Holistic Review: Beneath its sci-fi trappings, State of Decay is a straightforward scary vampire tale, and as if I needed anything else to make me happy, it's got great dialogue and a clever plot too!

Very few Doctor Who stories evoke for me quite as strong a sense of childhood delight as State of Decay does. Even The Invisible Enemy, which had Leela in it and which I watched repeatedly, doesn't have quite the same potency for me. The reason, naturally, is that State of Decay is chock full of vampires, which were a childhood obsession of mine. In the days before vampires became repopularized as broody, tortured, bare-chested sex symbols like Angel and his ilk, it was the cadaverous, hungry, animalistic, night-stalking vampires that fascinated me (and, let's be honest, still do). I can't even explain why I was so enthralled with vampires, much less what kickstarted my interest, although I suspect it has to do with the fact that vampires are dangerous but generally not gory, so a child can enjoy the shivers of a vampire story without being completely traumatized. All I know is, anytime a TV show featured a vampire episode, I certainly wanted to be watching it. But I've always been a vampire purist, and there were a lot of TV shows that disappointed me in that regard. Just look at all the sci-fi episodes that promise vampires, but wind up delivering an un-vampire-looking critter which has nothing in common with vampires aside from a taste for blood, or a leech-like alien that drains bodies of salt, or a human wearing a mask and fake fangs, or *cough*doctorwho*cough* a spaceship that intends to drain the Earth of all its energy. Sure, these are "vampires" in the strictest sense, but they utterly miss out on the spirit of the folktale versions. What makes vampires cool is not merely the fact that they drain your body of fluids. Riffing off that aspect alone might create a fine vampire-inspired monster, but calling that monster a "vampire" is just asking for a big audience letdown. Vampires are cool because they drain your body of fluids and they live in dank atmospheric castles, and they sleep in coffins during the daytime, and they have fangs and glowing eyes, and they can hypnotize you and charm you into wanting to let them feed on you... it's all of the peripheral vampire imagery that helps to make them so memorable and frightening. There's a lot of vampire lore out there, so you have a certain amount of flexibility, but you can only tweak it to a certain degree. You can't twist it into an unrecognizable shape and still expect your audience of vampire fans to come away happy.

And that, my friends, is where State of Decay gets it exactly right. Terrance Dicks understands that children (and adults) want a proper vampire story, so what does he do? The brilliant, brilliant man first establishes that Earth vampires are not simply folkloric, but have — as Giles would say — literal antecedents, which in this case are giant, world-draining vampires that swarmed through the universe, seeding their kind on practically every inhabited planet. Having thus established that the native spawn of these alien vampires operate in a manner which is absolutely identical to traditional Earth vampires — thus enabling us to keep all of the usual vampire trappings no matter what planet we're on — Dicks goes one step further and turns the Great Vampires into ancient arch-enemies of the Time Lords, thus upgrading them from one-shot monsters by weaving them very deeply into Doctor Who mythology. Hypothetically, we could encounter stereotypical vampires on pretty much any planet the Doctor visits, with the understanding that the Great Vampires had obviously paid it a visit aeons ago. I love Terrance Dicks.

In the same vein, Dicks layers State of Decay with a ton of vampire imagery. We've got a medieval setting with frightened superstitious peasants, a tall foreboding castle, swarms of vampire bats, hypnotic trances, and vats full of blood. The vampires themselves wear sumptuous regal finery, have super strength, hiss when they're in attack mode, and bare perfectly traditional fangs. (The only sad thing, really, is that we never actually get to see them feed on someone, or indeed see any victims at all with neck puncture wounds, aside from Romana after the bat attack.) The vampire lore of State of Decay resembles the lore later adopted by Buffy, which holds that vampires were created when the last Old One to be banished from the Earth fed on a human and mixed their blood, so the human vampires it spawned don't necessarily bear much resemblance to the original demon. Likewise, the Great Vampire shown in State of Decay is an enormous animalistic half-bat thing, but its vampirized servants appear human aside from the fangs they develop when they're not in "stealth mode" (or, to borrow another Buffy term, their fangs are only visible when they put on their "game faces"). This is cool, because, again, it enables Dicks to establish the Great Vampires as a genuinely alien race of creatures without losing the classic human vampire imagery.

While the core of State of Decay is a purely traditional vampire story, Dicks wisely gives it just enough of a sci-fi twist to keep it relevant to Doctor Who without tampering with its essentially fantasy foundation. The peasants in the village are prohibited from learning of any kind, even reading or basic science, because there's a lot of technology lying around that could be very dangerous indeed to the Lords, if anyone knew how to use it. Unbeknownst to the villagers, their community was once very learned indeed; their Tower is no typical stone-and-mortar castle, but rather a grounded spaceship from Earth, its control room gutted and turned into the Lords' ornate throne room. Thus, as Romana keenly observes: "A society that evolves backwards must be subject to some even more powerful force restraining it." In this case, that more powerful force is the Great Vampire, sworn enemy of the Time Lords, so it should be a no-brainer that the Doctor and Romana must slay the Great Vampire and release its grip on the village in one fell swoop. Its servants, however, throw an interesting wrench in the plan when they try to tempt the two Time Lords into joining forces, by unwittingly promising them exactly what they most desire: not power, but a way home, a route which has eluded them but which the Great Vampire knows. What I really like about this plot development is that it grounds State of Decay in the E-Space trilogy. Sure, it could have played out more or less the same on a random planet in N-Space, but there's something particularly creepy about the idea of this horrific monster escaping its imprisonment and unleashing itself upon our universe again. Plus, its escape to E-Space neatly explains why the Time Lords haven't managed to track it down in all the intervening years, and it also puts the Great Vampire in a position to actually be of value to the TARDIS crew (although, to their credit, they only consider this prospect briefly).

