watson / Petrie character in Talons is given to Professor Litefoot. Greel is clearly based upon Fu Manchu, with elements of the Phantom and Dracula thrown in for good measure.
The machinations of Fu Manchu have been filmed on a number of occasions, including Boris Karloff's portrayal in The Mask of Fu Manchu in 1932, but Christopher Lee is probably best known for playing the character in a number of movies - five in all.

The Talons of Weng-Chiang remains a very popular story amongst fans, although it has come in for criticism for its portrayal of the Chinese, and its use of white actors playing Chinese roles. As well as the main role of Chang being played by John Bennett, we clearly see stuntmen Max Faulkner, Alan Chuntz and Stuart Fell made up as Tong members. Critics need to be reminded that it was made at a time when minorities were still being stereotyped in film and TV, and "blacking up" was an accepted theatrical tradition. Doesn't make it right, but it is a product of its times.
The pairing of Jago and Litefoot continued years later when the characters were resurrected by Big Finish audio productions, and there was even talk at the time of them getting a spin-off show.
Next time: the Graham Williams era begins as it means to go on -  with a crisis. Instead of vampires, we get creepy goings-on in a lighthouse...