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The Companion Chronicles #4.10
Doctor Who: The Time Vampire
Leela, in her last moments of life, recalls a long-forgotten memory: a time in the TARDIS. The Doctor is worried that K9's increasingly bizarre behaviour might become dangerous. He decides to make a new model, little knowing that the fate of all three time travellers has long since been decided.
As Leela recalls the chilling connection between K9's 'illness', the Z-nai and the haunted sea fort in which the TARDIS lands, she prepares for her final journey: into the land of her ancestors; the Afterlife.
As Leela recalls the chilling connection between K9's 'illness', the Z-nai and the haunted sea fort in which the TARDIS lands, she prepares for her final journey: into the land of her ancestors; the Afterlife.
Audio CD
First published May 1, 2010
72 people want to read
About the author
Nigel Fairs
79 books4 followersNigel Fairs is a voice actor, director and writer for Big Finish Productions. Although a contributor to the main Doctor Who and Bernice Summerfield lines, he is perhaps most associated with The Companion Chronicles. He was also involved with several BBV Productions audio stories.
In the 1980's he was heavily involved in the fan-produced stories made by Audio Visuals, where he starred as the Doctor's companion Truman Crouch and also wrote several episodes. He was later involved in writing and producing a series of audio plays collectively entitled Pisces, which were promoted as being like "Doctor Who with teeth."
In the 1980's he was heavily involved in the fan-produced stories made by Audio Visuals, where he starred as the Doctor's companion Truman Crouch and also wrote several episodes. He was later involved in writing and producing a series of audio plays collectively entitled Pisces, which were promoted as being like "Doctor Who with teeth."
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
June 21, 2017
A bit confusing to follow. Not one of my favorites
March 1, 2020
The Time Vampire is a dramatic audio presentation in Big Finish's Companion Chronicles line. It is also a sequel to The Catalyst. However, although the wrap-around story continues the wrap-around from the previous volume, with Leela prisoner of the Z'Nai, held in painful suspended animation half-living and half not, the majority of the story takes place much earlier.
The story opens with the Doctor and Leela in the console room. The Doctor is working on K-9, building Mark II because he states that K-9 has been unstable lately. But Leela is adamant that if the Doctor takes K-9 apart he will be killing him. The Doctor says he is improving K-9 and once he transfers over K-9s memory wafers he will be the same but improved. Leela wonders off but finds K-9 in the old wooden console room in the TARDIS. Then things get a bit weird. She hears someone in pain, but K-9 says no one is there. Leela asks K-9 questions, but he keeps saying he has to assimilate instructions, his memory is overloaded, and he must reboot. Leela is completely confused by this. But then the TARDIS lands.
Leela leaves the TARDIS and finds herself on a planet, in an opulent building, where all the people are wearing gold cloaks. From this point the story moves back and forth in time as the building, indeed the entire island is moving back and forth in its time stream due to a time paradox. This does make for a frustrating listen, especially when listening during one's commute. I don't want my Doctor Who stories to be too simple, but the back and forth nature of this story was extremely confusing and required several listens before it truly made sense. Anyway, the Island, or Leela and the Doctor are moving back and forth within the timeline of this island.
The Island is on a planet, a planet the Doctor has been to before, a planet the Doctor knows is doomed to be destroyed by the Z'nai, whom he and Leela met in The Catalyst. Leela meets a tourist guide who is showing people around an old sea fort - the most haunted place on the planet. The tourists are annoying and the tourist guide, well, he's a tourist guide. He does show off a ghost at one point, which lets the Doctor realize who he is and what he did. The guide is the son of a chef who was on Interplanetary One a spaceship that encountered the Z'Nai under Humbrackle's father. The senior Humbrackle was a good man and a good emperor - he was fascinated with art, poetry, architecture, etc. The senior Humbrackle also embraced diversity and forging alliances with other species in the galaxy. But his son is a Xenophobic hater, essentially - he is so insistent that everyone be exactly like him, not only does he wish to wipe out entire species, but he has the few survivors of his armies attacks converted into clones of him. The Doctor warns this Humbrackle to change his ways, but the younger Humbrackle doesn't listen - this leads to the events in The Catalyst. But in The Time Vampire the people on the planet where Leela and K-9 are are waiting for the Z'Nai to arrive, as the Doctor puts it, "They think the Z'Nai are coming to sign a trade agreement that was proposed under the Senior Humbrackle. But the Junior Humbrackle will destroy them. The entire planet will burn. It's one of the great disasters of the galaxy." When Leela mentions changing something that hasn't happened yet, the Doctor insists it can't be changed because it's fixed. The Doctor also realizes to his horror that he is also on the planet, with Lord Douglas, and he "really doesn't want to meet himself", especially if the fabric of time is weak. There is the typical running around and gathering of information of most Doctor Who stories, although it occurs out of order.
