Doctor Who mythology: Vampires versus Time Lords
By James Aggas
The war between Time Lords and Vampires has hardly been explored, even in the expanded universe. But a few stories have touched upon it, such as Gallifrey: Annihilation.
(Image credit: Gallifrey/Doctor Who/Big Finish Productions.
Image obtained from: Big Finish Productions.)
We’ve had surprisingly few Vampire stories in Doctor Who over the years. Which is particularly surprising when you find out their connection to the Time Lords…
We’ve had many major disappointments in Doctor Who over the years. The Sixth Doctor’s regeneration in Time and the Rani. The final part of Series Three’s Master trilogy, Last of the Time Lords. And of course, Hell Bent. (Need I say more on that last one?)
But one disappointment that does stand out for this horror fan is The Vampires of Venice. What a great title. And, finally, we would be getting our first Vampire story of the New Series!
Unfortunately, as we all know, that wasn’t the case after all. Instead of having a story with actual Vampires, what we instead got were giant fish pretending to be Vampires.
Words cannot begin to describe how disappointed I was with that “twist”. Vampires in Doctor Who are so incredibly rare, and they work so well in the format. They’re an instant and easily recognizable monster, whether you’re a Whovian or not. So revealing it to be fish just seemed like a major copout.
The things is, we’ve had actual Vampires in Doctor Who before. Not often, in fact, I can only think of two stories that count. One of them, The Curse of Fenric, featured a race called “Haemovores”. Despite the different name, these creatures featured some very similar traits, including a thirst for blood and being held back by the power of faith.
The focus was less on them than it was on the ancient and evil godlike being Fenric, however, but it was still nice to have creatures that were essentially Vampires in all but name only.
State of Decay introduced some major mythology by revealing that, once upon a time, the Time Lords and Vampires had been at war with each other.
(Photo credit: Doctor Who/BBC.
Image obtained from: official Doctor Who website.)
Ancient enemies
However, there has been one Doctor Who story that has explicitly featured Vampires. A story that has handled them very well. And that story is Fourth Doctor serial State of Decay by Terrence Dicks. It’s a gorgeously stylish and horrific story that offers a fresh take on the classic monsters, while paying a lot of tribute to classic Hammer horror movies.
And if that wasn’t brilliant enough, Dicks actually adds some major history to the Time Lords with the serial. There’s one portion of the story that reveals that, in the ancient days of Gallifrey’s history, Vampires were originally a race that were far more powerful and deadly, and could suck the life out of entire worlds. It was only the intervention of the Time Lords that stopped them from draining all life from the universe, as they engaged in a long and bloody war.
It’s kind of surprising that State of Decay is the only story on television that explores that mythology, as there’s a lot of potential for great stories within it. Like I said, the only time something even close to Vampires was featured again in Doctor Who was in The Curse of Fenric. And while the Haemovores were great, they didn’t share the same level of intriguing history in the show.
Project: Twilight is a particularly major Vampire audio, as it sets up more than a few key threads for the series.
(Image credit: Doctor Who/Big Finish Productions.
Image obtained from: Big Finish Productions.)
Beyond the TV series
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the expanded universe has at least explored Vampires and their history with the Time Lords. In the Nineties, two novels were published: Seventh Doctor novel Blood Harvest by Terrence Dicks, and Fifth Doctor novel Goth Opera by Paul Cornell. What made these two novels particularly interesting was how they were nicely linked, but could still be enjoyed independently of each other.
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Vampires have also been explored in Big Finish’s audios. We’ve actually reviewed a few of these, particularly the Forge trilogy. The Vampire connection was mostly focused on in opening story Project: Twilight, but Vampire Nimrod features in all three stories.
Outside of Doctor Who itself, Gallifrey: Series Four featured Annihilation, which showed a version of Gallifrey that had essentially lost its war with the Vampires. It was a dark yet fun story to listen to, and it got to gives us a glimpse of the war between Time Lords and Vampires.
Still, it would be nice if the war between the two was truly explored at some point. Perhaps on television, if the Doctor goes back far enough into history, we could learn some of the origins of this conflict.
Regardless, we’re in dire need of another on-screen Vampire story. Here’s hoping that we get a great story featuring the bloodsucking monsters one day.
Next. Review: State of Decay is the Vampire story we need. dark
Do you think we should have more Vampire stories in Doctor Who? How well do you think the monsters have been handled on-screen so far? What would you like to see happen in a Doctor Who Vampire story? Let us know in the comments below.