What's Wrong With... Terror of the Vervoids

It's one of the few whodunnits I know where you don't actually care who done it. Once the monsters start running amok you almost forget that there is supposed to be a murder mystery here.

By the time they get back to this plot thread, you've lost interest.

You can have monsters running around a spaceship, or you can have a killer hidden amongst aliens on a spaceship, but it takes a very careful balancing act to run both types of story simultaneously - and the Bakers (Pip & Jane) don't quite manage it.

The big problem here is, of course, the fact that this story takes place in the Doctor's own personal future - when he's being threatened with being put on trial for his life. Doesn't the fact that this particular epistopic interface from the spectrum show that the Doctor is going to get away with everything and be free to back to roaming the universe, meddling in the affairs of others - the very thing they've pulled him up on? 

Why was the Doctor allowed to see into his own future when permitted to select this evidence? Most people would prefer not to know their own future. What if you go to look and find that you get run over by a bus in half an hour?

Surely there were older adventures the Doctor could have selected that he would actually have remembered, which might have better illustrated his innocence. Why not show them The Three Doctors, or The Deadly Assassin, where he actually saves Gallifrey pretty much single-handedly. That would shut them up.

How do you send a message to a time machine, when you aren't a time traveller yourself? How can the investigator, Hallett, possibly know that the Doctor is in the vicinity in this particular time zone?

He's another of those old friends who are popping up every five minutes these days whom we have never heard of.

After summoning the Doctor, Hallett then denies that's who he is in such a manner as to make everyone suspicious of him. He might as well wear a "murder me because I am out to get you" T-shirt.

After posing as a man named Grenville, he then disguises himself as a Mogarian. How come the other Mogarians don't spot he's an imposter amongst them?

If Hallett's so good, why did he make the schoolboy error of not switching on his translator in the lounge?

He is killed straight after this, so how did the killer manage to spot this faux pas and then administer poison in a busy area in so short a time?

The Mogarians die at the slightest splash of water, yet we see them drinking tea and they are on their way to Earth, which has an awful lot of rain in most areas. Their protective suits aren't terribly efficient, are they?

Presumably their rooms are en suite - which is like you or I being given a room with a lethal booby-trap on the other side of the door.

The Doctor is soon being brought before Commodore Travers - yet another of these old acquaintances. The Bakers were notorious for their cliched dialogue, and Travers' "... I found myself involved in a web of mayhem and intrigue" is a choice example. No-one talks like that, outside a 1950's B-movie - or a Pip & Jane script.

There's more ripe dialogue such as Mel's "You've got a killer on board!" when Travers asks how three people have come to be murdered. Well, duh?

Or how about his "... in my mind that's murder" after describing someone being pulverised and sent floating into space.

And what was Edwardes going to say to Mel before he was so rudely electrocuted? "We don't want you breaking your neck. At least not until - ". Until what???

The spaceship seems to be rather empty for a luxury liner - so there aren't all that many suspects for the murder mystery element.

Is it common for luxury liners to have holds full of volatile minerals and quarantined passengers with deadly contagions? No wonder it's looking so empty.

It's 2986, and they are still using tape cassettes in the liner's gymnasium.

The bridge of the Hyperion III is said to be hijack proof - yet someone is able to walk in with a gun and hijack it...

"Demeter" doesn't mean "food of the gods". It's the name of a goddess.

Onto the Vervoids now, and why would you genetically engineer a slave race which comes equipped with poisonous spines and toxic gas?

Why give them the power of speech and this level of intelligence if they're only supposed to be slaves? One of them knows how a shower works within hours of them emerging from their pods.

If this evidence was selected by the Doctor just before the next stage of the trial began, how did the Valeyard have time to tamper with it? He edits in a sequence of the Doctor sabotaging the radio equipment, which doesn't seem very relevant anyway, but leaves in Travers specifically asking for the Doctor's help - when he's trying to prove to the court that the Doctor always interferes uninvited.

Finally, the Doctor gets accused of genocide. He selected this evidence out of all the other possible things he could have picked, and on hearing Article 7 mentioned he knows exactly what it means. Why pick evidence which will let everyone see him committing such a serious offence?

Considering that the Doctor's defence appears to simply be "I get better in the future", this was a very stupid choice.