It turns out that the "ghost" the tourist guide shows off is a trapped Time Vampire, a creature created by a time paradox, and a creature that can destroy with a touch by aging people to death. One of the people in the tourist group saw her family die when she was four after an encounter with a time vampire - so she now hunts them, destroying as many as she can. When she attempts to destroy this one though, K-9 kills her. The tourist guide himself was the son of a chef on Interplanetary One, but he snuck into the previous Doctor's TARDIS, stole his cloak and stole something else - which he uses to capture the Time Vampire and force her to appear at his will to amuse the tourists - like a caged bear.
The true identity of the time vampire makes sense, links to the wrap-around story, and isn't really a surprise, even on first listen.
Overall, I thought The Time Vampire was too confusing. And the central question of the audio play, Who or What is this Time Vampire?, isn't really as much of a surprise as it should be. I also felt really bad for the planetary leader who strikes out into the galaxy, meets the Z'Nai under the Senior Humbrackle, starts arrangements for a trade agreement that should help her people, and then is burned in the worst possible way both literally and figuratively. Why should her entire planet be destroyed because Junior Humbrackle hates everyone who is different than him? That's terribly unfair. And it's not like she was warned that the Z'Nai had suddenly become Xenophobic maniacs out to destroy the galaxy - no one told her anything. Leela does scream at her that the Z'Nai are her enemy, but she does so after the Doctor is accused of trying to assassinate the leader with his sonic screwdriver. Needless to say, it's a bit of a misunderstanding, but who's going to believe the companion of an assassin? So although it is worth listening to this audio adventure a few times, overall it's not one of my favorites. Louise Jameson and John Leeson are excellent performing the audio adventure.
The story opens with the Doctor and Leela in the console room. The Doctor is working on K-9, building Mark II because he states that K-9 has been unstable lately. But Leela is adamant that if the Doctor takes K-9 apart he will be killing him. The Doctor says he is improving K-9 and once he transfers over K-9s memory wafers he will be the same but improved. Leela wonders off but finds K-9 in the old wooden console room in the TARDIS. Then things get a bit weird. She hears someone in pain, but K-9 says no one is there. Leela asks K-9 questions, but he keeps saying he has to assimilate instructions, his memory is overloaded, and he must reboot. Leela is completely confused by this. But then the TARDIS lands.
Leela leaves the TARDIS and finds herself on a planet, in an opulent building, where all the people are wearing gold cloaks. From this point the story moves back and forth in time as the building, indeed the entire island is moving back and forth in its time stream due to a time paradox. This does make for a frustrating listen, especially when listening during one's commute. I don't want my Doctor Who stories to be too simple, but the back and forth nature of this story was extremely confusing and required several listens before it truly made sense. Anyway, the Island, or Leela and the Doctor are moving back and forth within the timeline of this island.
The Island is on a planet, a planet the Doctor has been to before, a planet the Doctor knows is doomed to be destroyed by the Z'nai, whom he and Leela met in The Catalyst. Leela meets a tourist guide who is showing people around an old sea fort - the most haunted place on the planet. The tourists are annoying and the tourist guide, well, he's a tourist guide. He does show off a ghost at one point, which lets the Doctor realize who he is and what he did. The guide is the son of a chef who was on Interplanetary One a spaceship that encountered the Z'Nai under Humbrackle's father. The senior Humbrackle was a good man and a good emperor - he was fascinated with art, poetry, architecture, etc. The senior Humbrackle also embraced diversity and forging alliances with other species in the galaxy. But his son is a Xenophobic hater, essentially - he is so insistent that everyone be exactly like him, not only does he wish to wipe out entire species, but he has the few survivors of his armies attacks converted into clones of him. The Doctor warns this Humbrackle to change his ways, but the younger Humbrackle doesn't listen - this leads to the events in The Catalyst. But in The Time Vampire the people on the planet where Leela and K-9 are are waiting for the Z'Nai to arrive, as the Doctor puts it, "They think the Z'Nai are coming to sign a trade agreement that was proposed under the Senior Humbrackle. But the Junior Humbrackle will destroy them. The entire planet will burn. It's one of the great disasters of the galaxy." When Leela mentions changing something that hasn't happened yet, the Doctor insists it can't be changed because it's fixed. The Doctor also realizes to his horror that he is also on the planet, with Lord Douglas, and he "really doesn't want to meet himself", especially if the fabric of time is weak. There is the typical running around and gathering of information of most Doctor Who stories, although it occurs out of order.