Clearly I love the concept behind State of Decay, but a vampire story is only as good as its atmosphere. Here, too, State of Decay excels.

Three of the actors, in particular, contribute enormously to the atmosphere of the story: Tom Baker and Lalla Ward (whom I'll discuss below), and Rachel Davies, who plays the Lady Camilla. Each of the three vampire Lords has a slightly different personality, which I really like, but Davies' excellent co-stars make for more reserved and quietly-menacing vampires. Camilla, however, is the most feral of the three, in touch with the sensual side of vampirism and regarding everything warm-blooded with a hungry look. Davies clearly gets what makes for a memorable vampire performance, and she literally vamps it up onscreen, pumping energy into scenes of the three Lords plotting, and looking more threatening than her two co-stars combined. I particularly love any scene involving Camilla is in fang-face — for a particularly good example, watch Camilla (you really can't miss her) as Aukon raves about sucking the life out of the planets in N-Space — because Davies clearly wants to show off her incisors as badly as I want to admire them, so she hangs out in the background and bares her teeth from every flattering angle, while hissing and looking hungrily into the distance. It's a brilliantly heightened performance, and so crucial for building the atmosphere, particularly when we only get glimpses of Zargo and Aukon's fangs as they speak. Camilla, bless her, puts hers on full display, and I love Davies for it. Her performance is pitched just right for the part, undisguisedly threatening (as on the line "There are many dangers on this planet.") without being overdramatic. On another actress, in another story, I might have said "unsubtle", but in State of Decay it works as superb vampire melodrama. Her reaction when Romana cuts her finger is fantastic, too; Camilla is immediately interested just beyond what would be acceptable, grabbing for Romana's hand and barely containing her excitement. And when Camilla advances on Adric, fully prepared to feed on him, I love the balletic way she extends her arms and stalks toward him!

As much as Tom Baker himself apparently liked to be in control of events, I appreciate that he's not afraid to allow his Doctor to be fallible, as shown when he temporarily forgets that there really isn't another village on the planet, when he moves over to give up his chosen throne for Romana, and when he misremembers where the co-pilot sits in a ship of the Hydrax's design. Of course, to balance out this humility, he does still take credit for other people's ideas (and I can't bring myself to dislike that trait when it leads to such charming deliveries as "Romana! I've found the inspection hatch!"). I really enjoy his delivery of the very cute line "Come on, K-9. Someone's got to stay on guard. And you can compute a reverse-transition from existing data, you love doing that! Eh?", "That one was a bit carnivorous!", "Yet slain they all were, and to the last one, by the Lords of Time." (honestly, I could listen to Tom Baker say the word "were" all day...!) and the equally well-written "When the bodies were counted, the King Vampire, mightiest and most malevolent of all, had vanished, even to his shadow, from time and space.", "Oh, lovely Earth craftsmanship!" and "Ah. Well... they just went to pieces." He also gets a lot of mileage out of quirky dialogue that requires him to repeat himself: "Look, I know this may seem a silly sort of question, but we were wondering if you could tell us something about E-Space. E-Space? ...Perhaps not." and "It's just odd, you see, that he should mention that, because Romana and I have just been looking at a ship's old manifest, and I can't remember what the ship was called, but Romana might be able to remember. What was it called, Romana? (Romana chips in with: "Hydrax.") Yes, Hydrax. Does that mean anything to you, Hydrax? Hydrax?" If these were ad-libs, it was a great choice, and if they were scripted that way, Baker hits it out of the ballpark. Performance aside, Tom Baker's hair is noticeably un-curly in this story! Apparently he was ill and had to have it permed, but I can't imagine what kind of illness turns your hair straight! I am alarmed, and hope I never come down with whatever-it-is.

I'm still insatiably curious to read an original draft of The Witch Lords to see what Leela's role in the story would have been. One lingering remnant, I feel sure, is the scene of Adric hurling a knife, with unbelievably accurate aim, into Zargo's heart. Had this story actually been produced with Leela as the companion, I fear that the combination of Leela plus vampires might have been too much joy for my little heart to bear! However, even though Romana was a late replacement in the script, Dicks writes for her beautifully. He gives Romana lots of self-confident academic dialogue that shows off her intelligence, and she gets a few really proactive moments. She bravely attacks Aukon with a stalagmite (she must have some upper arm strength, too, the way she snaps it off at the base!), she visibly steels herself to bravely infiltrate the Inner Sanctum with Tarak, she comes up with the prisoner / guard plan that so nearly fools the Sanctum guard, and she makes a valiant attempt at rescuing Adric. She gets some pretty adorable moments in State of Decay, too, like the way she girlishly dangles her legs from Zargo's throne, her cute smile after Romana rattles off the names of the Hydrax officers, the chastized expression on her face when the Doctor shushes Romana, her gentle teasing of the Doctor as she hints that she might just know where to find information about Rassilon's battle against the Great Vampires (but when he asks for details, she strings him along with "Oh, I don't know, I forget."!), and the way she slips out of her 'prisoner' character to correct Tarak's use of the code-key. Ward gives great deliveries on "Mmm!" when the Doctor asks if she fancies exploring the Hydrax, "Inner Sanctum, please.", "When the Doctor gets back from the TARDIS, he is going to need your help!", "Adric, do you know what happens to vampires when they die?", and her very justified retort (to Adric) of "But you didn't, did you?" Her beige outfit, while subdued, is also sleek and flattering.

As I mentioned above, it's Baker and Ward who are largely responsible for generating the story's atmosphere as it turns darker and more sinister. Ward's reaction when the Doctor illuminates the bunks full of corpses (closing her eyes, gasping and backing away) is very affecting, coming from a usually-unflappable Time Lady like Romana, as is her response to the Doctor asking if she's all right: "No, I'm frightened." Yikes. If Romana is frightened, the situation must be dire. Then there's Tom Baker's chilling speech about vampire legends, intoned with almost palpable dread, during which Lalla Ward clutches her throat and looks around nervously.