Episode 179: The Abominable Snowmen (6)

Synopsis:

Travers has begun to recall the horror he experienced earlier in the cave. High above Det-Sen monastery, a glowing mass pours from the cave mouth - threatening to engulf the entire mountain...

He recalls how Songsten carried  a glass pyramid into a cave, and the Yeti did not harm him. Thonmi tells them that the abbot is currently with Khrisong, and the Doctor realises that the warrior monk is in danger.

Outside the inner sanctum, Khrisong tries to get Songsten to leave with the others and to warn him about Padmasambhava. The ancient lama then speaks to them, inviting them inside - but first Khrisong must set aside his weapon. As soon as he hands it over, the abbot viciously stabs him.

Padmasambhava is horrified at what the Intelligence is making him do, but has no power to disobey. Songsten is sent to lead the rest of the monks away from the monastery.

The Doctor, Jamie and Thonmi arrive and find the dying monk, who is able to tells them that the abbot was possessed when he attacked him. Songsten is then compelled to kill them too, but is overpowered.

The rest of the monks are horrified to hear of what has happened as they witness their abbot's murderous state. 

The Doctor explains that this is the work of their master - but he is also being controlled by a powerful and malignant force. He decides to hypnotise Songsten to free his mind and tell them of what he knows of the Intelligence's plans.

Travers is sure that the thing in the cave is what needs to be destroyed, and he talks Ralpachan into going up the mountain with him to attack it.

Songsten reveals that the master laboured for centuries to create the Yeti robots and their control spheres. The Intelligence has lied to them, demanding more and more. It now wants the whole planet. He then tells the Doctor of a secret chamber behind the inner sanctum where the control machinery is located.

Travers and Ralpachan soon discover that the glowing substance is spreading out to cover the entire mountaintop and there is no way they can destroy it. They turn back.

Sapan leads the monks away from Det-Sen and out into the night, taking their abbot with them. They are observed by Travers and Ralpachan, who cannot approach any closer due to the presence of a number of Yeti.

The Doctor's plan is to return to the inner sanctum to distract Padmasambhava long enough for Jamie and Thonmi to find the secret room and destroy whatever they find there.

The Doctor and Padmasambhava fight a mental duel, the ancient lama using psychic and telekinetic forces to attack him physically and mentally.

As Jamie and Thonmi search, Padmasambhava moves the Yeti models into the monastery on his map.

Victoria tries to stop him. The young men begin smashing the equipment they find in the secret room, but the Yeti continue to bear down on them.

Travers and Ralpachan have been able to re-enter the monastery now that the Yeti have moved inside. Travers attempts to shoot Padmasambhava - but the master is able to catch the bullet in his hand.

The damage appears to be having no effect until the Doctor recalls the glass pyramid. Shouting for them to find something similar, they spot one and begin to wreck it. 

Padmasambhava lets out a terrifying scream and collapses as the control spheres within each Yeti explode.

At the same moment, the upper part of the mountain blows apart.

Padmasambhava is now free of the Intelligence, and dies in the Doctor's arms.

The following morning, Thonmi awaits the return of his fellow monks. Travers agrees to walk part of the way up the mountain as the Doctor and his companions return to the TARDIS. He announces that his expedition is over.

However, they see movement amongst the rocks and spot a real Yeti. It is a timid creature and runs off at their approach. Travers gives chase - allowing them to reach the TARDIS and slip away, with Jamie hoping for somewhere warmer next time...

Next time: The Ice Warriors

Data:

Written by Mervyn Haisman and Henry Lincoln

Recorded: Saturday 14th October 1967 - Lime Grove Studio D

First broadcast: 5.25pm, Saturday 4th November 1967

Ratings: 7.4 million / AI 52

VFX: Ron Oates & Ulrich Grosser

Designer: Malcolm Middleton

Director: Gerald Blake

Critique:

Model filming for the concluding episode took place at Ealing on Friday 25th August 1967. This included the glowing foam covering the mountain, and its eventual explosion.

After two days lost to torrential rain, Jack Watling and David Baron were filmed in Snowdonia on the morning of Wednesday 6th September for their scenes in this episode. 

This was to have been the crew's day off and both actors were supposed to have been released by this time, but filming had to be rearranged because of the weather.

One of the Yeti costumes was adapted to become a real Abominable Snowman. This was achieved by removing the bamboo framework and most of the padding to make it look sleeker. The actor playing it also had to be able to run - impossible to achieve with the regular costumes.

