Season 18, Episode 4 | 4 parts | First broadcast: 22 November – 13 December 1980 | Writer: Terrance Dicks | Director: Peter Moffatt
Cast
- Tom Baker as the Doctor
- Lalla Ward as Romana
- Matthew Waterhouse as Adric
- Emrys James as Aukon
- William Lindsay as Zargo
Summary
Still trapped in the pocket universe of E-Space, the Doctor, Romana and Adric arrive on a primitive world ruled by three ageless, vampiric Lords who feed on a terrified, feudal population. As the Doctor uncovers evidence of the Great Vampires, an ancient enemy the Time Lords once fought and believed long destroyed, he realises the planet’s true horror is far older and more powerful than the local legends suggest, and that E-Space itself may be the vampires’ final refuge.
Interesting Facts
- The story was originally conceived years earlier as a more overt Hammer Horror-style vampire tale before being shelved and later revived for this production.
- It ties directly into established Time Lord lore, presenting the Great Vampires as an ancient enemy from Gallifrey’s distant past.
- Writer Terrance Dicks, a former script editor and prolific Doctor Who novelist, brought a classic gothic horror sensibility that echoed the earlier Hinchcliffe era.
- Its planet-sized vampire ship climax, in which the Great Vampire is destroyed, gave the story an unusually cosmic scale for a gothic horror pastiche.
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