Unfortunately, this is not Adric's best hour. His attempts at thievery (supposedly one of his skills) are amateurish and unsuccessful, he returns Marta's kindness by not thanking her for the clothing she gives him or the bread and stew that he assumes is his to take, he fails to pick up on Marta's grief when she mentions that the coat she gives him used to belong to her son ("Whatever you say" is his idea of an appropriate response), he brazenly requests cheese from his obviously-impoverished hosts, his motto becomes "What's in it for me?", he gets all snide about the Doctor abandoning them to the vampires, he gets into a shouting match with Romana, and then his brilliant idea for rescuing her is to draw a dagger on Aukon (as if that were ever going to work). I was all set to defend the scene of Adric walking across the console room, which is oft-cited by fans as evidence against Waterhouse's acting abilities, but sadly I find that I cannot... it looks like Adric's bopping along to music in his head that the rest of us can't hear. Still, that's the only moment in the story that I'd cite as questionable acting. The rest of the time, it's Adric himself who verges on unlikeable; Waterhouse's performance is perfectly fine. One of the issues that particularly seems to dent Adric's reputation is that he's often slightly too good an actor when he's pretending to side with the enemy. He throws himself a little too convincingly into the role, to the point that the audience isn't sure whether to believe him when he claims to have been pretending all along. Personally, I kind of like this aspect of Adric's personality — I can't think of many other companions who could ingratiate themselves with the bad guys so effectively — but when he establishes his cover story at the expense of his fellow companions, it seems a little callous, and he comes across as ungrateful ("It looks as if this is one time the goodies don't win, after all."), even if the ends do justify the means. It's kind of the same reason that The Invasion of Time has never been one of my favorite stories! To end on a positive note, Adric cleverly outfoxes K-9, who's trying to persuade him that going outside would be dangerous, by pointing out that as a stowaway, logically he ought to leave the TARDIS. I like Waterhouse's delivery of "Who, me?" and "But they don't die. Do they, Aukon?"

The John Nathan-Turner era is not generally kind to K-9. He's been short-circuited by seawater (and put out of action) in The Leisure Hive, kicked by bandits in Meglos, and decapitated by Marshmen (and put out of action) in Full Circle. And it's nothing compared to what's about to happen to him in Warriors' Gate, poor thing! It's only here, in State of Decay, that he not only escapes mistreatment, but gets to be the hero again. Although he's stuck in the TARDIS for the majority of the story (for no particularly good reason), he does get his moment of glory in part four, as he leads the raid on the Tower and blasts down guard after guard. It's a great touch that the rebels — Ivo in particular — initially underestimate him, and have to eat crow when K-9 turns out to be their most valuable resource.

I've talked about Camilla already, so let's turn to her two bloodsucking friends, Zargo and Aukon. I like both characters; neither Zargo nor Aukon comes across as an alpha-male vampire, which makes for an interesting change. William Lindsay, sporting a beautifully-styled "you have to see it to believe it" beard, makes a good double-act with Rachel Davies; the smoldering glances between the two of them hint at a physical relationship that has continued into undeath, and I love the way they glide across the floor together with their hands linked. Zargo seems to defer to Camilla, and at the very least they're definitely equals, which makes her a nice change from your typical buxom vampire brides in negligée. (She is a vampire woman of the '80s, after all!) Dicks also makes an effort to humanize them — for example, they've held onto their nightly handwashing ritual, though there's very little need for it and it looks completely ineffective anyway, since it's really more of a "fingertip-dipping" ritual. Zargo seems to be the most in touch with his human side, and I get the sense that I might have liked Miles Sharkey as a human. He was probably friendly and easygoing and mellow. As a vampire, he admits to being frightened by the Doctor, which is extremely unusual for a monster, and gives his character some intriguing shades of grey that Camilla and Aukon certainly don't have. What Aukon does have is the only ESP on the block. He can communicate telepathically with the Great Vampire, read people's minds to some degree, seems to have some empathic abilities, can mentally control his swarm of vampire bats, and has at least a limited amount of telekinetic power. This makes him, in some ways, the leader of the Three, and he's certainly the most dangerous, albeit also apparently the least bloodthirsty. Given his degree of willpower and asceticism, you get the feeling that he might've done double-duty as the Hydrax's chaplain. (The interesting implication is that O'Connor always had extrasensory gifts; Aukon suggests that they're what enabled the Great Vampire to make contact and lure the ship into E-Space.) Emrys James has great presence as Aukon, with a deep voice that adds menace to his lines, and he gives a dramatic performance. I love the way he pulls the Doctor and Romana's hands away from their faces... it's unsettling, forceful yet not unfriendly. It's a great example of Aukon's unpredictability. You can never quite tell whether he's about to save you or kill you, bite you or kiss you!