Prior to studio recording, a prosthetic model had been made of Wolfe Morris' head and shoulders, the plan being that Padmasambhava would be seen to melt and dissolve once free of the Intelligence's influence. This would be pre-filmed and used as an insert during the recording. The effect proved so gruesome that it was decided to abandon it.

In the end a shot of him screaming was superimposed over the model shot of the mountain exploding.

The VFX team were heavily involved in the mental duel sequence. A burning torch was suspended on wires and made to float through the air, whilst other torches were rigged to flare up.

It was this sequence which had impressed Patrick Troughton so much on reading the scripts - prompting him to write to Henry Lincoln.

The Yeti costumes had small explosive charges inserted in their chests, detonated electronically, for when their spheres exploded.

There were five recording breaks through the course of the evening, mainly for cast movements from set to set.

The closing captions rolled over a shot of the TARDIS dematerialising, though the Doctor's recorder could still be heard.

The caption announcing the following week's story - Dr Who and the Ice Warriors - was prepared but not used in the end. Instead a specially filmed trailer was shown immediately after broadcast. More on this next time.

The 405-line videotapes of The Abominable Snowmen were wiped between July and September 1969. the 16mm film copies were still available for overseas sale in 1974, but had been junked by 1978 - thought to be of no further commercial value.

Countries which had bought the serial included Australia, New Zealand, Nigeria, Hong Kong, Singapore and Zambia, as well as Gibraltar.

The second episode turned up in a private collection in February 1982, when it was returned to the archives. Some 35mm film trims still exist from this episode. 

In 1993 some further clips from the fourth instalment turned up in a copy of Late Night Line-Up from November 1967, in a piece about the BBC VFX Department. This comprised a shot of Songsten with the Yeti, and a crash zoom into the face of one of the creatures, standing next to the TARDIS.

A Yeti control sphere was seen in this piece, as well as a Cybermat, as Jack Kine and Bernard Wilkie spoke about their work.

For many years the Yeti were counted amongst the Top 5 Doctor Who monsters. This was mainly due to Target's The Doctor Who Monster Book, which was laid out on the basis of frequency of appearances - Daleks, Cybermen, Ice Warriors then Yeti, Autons and Sontarans (two appearances apiece back then, but the Yeti got there first). 

They were unique amongst Doctor Who monsters in that they did not appear scary or monstrous. Instead, young viewers actually found them cuddly and more than a few wanted one for Christmas. This appearance had been a deliberate decision by the writers, who wanted to juxtapose their seemingly cuddly appearance with their ferocity. They would claim to be unhappy at the changes which Douglas Camfield would soon make to them.

Another thing to say about the Yeti is that they are also unique to their environment, and really ought not to have worked in any other setting.

If the Yeti aren't scary, why is the story so popular - sufficiently so to trigger the commissioning of a sequel whilst the first serial was still in production?

Troughton, Frazer Hines and Debbie Watling are at the top of their game, and there is an excellent guest cast. Of note is Jack Watling's Travers, who was also slated to return in the sequel from the outset. Travers is one of the most popular non-villain guest characters in the history of the series, many of whom exhibited some sort of eccentricity (e.g. Miss Hawthorne, Prof Rumford). He and the regulars are ably supported by the likes of Norman Jones as Khrisong, who will be back in a couple of strong roles in the 1970's, and Wolfe Morris - relying almost entirely on his vocal skills to play the gentle Padmasambhava and his Great Intelligence-possessed alter-ego. David Spenser's Thonmi provides both a friend for Victoria, and a youthful ally for Jamie - as well as providing a bridge between the travellers and the warrior monks.

The other thing the story has going for it is the mood and claustrophobic atmosphere, despite a lot of wonderful location filming. The latter makes a big change from the capital and Home Counties.

Compare the surviving episode and the telesnaps with the animated version and you can see how important the atmosphere and mood are here. This story really benefits from being in black & white.

The Abominable Snowmen is a story we would all love to see returned.