It turns out that the "ghost" the tourist guide shows off is a trapped Time Vampire, a creature created by a time paradox, and a creature that can destroy with a touch by aging people to death. One of the people in the tourist group saw her family die when she was four after an encounter with a time vampire - so she now hunts them, destroying as many as she can. When she attempts to destroy this one though, K-9 kills her. The tourist guide himself was the son of a chef on Interplanetary One, but he snuck into the previous Doctor's TARDIS, stole his cloak and stole something else - which he uses to capture the Time Vampire and force her to appear at his will to amuse the tourists - like a caged bear.
The true identity of the time vampire makes sense, links to the wrap-around story, and isn't really a surprise, even on first listen.
Overall, I thought The Time Vampire was too confusing. And the central question of the audio play, Who or What is this Time Vampire?, isn't really as much of a surprise as it should be. I also felt really bad for the planetary leader who strikes out into the galaxy, meets the Z'Nai under the Senior Humbrackle, starts arrangements for a trade agreement that should help her people, and then is burned in the worst possible way both literally and figuratively. Why should her entire planet be destroyed because Junior Humbrackle hates everyone who is different than him? That's terribly unfair. And it's not like she was warned that the Z'Nai had suddenly become Xenophobic maniacs out to destroy the galaxy - no one told her anything. Leela does scream at her that the Z'Nai are her enemy, but she does so after the Doctor is accused of trying to assassinate the leader with his sonic screwdriver. Needless to say, it's a bit of a misunderstanding, but who's going to believe the companion of an assassin? So although it is worth listening to this audio adventure a few times, overall it's not one of my favorites. Louise Jameson and John Leeson are excellent performing the audio adventure.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 28, 2023
Nigel Fairs' series of company chronicles for Leela has been absolutely wild so far. The Catalyst was fantastic but Empathy Games whilst being a very good story was a little disappointing when you compared it to the first story but still solid. Out of all the stories that interested me from this arc was The Time Vampire, but having heard its mixed reviews I was a little apprehensive but still excited nonetheless.
Leela in her last moments of life, remembers a long-forgotten memory of her travels in The Tardis. The Doctor worried about K9's recent behavior, decides to fix him up with a new and improved model. However, when the ship is shot off course to a fort on a small remote island, it seems things are about to get very complicated indeed. Time is in flux, history is threatened and the entire universe is at stake. Meanwhile, the questions about Leela's fate are about to be answered...
Nigel Fairs has written a mind-blowing audio that's very atmospheric and spooky, but also terribly clever. It's a complicated puzzle piece of a story that may take a few listens, to truly understand and appreciate. But I managed to get my head around it the first time by the end of the story and I have to give him so much credit because it's genius and honestly very emotional. This story has one of my favorite performances from Louise Jameson and John Lesson manages to help along in a really terrific way. I honestly wish there were more Leela and K9-related companion chronicles but alas this is all we have.
Overall: An incredible story that for me honestly beats The Catalyst, it's such a moody, atmospheric and clever script that is brought to life magnificently!
Leela in her last moments of life, remembers a long-forgotten memory of her travels in The Tardis. The Doctor worried about K9's recent behavior, decides to fix him up with a new and improved model. However, when the ship is shot off course to a fort on a small remote island, it seems things are about to get very complicated indeed. Time is in flux, history is threatened and the entire universe is at stake. Meanwhile, the questions about Leela's fate are about to be answered...