The rebels are probably my least-favorite element of the story, but they're also a vital one, because they illustrate the effects of the Lords' anti-knowledge policy, and they provide the Doctor with a convenient army to use in his efforts to destroy the vampires' grip on the populace. And they do get one really great laugh-out-loud moment in the story, when the Doctor turns down the offer of leading them and they all simultaneously groan in disappointment. Ha! The rebels' leader, Kalmar (Arthur Hewlett), is a very likeable character, so enthusiastic about learning, and surprisingly friendly to strangers, given the risk if he were seen to associate with them. And his braids are unusual and interesting! In the novelization, Tarak (Thane Bettany) was my favorite character; onscreen, I like him a little less. He's a little too argumentative for me. But he's spirited, and clever, and full of initiative, and he really comes into his own as a character when he infiltrates the Tower, rescuing the Doctor and Romana and then helping Romana access the Inner Sanctum and find Adric. I wonder how he was able to escape life as a Tower guard? Given that he clearly knows some of the Lords' secrets, I'm sure they didn't willingly let him go. It's always made me sad that his bravery gets him killed, when Zargo hurls him across the room and breaks his neck. I love the scene (well-played by both Bettany and Baker) in which Tarak rescues the Doctor and Romana from their cell, but accidentally whacks the Doctor in the nose with the cell door. Bettany gives a great delivery to the spooky line "I've heard that when they wake, they wake hungry." His beard, while not as stunning as Zargo's, is also impressive; it wafts in the breeze of the rebels' encampment most alluringly! Veros (Stacy Davies), unfortunately, barely makes an impact, eclipsed between kindly Kalmar and hotheaded Tarak. I'd completely forgotten he was in it, even just after I'd watched it.

Ivo (Clinton Greyn), the village's head man, seems like the type to make a good leader. He's decisive and no-nonsense, not to mention short-tempered, suspicious and defensive, but his more negative qualities seem to stem from his passion for the village and his desire to defeat the Lords. His wife Marta (Rhoda Lewis) is a dear woman, very compassionate, supportive and protective, but no shrinking violet either. Karl (Dean Allen) is felt more than seen in the story, but Allen does a nice job in his single scene.

Habris (Iain Rattray) is a fairly thankless role, mostly serving as a yes-man for the Lords and getting to play the heavy from time to time, so I can't say that he made much of an impression. The other Tower guards, Roga (Stuart Fell) and Zoldaz (Stuart Blake), don't get very much to do either, aside from fighting with Tarak, but their performances are good, particularly whichever one is guarding the Inner Sanctum; I like his confusion over Romana's claim that she's Camilla's blood group separator.

There's something reassuring about seeing Terrance Dicks' name onscreen. I tend to adore his televised stories, and there's no question that the man knows how to write good Doctor Who. As the stories of season 18 are becoming much more serious-minded than in previous years, it's refreshing to have the wisecracking fourth Doctor back for a few episodes, and the dialogue really zings in this story, alternating between hilarious and creepy. At times, State of Decay verges on terrifying — at least, it did to me as a child — but Dicks lightens it up with just the right amount of humor, in my opinion. He includes some really scary scenes and ideas, like the feeding tanks in the Hydrax pumping the drained villagers' blood down to the sleeping Great Vampire, the very tense scene of Romana and Adric trapped in the Inner Sanctum with two hungry vampires, and the sacrifice scene in which Romana is nearly drained of blood by a swarm of vampire bats. His first two cliffhangers, honestly, are a bit duff, but the cracking part 3 cliffhanger more than makes up for it, as the hints of vampirism throughout the story finally erupt into full-on fangs-bared vampire action. The plot's also intriguing. Even though, in hindsight, it's obvious that the Lords are vampires, there are some nice red herrings at the beginning which make the audience ask "what happened to this old Earth ship that left behind so much ancient technology?" and "why are the original crew still hanging around inside the Tower after a thousand years?" We think we've learned the answer to the latter question when Dicks fools us into believing that the Lords are the original crew's descendants, with the same name passed down for generations. Then we discover that the Three Who Rule actually are the original officers, which is a satisfying revelation because it proves our initial instincts correct. The story perhaps suffers from some similarities to Full Circle, in that both involve a wrecked spaceship around which the descendants of the original crew eke out an existence, but since Full Circle springs the "descendants" twist on us, and State of Decay springs "spaceship" as a twist, the similarities aren't so noticeable that it's problematic.

As a child, I have a feeling that I must have read the novelization of State of Decay more than any other, because a number of moments from the book stick with me really strongly to this day. Every time I look at Ivo, I think of him as "gruff". When Camilla offers Romana a platter of cold cuts, I recall that in the novelization, Romana turns it down because the meat is bloody and practically raw. The moment when she cuts her finger on the glass has always been one of the story's most memorable moments for me, largely due to its description in the novelization. When Aukon asks the Doctor if he can feel the power in the cavern, I'm reminded that the Doctor very well can feel it, but is trying to be flippant to wrong-foot Aukon. Karl's death, in particular, had much more impact in the novel, which described his body — drained of blood — being dumped on Ivo and Marta's doorstep in the middle of the night. (It's odd that such a crucial moment happens offscreen, so my guess is that this was one of the elements that the studio heads asked to be toned down.) So many rich background details that have enhanced my viewing of the story!

Sadly, one major let-down of State of Decay is its effects, which are pretty uniformly below-average. The heaving ground in the Resting Place, lit red from underneath, is creepy enough that it just about works; but it becomes more obviously a model shot when the Great Vampire's hand breaks through. Even then, it's acceptable, until flames start to shoot out around the hand, and the three Lords are superimposed in front of it, at which point it starts to look really fake. Likewise, the model of the scout ship looks great as it detaches from the rest of the Tower and takes off, but rather than running out of fuel and plummeting to the ground, the effects team show it turning around in mid-air and accelerating toward the ground, which is clearly not what the script says is happening. The worst of the worst is the image of the Great Vampire on Kalmar's scanner, which is horrible but not for the reasons they intended. It should be trapped underground, resting and building its strength, right? Well, the effects team would have us believe that it's practicing for the E-Space interpretive-dancing competition. Almost anything would've been better than what we get onscreen! Even effects that they should have been able to do in their sleep are screwed up, like the episode 1 shot of the TARDIS spinning through E-Space, in which all of the stars are superimposed over the TARDIS! Thankfully, the rubber bats — which could have been a disaster — are pretty well done, probably because they're mostly kept in the twilight, so they swoop menacingly in and out of frame but you can't see their deficiencies. (I only assume that, being bats made of rubber, they had some.) I must also tip my hat to the clever green night sky, which subtly echoes the fact that E-Space itself is green (though I'm still not really a fan of that particular decision). The best effects of the story are the modelwork of the vampire planet, which is glowing red as if it has vast oceans of blood (nice!); Kalmar's old fuzzy monitor (if you can ignore the obviously-80s graphics); the convincingly-gruesome tank of blood in the Hydrax; the surprisingly-decent shot of Aukon shattering the stalagmite; and the shot of the three vampires crumbling into dusty skeletons. Speaking of which, the make-up artists on State of Decay do a superb job. The fang-like makeup around the actors' eyes looks eerie and threatening, especially the blood-red eye makeup on Zargo. The aging vampires also look spectacular. Zargo looks particularly good early on, but Camilla takes the cake for the super-ancient makeup.