Trivia

• The ratings end on a positive note, with the highest viewing figures for the story and joint highest appreciation index.
• In early December 1967, a viewer wrote into Junior Points of View signing themself "a mad Yeti fan".
• Following their break with the production team over issues with The Dominators, Haisman and Lincoln considered turning this story into a non-Doctor Who novel. The adaptation was the work of Haisman's wife Vina. Titled "The Yeti", in place of the Doctor would be another brilliant scientist named Dr Murray who would be accompanied by his sons John and Paul. Travers became an army Major.
• When no publisher showed interest, Haisman himself tried an adaptation - "The Intelligence" - which he tried to sell to Walt Disney. Instead of the Doctor he opted for Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle's temperamental Professor Challenger, this time accompanied by son John and daughter Paula. It was set in 1923 and the monastery remained Detsen. They had a guide named Khedru - the original name for Ralpachan but later used for another warrior monk in the Doctor Who version.
• A Yeti from this story pursued globe-trotting presenter Alan Whicker through Highgate Cemetery in an episode of his Whicker's World TV series. "A Handful Of Horrors: I Don't Like My Monsters To Have Oedipus Complexes" was screened on January 27th, 1968. As well as the appearance by the Yeti, it also features the well-known interview with Terry Nation at his home, surrounded by Daleks, and there are appearances by some of the Havoc stunt team members. The late great Christopher Lee also features. The complete programme was included as an extra on the Special Edition of The Power of the Daleks.

• No poster from Oliver Arkinstall-Jones this time - but he did provide a striking cover for Doctor Who Magazine (issue 581, September 2022):

Lost & Found?

You may have seen some on-line traffic recently regarding the potential return of missing episodes. It's now 12 years since the nine Season 5 Troughton episodes were found, coinciding with the 50th Anniversary. A lot of people hoped that a similar announcement might be made in 2023, but the 60th passed without any news.

In the early 1980's a more concerted effort was made to locate missing episodes and have them returned to the archives, fronted by Sue Malden of the BBC's film and video library. This year she confirmed what everyone knew / suspected - that some episodes existed in the hands of film collectors. Sadly, a minority of fans went on-line threatening to hunt these people down to do them harm - antagonising them rather than making them more likely to co-operate. Indeed, there was story doing the rounds that one collector would rather burn his collection than see it handed over to such people.

Malden stated that she was aware of "one or two" episodes in private hands. Not wishing to get too deeply into semantics, but that phrase always refers to more than one - so let's say at least two.

An outfit called 'Film Is Fabulous' have been beavering away behind the scenes for some time building positive relationships with collectors, primarily to have their collections catalogued but also to agree on their preservation for the future. The group have organised events at which newly rediscovered shows are shown to the public, and at one of these the other week they intimated that they were also aware of missing Doctor Who amongst the collections they were working on. Semantics again, but they seemed to imply that this was more than what Malden had suggested. They said that they hoped to have an announcement soon.

Even if they only meant one more than Malden, that might make three potential rediscoveries.

Now, it doesn't necessarily mean that these are Hartnell / Troughton episodes. Technically there are missing Pertwee episodes as well, as you'll know from the colourisation process which has had to be employed to release them on DVD or Blu-ray.

If this turns out to be more than rumour - and that is all it should be treated as for now - then we obviously want to see episodes from Seasons 3 and 4, which suffered the most from the mass junkings. I'm sure most of us would like to see Dalek or Cyberman episodes, or key episodes such as the currently AWOL The Web of Fear (3) or The Tenth Planet (4).

Personally, if it was Galaxy Four (2) or The Space Pirates (3), I'd be just as happy.

P is for... Polly

The Doctor first met Polly when he and companion Dodo Chaplet visited the newly opened General Post Office Tower in July 1966. She was employed there as secretary to the scientist Professor Brett, who was completing work on his brainchild WOTAN - Will Operating Thought ANalogue. This was a computer designed to be a universal problem-solver, which would co-ordinate other machines across the western world. Polly quickly befriended Dodo and invited her to a new club in Covent Garden named the Inferno, which her friend Kitty ran. On arrival Kitty asked Polly for help in cheering up a young seaman who had been visiting recently, and who sat quietly at the corner of the bar. This was Ben Jackson, who was upset at being left in barracks whilst his friends sailed for the West Indies. When Polly was harassed by another customer, ben stepped in and defended her. She was angry initially, but the two soon became friends.

WOTAN meanwhile had outgrown its programming and had decided that human beings were not fit to run the planet. Only a superior machine mind like it could do so. It began mentally enslaving people - beginning with Brett - who would be put to work to ensuring that it took over. This involved building War Machines - mobile armoured computers.