Nigel Fairs has written a mind-blowing audio that's very atmospheric and spooky, but also terribly clever. It's a complicated puzzle piece of a story that may take a few listens, to truly understand and appreciate. But I managed to get my head around it the first time by the end of the story and I have to give him so much credit because it's genius and honestly very emotional. This story has one of my favorite performances from Louise Jameson and John Lesson manages to help along in a really terrific way. I honestly wish there were more Leela and K9-related companion chronicles but alas this is all we have.
Overall: An incredible story that for me honestly beats The Catalyst, it's such a moody, atmospheric and clever script that is brought to life magnificently!
August 22, 2017
I’ve just finished listening to the Time Vampire by Big Finish which is a companion chronicle with Leela and K9 and if you guys had to listen to just one Leela companion chronicle-
It has to be this one.
Because WOW.
What a fantastic story and the music in this was outstanding.
It has to be this one.
Because WOW.
What a fantastic story and the music in this was outstanding.
October 23, 2025
Two episodes of untethered timey-wimeyness, deliberately written to be explicable only in retrospect. All very clever, but it doesn’t make for a great listen. Louise Jameson narrates as Leela, and she and John Leeson play all the parts (including a sketchy Doctor).
2.5★
2.5★
April 20, 2023
Confusing and not very engaging. I did find it mildly interesting that Leela was aware of The Doctor making K-9 Mark II.
August 10, 2012
This is the conclusion to the "Leela Trilogy" within the Companion Chronicles, and it follows the same general format that was used for "The Catalyst" and "Empathy Games". Set late in Season 15, at least in terms of the main story, the primary goal is to explain the framing device of the entire trilogy and bring Leela's story to a conclusion.
The most obtuse and irritating part of the first two stories in the trilogy was the framing device, so the fact that this audiodrama focuses so much upon it is a bit of a problem. Unfortunately, it's just the beginning. The entire story involves several characters moving through time out of order, so conversations are often confusing and hard to place in context, even after everything is explained. And because this is one of the Companion Chronicles, and most of the voices are done by Louise Jameson herself, it can be utterly baffling.
Adding to the confusion (and aggravation) is the presence of K-9. Not only is time spent trying to work this story into K-9's continuity, but his behavior is bizarre due to some reprogramming along the way. It just adds to the elusiveness of the plot. Once the titular "time vampire" arrives on the scene, towards the climax of the story, it becomes almost impossible to figure out just what is going on.
It does manage to bring Leela's story to something of a conclusion, far better than "The Invasion of Time" does, but it does so in a way that just isn't very clear. In fact, I'm not even sure that I know how her story really ends. Perhaps that was the intent, but if so, it still strikes me as a story that would have worked better on television, where the visuals could clarify what audio cannot.
August 25, 2010
Considered as a standalone story, I thoroughly enjoyed this, with it's non-linear structure and general "timey-wimeyness". Piecing it all together was quite engrossing, although I think I'll need more than one listen to be sure I've got all the nuances.
As an ending to the trilogy of Leela stories that began with "The Catalyst", I'm less sure. I'm not sure that this story's ending really brought any closure to Leela's story. While it was much better than some of the bad endings I'd envisaged (and feared), it was a case of a story ending not so much with a bang as with a "Hmmm..." Again, I might change my mind on a second listen.
As an ending to the trilogy of Leela stories that began with "The Catalyst", I'm less sure. I'm not sure that this story's ending really brought any closure to Leela's story. While it was much better than some of the bad endings I'd envisaged (and feared), it was a case of a story ending not so much with a bang as with a "Hmmm..." Again, I might change my mind on a second listen.
April 7, 2013
Interesting and quite disturbing in places but the ending, although suitably creepy, I'm not entirely sure worked 100% although an interesting idea and I had guessed where it was leading before it happened. One of my other bugs about it is that this continuity doesn't mesh with the other BF Leela stories where she ends up on Gallifrey after travelling with the Dr - which ties in better with her canon story.
June 3, 2014
I really liked this. It was a very spooky story with all sorts of twists and turns. I don't think it was too hard to follow and thought it was a fascinating way to play with time. It reminded me a little of Lalla's last episode, the way the story kept shifting through time. Louise did a fabulous job playing all the different parts and it was nice to hear John in several roles as well. I think this is my favourite of Leela's companion chronicles that I've heard so far.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews