First Transmitted
The Doctor - Tom Baker
Crew
Plot Outline from Wikipedia Continuing the Doctor's adventures in E-Space, the Doctor, Romana, K-9, and their newest companion/stowaway, Adric, arrive on a planet experiencing what appears to be a feudal period. The population scratches out a living as subsistence farmers under the thrall of three local lords, Zargo, Camilla, and Aukon, who dwell in a shadowy, bat-filled tower. Adding further fear to their lives, they experience a yearly ritual called "the Wasting," in which a sample of young villagers are taken to the tower, never to be seen again. This selection process is enforced by a thuggish band of guards led by Habris. The Doctor and Romana venture out into the village (not knowing that Adric is following them), and it doesn't take long for the Doctor to realize that something is very wrong when he discovers evidence of technology considerably more advanced than what this medieval society seems capable of producing. With such technology, the Doctor and Romana wonder what happened in the course of the planet's development to cause it to evolve "backward" from a presumably advanced culture to its current rustic condition -- to be in a "state of decay." The arrival and then departure of the Doctor and Romana from the village hall is reported by the headman, Ivo, via an electronic communications device to an unseen figure called Kalmar. As the two head out of the village they are seized by cloaked figures who convey them to a secret base filled with illegal computers and other technology. Kalmar is a scientist - a heretical role in their society - and is very grateful for the Doctor's help in repairing a computer which proceeds to reveal the names of the original chief officers of the spaceship Hydrax. The faces of three senior officers are revealed as those of the Lords of the Tower. The lords too have learnt of Romana and the Doctor, and Aukon sends a flock of his winged servants, bats, to menace them as they travel a clearing near the village. The Doctor and Romana are now seized by Habris and his guards and taken to an audience in the Tower. Zargo and Camilla entertain them for a while, then are called away to deal with a situation called the Arising. The Doctor and Romana start to snoop around and discover that in fact, the great Tower in which the lords dwell is itself a spaceship originally from Earth, which also somehow was pulled into E-Space long ago. Adric has meanwhile wandered into the village and finds himself looked after by Ivo and his wife Marta, both of whom are grieving for their late son who has caught in the Wasting. In the Hydrax the Doctor and Romana discover rows of corpses drained of blood, while the craft's fuel stores are full of blood. Talk turns to vampires. They head downwards and find a veritable lake of blood under the tower. It is there that the lord Aukon greets them, welcoming them to his domain. Aukon invites the Doctor to join the Lords who Rule, but he refuses. When they refuse they are imprisoned. The Doctor deduces by applying principles of consonant shifting that the current lords' names are a corruption of the original crew names (e.g. "Sharky" becomes "Zargo"). Thus the Doctor realizes that the three lords might not be descendants of the original crew, but members of the original crew themselves. He is reminded of ancient Time Lord stories of the Great Vampires, a race of rapacious, destructive, and powerful creatures that were ancient enemies of the Time Lords themselves. He deduces that the Great Vampire escaped destruction at the hands of the Time Lords by somehow retreating into E-Space, and it managed eventually to gather enough power to pull the old Earth ship into this universe and corrupt the crew. Over time, it licked its wounds and gathered power so that it could once again feast on worlds. Meanwhile, Adric's attempts to mingle with the natives have led
to him getting caught up getting caught in the Wasting. He is put
under a hypnotic trance by Aukon and accompanies him to the tower.
Normally, the sacrifices contribute to the lake of blood, but Aukon
has other plans for Adric when he finds, to his surprise, some rudimentary
psychic shields that keep Aukon from knowing too much about what's
inside Adric's head. Aukon decides not to let this talent go to waste,
and plots to change Adric into one of them. Romana and Adric are spared death for the moment but taken to the lake of blood, where Romana will be sacrificed at the time of Arising and Adric will indeed become a Chosen One. In the TARDIS the Doctor and K-9 review the old stories about vampires. The lore that the Doctor and K-9 uncovers determines that the Great Vampires could only be defeated by metal bowships driven through their chests (rather like the wooden stakes that work on lesser vampires). He takes the craft to Kalmar's base and there uses scanning equipment to scan the Tower. Under the lake of blood he finds a restless, demonic presence, whom he determines to be the last Great Vampire. He warns it is about to be revived. Kalmar, Ivo and many other villagers agree to help him fight back. This rebel army and K9 make an assault on the Tower itself, killing collaborator guards like Habris. The Doctor heads off to the peak of the Tower and, in a burst of characteristic ingenuity, the Doctor manages to rig one of the old shuttlecraft still attached to the spaceship/tower to launch and achieve a trajectory that caused it to point back toward the ground and drive itself into the heart of the subterranean Great Vampire, thus duplicating the effect of the "metal bowships" of Time Lord history. With the Great Vampire so dispatched, the three vampire lords crumble to dust without the power of their master to sustain them. The Doctor finds Romana and Adric. Together with K9 they leave the planet to its own fate, hoping that, now freed from the corruptive effect of the vampires, it will change direction and develop once again toward its former advanced state and even perhaps surpass it. He leaves the planet in Kalmar's hands, while hoping the next journeys in the TARDIS will take Adric home and lead the craft back out of E-Space.
Analysis by Cuisle This one finally got it back. The spirit of Doctor Who. A relatively straightforward plot with enough twists in it to keep the interest of modern viewers who expect a little sophistication. The vampires as ancient enemies of the Time Lords was a wonderful notion. By ancient, we mean ‘when Rassilon himself was young’. Even The Doctor knew of them only as a ghost story told by his mentor, the old hermit who lived on the mountain near his home. But Rassilon had prepared the way. A document called the Record of Rassilon was ecrypted into the databases of all Type 40 TARDISes before The Doctor even owned one. Questioning how Rassilon knew that The Doctor would be the champion who would finish the battle against this fearsome race is pointless. Rassilon knows all. The vampires themselves have legends of the Time Lords to match, and revel in the idea of having one of them as sacrifice at the time of arising of the Great Vampire. The three lesser vampires, of course, were once Human. And again we have a situation where time has eroded original names and functions. Like the Seveteem and Techs of Leela’s tribe, who began as the Survey Team and Technicians of an exploratory crew, or the Starliner of Adric’s world where a Flight Manual has become regarded as a holy book of truth, the names of the pilot, co-pilot and science officer of the Hydrax became remnants. Anthony O’Connor, became Aukon etc. Camilla, of course, is a classic vampire name, derived from Sheridan Le Fanu’s novel, regarded as the first literary work in the genre. This is the first clue, for anyone who hasn’t read spoilers, of just what it going on. In fact, the setting of the feudal village and the sinister castle were shorthand for just the sort of gothic horror our cultural capital leads us to expect. When The Doctor said that there are vampire legends in almost every culture he has come across he was not wrong. On Earth, cultures in Africa, China, Japan, India, South America, Australia, all have some variation on the theme and it is reasonable to assume the same is true across the universe. A similar idea was explored in 2006 in The Satan Pit when The Doctor noted that horned beasts turn up in the religions of the universe with unfailing frequency. In both cases the underlying message was, if so many different cultures have a similar legend, then at the root of it all there must be a single truth. And who are we to argue? But Doctor Who is at its best when it introduces ideas like that which can spark thoughtful debate in the viewing public. Yes, it is a straightforward gothic horror given a science fiction twist. The Doctor is Van Helsing using the resources to hand to defeat an evil that he has no compunction at all about destroying. Remember the Hammer film where Peter Cushing runs along a table, grabs down the curtains, exposing the vampire to sunlight, and then finishes him off with two candlesticks clasped together in the shape of a cross. The Doctor’s launching of the rocket with its great steel spike up into the sky and then back down again to pierce the heart of the Great Vampire has that kind of iconic feel to it. And it is a fantastically original way of killing a vampire while still true to the tradition. Over all, a good story. Even Adric is not bad. The scene in the peasant inn, where the landlady, grieving the loss of her son, takes him to her heart, may not be entirely central to the plot, but it IS important in emphasising the impact of the vampires on the community. And he manages a few moments of brilliance while he is the prisoner of the vampires. The other element to be discussed, of course, is the rebel ‘scientists’. Banning learning of any kind is a good way of keeping people down, and one that is explored in science fiction on a regular basis. In the Ray Bradbury novel and the 1966 movie adaptation, Farenheit 451, banning books was a way of controlling people, and more recently, in the original Stargate movie, writing was banned in the community ruled by the faux Ra. In both those examples, and here in this Doctor Who episode, there are those who risk all to acquire the forbidden knowledge. Here, the scientists have found the technology from the starship that has now become the tower of the great castle and are trying to use it to find a way of defeating the vampires. Their problem, is that they have become so dedicated to the scientific exploration that they have forgotten that they have an end purpose. The complaint of needing more time was repeated again and again until The Doctor managed to convince them, albeit with a corny rendition of the Henry V St. Crispin’s Day speech, that now was the time to put their learning to use. A reminder that pure scientific research without an and product of benefit to the community is useless. The Doctor, has always had a practical use for his science. Yes, State of Decay deserves to be up there with the classics of
the 1970s. The question was, however, will it be a one off spark of
the old brilliance, or will it be the start of a new golden age?
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