Dodo was also enslaved, and soon after Polly fell under WOTAN's influence. When ben went looking for her at a warehouse near the club, he was captured. Spotting a chance to escape, Polly's true personality resurfaced momentarily and she allowed him to go free instead of reporting it. She then agreed to accept WOTAN's punishment for this. 

On arriving at the Post Office Tower, however, WOTAN came under attack by a War machine reprogrammed by the Doctor. Once destroyed, Polly and its other slaves were freed.

Polly received a message from Dodo that she was going to stay on in London, so Polly and ben arranged to meet the Doctor at the TARDIS landing site of Fitzroy Square. As they left they saw the Doctor enter a Police Box, and ben remembered that he had picked up a key he had dropped earlier - one which fitted the TARDIS lock. The pair entered just as the Doctor dematerialised, and soon found themselves in 17th Century Cornwall.

Polly seemed to grasp that they had travelled in time and space more easily than her cynical companion.

Wearing trousers, and with her long blonde hair hidden under a cap, the Doctor and ben initially passed her off as a boy - 'Paul'. She and Ben were soon accused of a murder and found themselves locked up. They pretended to be witches in order to scare a superstitious local boy into letting them go free.

After an adventure involving pirates, smugglers and hidden treasure, Polly next found herself in the year 1986, when the TARDIS landed near the South Pole.

In the Snowcap space tracking station, she and Ben first encountered the Cybermen. Their planet Mondas - Earth's long lost sister world - had wandered back into the Solar System after many centuries.

Polly was appalled at their lack of emotions. At one point she was taken to one of their spaceships to be held as hostage.

After Mondas absorbed too much of the Earth's energy and disintegrated - destroying the Cybermen - she and ben were confronted by the Doctor's sudden collapse back in the TARDIS. To their amazement they saw him change appearance.

Once again, Polly was quicker to accept the evidence of her own eyes, whilst Ben refused for a long time to accept that this stranger was the Doctor.

It was only after he had defeated the Daleks on the earth colony on Vulcan that he began to accept. Polly was once again taken hostage here, this time by rebels seeking the overthrow of the colony's governor.

Shortly after arriving in the Highlands of Scotland, close to the battle site of Culloden, 1746, Ben and Polly encountered a party of Jacobite refugees. Amongst them was a young piper named Jamie who would become a good friend and travel with them in the TARDIS. First they had to contend with Redcoat soldiers and a crooked Edinburgh solicitor named Grey, who schemed to sell the Scots into slavery. Polly made friends with Kirsty, daughter of the Laird of McLaren. She was initially annoyed at Kirsty's defeatist attitude. They succeeded in blackmailing a Redcoat officer named Algernon ffinch, which helped them in their efforts to rescue the Doctor, Ben and the Scots captives. They posed as orange sellers around the docks of Inverness in order to gain information about them.

Jamie's first trip in the TARDIS took them all to an island, beneath which lay the remnants of the lost civilisation of Atlantis. Here Polly was almost transformed surgically into a Fish Worker. She then posed as an Atlantean woman to help the Doctor defeat the mad schemes of a scientist named Zaroff, which included her posing as the voice of the local deity, Amdo.

Polly then had a second encounter with the Cybermen after the TARDIS landed on the Moon, in the year 2070. Despite their upgraded appearance she still recognised them as the creatures she had met at the South Pole. Captive in the medical bay with Ben and Jamie, it was she who realised that a powerful solvent could attack the plastic components of their chest units - in the same way her nail varnish remover worked. Despite coming up with the idea of "Polly's Cocktail", the men would not allow her to take part in their escape bid. She followed on anyway.

Another Earth colony was visited next - this one plagued by gigantic crab-like monsters called Macra. On first arriving, Polly had enjoyed a make-over, her long hair cut short. 

The colonists had been brainwashed into refusing to accept that the Macra existed, and the Doctor had ensured that Polly and Jamie were not processed in the same way. Unfortunately, Ben - thanks in part to his background in naval discipline - was hypnotised into blindly following the laws of the colony. Polly was sent to work in the "Danger Gang", helping to drill for a toxic gas upon which the Macra thrived.

She, the Doctor and Jamie were saved when ben finally shook off the mental conditioning, and the Macra were destroyed.

Polly's travels with the Doctor ended on the same day as Ben's - which just happened to be the very day on which they had first entered the TARDIS back in Fitzroy Square. They had landed at Gatwick Airport, south of London, and Polly had hidden from a policeman in a hangar belonging to Chameleon Youth Tours. There she witnessed a murder. After informing her friends she was abducted by one of the airline staff - really an alien Chameleon. This race had lost their physical identities and had come to Earth to take on the appearances of humans, kidnapped on their flights. Her appearance was taken on by one of the aliens, so that the Doctor and Jamie were shocked to see her a short time later claiming not to know them. She insisted she was Michelle Lueppi, from Switzerland. Ben was captured soon after, and both were held miniaturised and in suspended animation on the Chameleon space station, in orbit above the Earth.

After the Doctor had ended the alien scheme, Polly and Ben learned of the date and realised that they could return to their old lives as though they had never been away. The Doctor asked Polly to help look after Ben, and they set off for London.

Many years later Ben and Polly were said to still be together, running an orphanage in India.

Played by: Anneke Wills. Appearances: The War Machines (1966) - The Faceless Ones (1967).

• Anna Katarina Willys (born Oct 1941) first came to fame in a TV adaptation of The Railway Children, in 1957.
• At the time she accepted the part of Polly she was married to actor Michael Gough, who had only recently appeared in the series as the Toymaker. She had been put forward for the series back in 1963 when they were looking for someone to play Barbara, but Wills did not attend the audition.
• On leaving the series she continued her career briefly before dropping out of the public eye. In pre-internet days, all contact with her was lost. Following her divorce she had taken herself around the world, living in an artists colony in Canada and an ashram in India. On returning to the UK she reconnected with the series through the nascent convention circuit. She was a controversial figure in that she was the first to openly discuss William Hartnell's problematic attitudes, where before there had been a respectful silence around these.
• Her departure from the series is also controversial in that publicly she has always maintained that she was asked to stay on whilst Michael Craze was to be dropped, now that Frazer Hines was on the show. However, it has been claimed that Innes Lloyd wanted rid of her because of certain prima donna-ish demands she was making.
• She was supposed to make a cameo appearance in The Power of the Doctor in 2022 - the reason for the empty chair at the companions support group - but dropped out at the last minute.
• Though never stated on screen, Polly had the surname "Wright". The character bio claimed that she came from Chelsea, got her job through a rich uncle named Charles (who featured in her audition piece when he was kidnapped by Daleks), and had briefly been a model. She also spoke a number of European languages.

P is for... Pollock, Commander

Commander Bill Pollock was business partner to Lavinia Smith in her market gardening venture in the village of Moreton Harwood. She was the aunt of the Doctor's companion Sarah Jane Smith.

The business was failing when Sarah arrived to spend a few months writing a book, having given up her old house in South Croydon. She found that the Doctor had left her K-9 Mark III as a gift.

She was troubled by the absence of her aunt and was unable to contact her.

It transpired that this was due to the machinations of the local post mistress, Lily Gregson. She knew that Lavinia had left early for a lecture tour of the US but kept this information for herself. Gregson and Pollock were the leaders of a black magic cult dedicated to Hecate, goddess of witchcraft, the Moon and night. The group intended to sacrifice Lavinia's schoolboy ward Brendan Richards to Hecate, to counter the poor harvests. Sarah tracked them down to a deconsecrated church, where K-9 stunned the pair. The group were then arrested by the police.

Played by: Bill Fraser. Appearances: K-9 & Company: A Girl's Best Friend (1981).

• Fraser (1908 - 1987) had only recently played the Gaztak mercenary chief Grugger in Meglos when he was cast in this spin-off. In an interview he claimed to have taken the Doctor Who role only if he got to kick K-9 and have all the kids hate him.
• He was best known for comedy roles, including The Army Game (taking over the Sgt Major role from William Hartnell, though playing a different character) and its spin-off Bootsie and Snudge.
• When not acting, he ran a sweet shop / tobacconist in Ilford, Essex.
• He has a memorial in the garden of the actors church - St Paul's Covent Garden - right beside another Doctor Who guest star better known for comedic roles, Beryl Reid.

P is for... Polidori

John Polidori was the personal physician to the poet Lord George Byron, and the Doctor encountered him when she and her companions visited the Villa Diodati on the shores on Lake Geneva. Byron's group were travelling through Europe. It was 1816 - the "Year Without A Summer" - and the weather was wet and cold. 

Strange things were happening in the villa, including ghostly apparitions both within and out on the lake, and Polidori began sleepwalking, which left him irritable and in a bad mood. At one point he tried to fight with Ryan Sinclair over a trivial matter. In his somnambulistic state, he was oblivious to the spatial distortions affecting everyone else in the building, appearing to be able to walk through walls.

Played by: Maxim Baldry. Appearances: The Haunting of Villa Diodati (2020)

• John William Polidori (1795 - 1821) graduated from Edinburgh University in 1815, aged 19. He wrote his thesis on somnambulism. His contribution to the ghost story competition in 1816 became the novella The Vampyre (1819). For years people thought Byron the author but the titular character, Lord Ruthven, was actually based on him - a decadent, parasitical aristocrat who feeds off others. Byron often belittled and bullied Polidori and failed to act quickly to acknowledge the true authorship of The Vampyre.
• He died at his father's home in London aged only 25, suffering from depression and owing heavy gambling debts. He almost certainly committed suicide despite the coroner declaring his death to have been from natural causes.
• One of his sisters was mother to the Pre-Raphaelite painter and poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti - born after Polidori died.
• 1973's Frankenstein: The True Story (which has Tom Baker in a guest role) featured a villainous medic named Dr Polidori, played by James Mason.
• Polidori has featured in a number of (often contradictory) Doctor Who spin-off media.
• An early role for Baldry was as the young Caesarion in the TV series Rome. 
• After a couple of years on soap Hollyoaks he appeared in RTD's Years And Years, and is currently featuring as Isildur in the Lord of the Rings TV series, LOTR: The Rings of Power.

Inspirations: Last Christmas

A fairly straightforward one this, as most of the references are actually spelled out for us on screen...

Before we get into them, the Doctor has previous form with Santa Claus. 

In his Eleventh incarnation he claimed him to be a personal friend, and he knew him as Geoff. He kept a photograph of himself with Geoff and Albert Einstein in his wallet (A Christmas Carol).

The First Doctor - in comic form - encountered Santa in "A Christmas Story", which ran in TV Comic between issues 732 - 735. He and grandchildren John and Gillian helped Santa defeat an evil magician. Santa had been inundated with requests for toy TARDISes.

The episode title derives from the popular Wham! song of the same name, which gets rolled out every festive season since it first appeared in December 1984.

The bulk of the episode is set at a scientific research base in the Arctic. Such a base coming under attack from an alien threat naturally brings The Thing (From Another World) to mind. Based on the novella Who Goes There? by John W Campbell (1938) it was adapted for the cinema in 1951, and later remade by John Carpenter (1982). An inferior prequel / remake was released in 2011.

(The Thing was also a huge influence on the first two episodes of The Seeds of Doom. In the 1951 film, the alien is a plant-based lifeform).

The aliens here are the Dream Crabs, or Kantrofarri. In appearance and mode of attack they closely resemble the Facehuggers which feature in all of the Alien movies, starting with the original in 1979 and going up to 2025's Alien: Earth TV series. 

Possibly the most famous cinematic appearance by Santa Claus (unless you count the so-bad-it's-good Santa Claus Conquers The Martians, once voted the worst movie of all time) is in Miracle on 34th Street. 

This was first filmed in 1947, with Edmund Gwenn playing a department store Santa who claims to be the real thing. It won three Oscars. 

This was also given the remake treatment, in 1994, when Richard Attenborough played the Santa figure, Kris Kringle. One or other version is screened most Christmas times. There is also a 46 minute made-for-TV version from 1955, available on YouTube.

At the end of Last Christmas, when Shona wakes from her dream, we get to see her "To Do" list. It includes watching Alien, The Thing and Miracle on 34th Street... 

She also has a Game of Thrones watch planned. Shona is played by Faye Marsay, who just happened to later feature in the series as the Waif, who torments Arya Stark when she first joins the Faceless Men order. 

(Shona was briefly considered as the new companion, if Jenna Coleman hadn't decided to stay on as she enjoyed working with Capaldi so much).

Michael Troughton is also in the cast - brother of David who featured in the series several times, and son of Patrick, the Second Doctor.

Dan Starkey usually plays Sontarans such as Strax.

The 2010 movie Inception was another inspiration for this episode, in that it features people who can enter the dreams of others.

The Doctor trapped in an environment which may or not be a dream was previously used in Amy's Choice.

Next time: The Doctor goes on the run when Davros remembers (probably because he's been watching old Doctor Who episodes)...