Set design is definitely a strength, particularly within the Tower. Zargo and Camilla's throne room is luxurious, with its carved wooden pillars, rich tapestries and, naturally, no mirrors. I love the stone Inner Sanctum, with its uncomfortable-looking bier (substituting for a coffin!) where Zargo and Camilla sleep, and the cobweb-covered columns lining the staircase. Even the Doctor and Romana's cell is striking, with its copper walls.

Paddy Kingsland's score is good, if not quite as striking as his score for Full Circle, but I really enjoyed the music as the Doctor and Romana flee from the bat swarm, and the dramatic music as the vampires turn to dust. The one notable omission in the audio area is the sound of vampiric heartbeats. Practically every time a character mentions hearing them — even on one occasion when they're apparently so loud that Veros has to cover his ears — we hear absolutely nothing. Was the dude in charge of heartbeats asleep on the job?

Peter Moffatt's direction is pretty good, if more workmanlike than flashy. There are some pretty memorable shots, like the TARDIS landing in the forest; the pan down the model of the Tower to the cavern below; the overhead shot of K-9 as the Doctor reads from the Record of Rassilon (we don't often get to see him from above, with his buttons flashing); Aukon turning Romana's face toward camera; Romana laid out on the sacrificial altar, hair splayed perfectly; and the moment when the defeated vampires advance angrily on the Doctor (Zargo looks particularly frightening). I love his use of cross-fades to indicate Aukon's psychic powers, and the way he cuts back and forth from the Doctor and Romana chatting in their cell to Tarak's fight with the guard outside. The story's strongest moment, probably, is the shot of Zargo grinning and pulling the dagger out of his heart, not only unharmed but amused. The lighting could use some work, though... I'm all for moody shots, but Lalla Ward's face keeps getting caught in impenetrable shadows.

Minor points:

• I have the vague feeling that, when I was little, I was confused by the fact that Zargo, Camilla and Aukon didn't always have fangs. Surely, as vampires, their teeth should never look ordinary and human? But in post-Buffy land, I take it for granted that vampires can slip in and out of fanged mode as necessary.

• I wish we had more clarification on how these Selections work. How often are they conducted? Clearly twice in two days isn't the norm, but even once a month would seem excessive. (Adric says it happens "every so often", for what that's worth.) The settlement can't be all that big, and out of 8 people lined up, the guards take 4. Do they only conduct the Selection from among whomever happens to be eating in Ivo and Marta's tavern at the time? (I think I'd take all my meals at home!) For that matter, how has Karl managed to avoid every previous Selection? What are the guards' criteria? Was Ivo spared simply because he was lined up to take his father's place as head man of the village? And if so, why wasn't Karl given the same consideration? Surely they need to retain enough people to bear the next generation of healthy kids. If all of the able-bodied ones are taken off to the castle, what happens to the population? Are the Tower guards allowed to choose a wife (since the guards all seem to be male) from the women who are taken at the Selection, or are the villagers the only ones breeding? Aukon does at least partly address this concern of mine, when he says "We have bred dullness, conformity, obedience into those clods for twenty generations! Unfortunately, we have also bred out just those qualities we need for other purposes."

• Terrance Dicks wastes no time diving right into the great dialogue:

  Romana: (impatient) "Well, Doctor?"
  Doctor: "Yes, I'm fine."

• Perhaps I spoke too soon when I mentioned that the Alzarians ought not have too difficult a time finding a new home planet. K-9 can only find one planet within the TARDIS' sensor range (which surely must be huge), yet the scanner screen is full of stars. Are there really that many satellite-free stars in E-Space?

• The Doctor's line "On the other hand, they may have opted deliberately for a semi-rural culture. It's a mistake to judge by appearances!" is more hilarious than it even ought to be. For some reason, it sounds to me like the Doctor's saying "naturally, to us, this would be an utterly ludicrous thing to do, but you never can tell about some people!" Romana later teases him about this, in an equally funny line, when a terrified peasant flees from their presence: "He's probably the astronomer royal."

• Ivo's points of reference are strange. Until this viewing, I had no idea what a mundunugu was, but that appears to be the word that makes Ivo's penny drop. (And I must say, I'm not sure that the local fortune-teller would have been very much use in helping them find a way out of E-Space. But I suppose it was worth a shot.)

  Doctor: "We were just wondering if there were any other scientists in the village."
  Ivo: "Scientists?"
  Doctor: "Yes, scientists! You know. Witch-wiggler. Wangateur. Fortune teller? Mundunugu?"
  Ivo: "Ah! Oh, such things are forbidden."

• The idea of a society where knowledge is forbidden is really horrific. I can't imagine being put to death simply because I knew how to read. The logical implications of this setup raise some pretty critical societal questions, prime among them being: if the people aren't even allowed to have shamans or herbalists, what happens when one of them gets sick? There must be absolutely no medical care in this village at all. So you'd expect the average life expectancy of people on this planet to be around age 30 or 40, if not even younger. How have villagers like Kalmar managed to live so long?

• Ivo, dude! In a society where knowing how to read is punishable by being attacked by vampires, don't you think it's a little unwise to (a) keep your walkie-talkie in an unlocked box out in the open right next to the door, and (b) use said walkie-talkie out in the open with your back to said door? Anybody could have walked in and caught him red-handed!

• Ahh, I see Adric has patched up his trousers. With boring black fabric, but I suppose beggars can't be choosers, since he apparently did it on the sly while sneaking around in the TARDIS corridors. Then again, you'd think the TARDIS would have a room devoted to a mind-boggling array of kooky bolts of fabric. At the very least, Adric could've infiltrated the wardrobe room and snipped a patch off one of the Twin Dilemma costumes. (I bet the majority of fandom wishes he'd taken a pair of scissors to Colin Baker's coat.)

• Are the rebels really advertising the location of their hideout with piles of discarded machinery outside the entrance? (I bet it was Ivo's idea.) Or is that where the Lords dumped all the equipment that they ripped out of the Hydrax? (If so, they were dumb to leave it so close to the village, especially when they had the caves beneath the Hydrax as a ready-made storage facility that no-one would dare enter.) It also makes me wonder how any of it was still even slightly functional after 1,000 years of being exposed to the elements.

• Actually, that brings me to another point: what happened immediately after the Hydrax's landing? This is a story begging to be told. Presumably, once the ship landed, the Great Vampire immediately sired Sharkey, MacMillan and O'Connor, but what happened to the rest of the crew? Perhaps the injured ones were immediately converted into food for the Great Vampire? Obviously some of them were left alive to breed and provide future generations, which was a very shrewd long-term move, but in the short term, you'd think the survivors would have posed a huge threat to the Lords. Not only would they be very much aware that their officers had turned into night-dwelling vampiric servants of the nameless evil beneath the ground, but they'd also know perfectly well how to use the machinery that the Lords discarded. One theory that immediately suggests itself is that the Lords straightaway banished the entire crew of the Hydrax — who, perversely, decided to set up camp just outside the ship, and well within reach of the vampires — but they didn't rip out the computer consoles until a few generations had passed, at which point nobody knew or cared what they were for. When do you suppose they started to enforce the "no learning" policy? Surely they would've had to do it immediately, or the surviving crewmembers would have mounted a resistance the moment they were out of the ship. Is it possible that the crew were convinced to evacuate the Hydrax — told, perhaps, that damage to the ship was about to render the atmosphere toxic? — and didn't know that the officers had survived the crash? That might set up a scenario where the crew, deprived of technology and unable to re-enter the ship, would have to eke out an existence in its shadow and survive whatever dangers the planet might contain. Then, after a few generations of struggling to survive, the Lords could swoop in like kind benefactors, with their ulterior agenda, and offer to help the settlement survive, but on their terms (which could, of course, get harsher over time, with taxes like the Selection being gradually introduced). The only issue I can see with that scenario is that the Great Vampire would've had to survive for a few years with no fresh food, but perhaps they'd have had a large-enough stockpile of crewmembers that died or were injured in the crash to get them through that period (since the Great Vampire, unlike Camilla, doesn't appear to particularly care whether he drinks from live victims or a feeding tube). Ahh, but I'm forgetting — Ivo says that the Lords protect them from the Wasting (although it's fairly obvious that nobody really believes that), which I assume is a euphemism for "vampire chow", so that answers my question. The vampires must've been stealing peasants under cover of night the entire time, then presented themselves to the fledgling colony as guardians. Obviously the Wasting didn't stop, but perhaps they scaled back how many people they ate, just enough to maintain the village's trust.

• Do I criticize Terrance Dicks for his unimaginative naming strategies? (the Wasting, the Selection, the Arising, the Resting Place...) It worked as a tongue-in-cheek joke in The Creature from the Pit, but I think Dicks was trying for "eerie" rather than "funny". Then again, we do have this exchange, which I don't think is meant to be serious... but it's hard to be sure, given how mysteriously Tarak whispers.

  Doctor: "A chap in the village told me the Lords protected you from the Wasting."
  Kalmar: "You know about the Wasting?"
  Doctor: "Well, only by hearsay. What is the Wasting?"
  Tarak: (who clearly hasn't been listening) "The Wasting?"
  Doctor: "Yes."
  Tarak: "The Wasting is..." (Kalmar shuts him up) "...the Wasting!"
  Doctor: "Ahh."

• Marta's not much one for "cut food into pieces of the same size so that they cook evenly", is she? Throw in that giant slice of potato, honey! (She's also not much for sanitation, given that she slurps a taste of her stew directly from the serving ladle! Nasty! But then I don't suppose they know anything about the spread of germs in these parts.)

• Does Veros say that they found mountains of food thrown out with the machinery?! After a thousand years, how edible could it have been?

• Wait, seriously? The date on the Hydrax data log is 12/12/1998! Oh well, I suppose if we had manned missions to Mars in the 1970s, it's not outrageous to think that we could've developed interstellar travel just before the millennium. (But I doubt the producers had that in mind, so did they really envision us building spaceships like the Hydrax within the next 18 years?!)

• Good heavens, when the Doctor and Romana are captured in the forest, it's twilight, but they don't reach the Tower until morning light. How far away did they park the TARDIS?! (Thank goodness it doesn't take the Doctor half a day to run back and forth in part three!)

• Incidentally, since they made such a point of showing us daybreak on the planet, I also have to ask: what are Zargo and Camilla doing up, waltzing around their throne room and nibbling E-Space bologna? Shouldn't it be naptime for them? Creatures of the night, yeah? Not creatures of the dawn! Who knew Zargo and Camilla were morning people.

• Tom Baker's reaction is spot-on! I love it when the fourth Doctor so obviously humors the villains.

  Camilla: "We know everything here."
  Doctor: "Gosh."

• Hang on, is the Doctor joking? In an uncannily prescient way? Or did Zargo and Camilla honestly serve them glasses of bull's blood? Because that's what the DVD subtitles say, but the liquid in their glasses looks far too translucent to be blood. (If it is, then Romana probably spilled hers on purpose! It does look like her own fault that the liquid sloshes everywhere; the Doctor barely moves his glass at all when they clink.) FYI, Google informs me that "bull's blood" is also a famous Hungarian red wine, so perhaps that's what the Doctor was referencing. Then again, it's also a variety of heirloom beet, sooooo...

• Oh my! "However," says Camilla, rubbing her ring and looking lustily at Romana, "there are compensations." Taking after your namesake, eh, Camilla?

• Another example of how well Terrance Dicks writes for Romana. I love the the writers never seem to forget her interest in academics (in general) and psychology (in particular). For that matter, it's a superb line for the Doctor too.

  Zargo: "In any society, there is bound to be a division. The rulers and the ruled."
  Doctor: "A division? A yawning chasm, I'd say, wouldn't you?"
  Romana: "No, I'd say a sociopathetic abscess."
  Doctor: "Oh, I wish I'd thought of that. That's a good diagnosis. Yes, I've never seen such a state of decay."

• One of my favorite lines of the story, again delivered with exactly the right amount of camp by Rachel Davies.

  Camilla: "We shall resume this later. If you need anything, there are guards outside the door. Many guards!"

• Now, here we get to one of my favorite parts of State of Decay these days. When I was little, I had no idea what Romana was going on about when she talked about Bs turning into Vs. Why would a B turn into a V? I thought to myself. They're at opposite ends of the alphabet! Clearly Romana was very silly. And then I became a linguistics major, and actually studied Grimm's Law (of, as the Doctor says here, consonantal shift, albeit specifically the regular consonantal shifts from Proto-Indo-European into the Germanic languages). So of course now I think it's a brilliant detail for Dicks to have included, although I feel that I must also point out that Grimm's Law doesn't have any [b] sounds changing to [v]. A more accurate description would be to say that PIE [b^ɦ] changed into Germanic [b] (as in PIE *b^ɦer 'carry' > English bear), PIE [b] changed into Germanic [p] (as in PIE *beu 'swell' > English puff), and PIE [p] changed into Germanic [f] (PIE *ped > English foot, which you can contrast with the non-Germanic Indo-European languages which didn't undergo this sound change, cf. French pied, Sanskrit pāda, or the English word pedestrian, in which the root comes from Latin). But Romana's got the general principle correct. (Thanks to my old colleagues John Lawler and Kevin McGowan for those examples, by the way!) Anyway, let me hop back off my soapbox and say that I think this must be another of my memories from the novelization, because in the TV story, although Romana defines it sort of oddly ("You mean, hard sounds softening?"), she demonstrates it quite well, so I don't know why I would've been so confused about it unless I didn't have the benefit of Lalla Ward's performance at the time!

• Ooh, I've just remembered! As a child, I was always really annoyed by the fact that the Doctor and Romana (well, specifically Romana, I guess!) didn't close the inspection hatch behind them. If they had, perhaps Zargo and Camilla wouldn't have figured out where they'd gone. In fact, this may very well be where my "leaving doors open while trying to be stealthy" pet peeve originated!

• Camilla does get so many good lines.

  Camilla: "You're wrong. ... The Doctor is not weaponless. He has the greatest weapon of all: knowledge."

• This quote of the Doctor's is one of the most atmospheric of the story. Perhaps part of the reason I like it so much is that it's reminiscent of Dicks' great part-three cliffhanger in Horror of Fang Rock.

  Doctor: "I was wrong, Romana. The fuel tanks aren't disused. Only this isn't rocket fuel... it's blood."

• Love love love that, in the middle of the more-and-more-tense climb down to the cavern beneath the ship, the Doctor's horrified reaction as Romana joins him turns out to mean "You jumped on my toe!" What a brilliant way to momentarily defuse the tension! (Just as great is the terrified Romana's response: a very apologetic "Oh, I'm so sorry.")

• But, speaking of great dialogue, this is surely one of the most atmospheric speeches in the whole story. I mean, get a load of Tom Baker's voice! Shiver!

  Doctor: "Do you know, it just occurs to me, there are vampire legends on almost every inhabited planet."
  Romana: "Really?"
  Doctor: "Yes. Creatures that stalk in the night and feast on the blood of the living. Creatures that fear sunlight and running water, and certain herbs. Creatures that are so strong, they can only be killed by beheading, or a stake through the heart..."
  Romana: "Or? Please, say something!"
  Doctor: "Whatever it is, we want to find it, don't we?"
  Romana: "No!"
  Doctor: "Good. Come on then."

• Another great Tom Baker delivery:

  Aukon: "We servants will swarm! You could be one of us!"
  Doctor: "I could?? ...Well, you know, I've never been a great one for swarming. It's awfully kind of you to offer. But where were you thinking of swarming to?"

• I love the Doctor's line "Ah-ha. So there was a guided tour.", referring back to his request for a guided tour of the Resting Place. Tom Baker delivers it so well, hinting that underneath the flippancy, the Doctor is starting to put the pieces together.

• Ohh, I love Snarky!Romana.

  Aukon: "Won't you join us? Like your other companion!"
  Doctor: "Who's he talking about?"
  Romana: "They can't even count on this planet."

• Is she mocking him? Given how often swarming has been a topic of conversation lately, she surely can't have misheard him...

  Doctor: "They came out of nowhere, and swarmed and swarmed..."
  Romana: "What did they do, Doctor?"
  Doctor: "Swarmed, that was the word he used."
  Romana: "Ah."

• If this one remaining Great Vampire is Gallifrey's Most Wanted, then why would they only have bothered installing the Record of Rassilon in Type 40 TARDISes? Aside from the fact that it's a whopping great coincidence that the man who ends up finding and killing it just happened to steal a TARDIS of the only type to come equipped with information on the Vampires, I don't understand why Gallifrey wouldn't make it a standard feature as soon as the war with the vampires was over.

• This whole scene is fantastic — Doctor Who seems to do surprisingly well out of "conversation in prison" scenes between the regulars, which is just as well given how often it happens — but this is the crowning moment. It's a cute reference to an early scene in the story, and both Tom Baker and Lalla Ward play it beautifully.

  Doctor: "Psst! The TARDIS is a Type 40."
  Romana: (mock-surprised) "Is it? Oh!"
  Doctor: "Yes. Psst! You are wonderful."
  Romana: "Me? Wonderful? I suppose I am. I've never really thought about it."

• When Tarak rescues the Doctor and Romana, and ushers them to the Tower door, he looks like he's about to turn around and go back inside, rather than leave with them. Does he know a different exit that, for some reason, he's planning on using instead? Maybe he's suddenly had a hankering for some raw tenderloin and bull's blood?

• As a child, I loved the Doctor's line "No thank you! Not Dracula." — perhaps because I could relate to the fear of listening to a scary story — but as an adult, all I can think is: aww, what's wrong with Dracula?

• It's just a good thing that the Lords are quiet sleepers, given how vehemently Romana and Tarak are arguing at their bedside over how best to kill them!

• Good heavens. The TARDIS' futuristic "magnetic card system" bears an awfully strong resemblance to early computer punchcards. I'm reminded of my dad's stories of his college days studying engineering, when he had to walk to class carrying a huge stack of punchcards, which took hours of preparation just to run a very simple program, and woe betide him if there were a strong wind that morning. And as long as we're on the subject, the TARDIS appears to eat these punchcards as they're fed into the console! Isn't it planning on giving them back? What's the Doctor supposed to do if he wants another printout later? (The printouts, by the way, look great. It's rare to see a TV printout that actually contains all of the text, rather than relying on the actor to memorize his lines and "read" them off a blank piece of paper.)

• Another of my favorite lines from the script, and another of Davies' fantastically wicked vampire deliveries. But I have to say... seriously? you don't have that many villagers around to eat, and you're gonna be picky? I mean, gosh, he's only been dead for a few seconds anyway! Are you really gonna say no to a perfectly good meal?

  Camilla: "You killed him! The blood of the dead is stale and flat! I must feed on the living!"

• After 25-odd years of watching this story, it's only just occurred to me that, after going to all that trouble to find Adric, the moment Camilla bears down on him, Romana edges around her and tries to back away, hoping not to be noticed! Intervening to save Adric's life does not seem to be the first thing on her mind. Well, you know... rescue Adric, abandon Adric to the bloodthirsty vampires and save your own skin... same diff, right?

• "If I had my instruments with me," sighs a frustrated Doctor in the rebel hideout, "I could show you!" But, um... you do realize that the TARDIS is right behind you, don't you...? If that's not practically the definition of "with you", I don't know what is! Its scanner is much better than that old Hydrax thing, I feel sure!

• Adric speaks of vampires as if he's perfectly familiar with them. ("So the vampires in the stories are just pale imitations of the real thing?") But if the Great Vampire fled into E-Space weakened, presumably he took immediate refuge on this planet to recuperate, and didn't bother trying to drain any worlds in E-Space dry. So if there aren't any vampires on Alzarius, how does Adric know the stories? Or am I making the wrong assumptions? After all, the Alzarians have been around for thousands of years, and — if State of Decay is contemporaneous with Full Circle — the Great Vampire has only been in N-Space for a measly 1,000 years at most. So it is possible that it made a detour by Alzarius for a pick-me-up. (Perhaps it moved on to its current home because it wanted a drier climate to sleep in!) Still, if it did make an Alzarian pit-stop, it could only have had the Starliner community to pick from, and I don't get the sense that the Alzarians have had to battle anything more sinister than Mistfall. Unless the Great Vampire's visit was during Mistfall, and it left marsh-vampires in its wake? Is it possible that the Alzarians could have known that there were marsh-vampires prowling the mists? I don't see how, if they never left the Starliner, but they did know enough about the Marshmen to have legends of them... so maybe the more curious Alzarians peeked out through the portholes? ...Man, am I overthinking this, or what? It's equally possible that Romana has been entertaining Adric during their wait by telling him some of the vampire legends of N-Space. Let's go with that theory; it's far simpler!

• Oooooooh, an even bigger pet peeve!!! The Doctor decides to use the rebels' map of the area to strategize their plan of attack. This plan involves the Tower, which is labelled on the map in large prominent lettering. But when the Doctor mentions going to the Tower, for some reason, he feels the need to circle it on the map with his pencil, despite the fact that all the rebels know exactly where it is (how could they not?). So, not only is there absolutely no need for him to draw attention to it, but he forgets that this map belongs to the rebels, and clearly they've never scribbled on it, so perhaps they'd prefer that he didn't deface it either! Gaah! It's a combination of my frustration with people who write notes on whatever happens to be close at hand, and my frustration with professors who constantly circle / underline / repeatedly tap their chalk by the points they've written on the board, which does nothing but make their boardwork harder to read. (I don't really need something to be circled or underlined every time you mention it, in order for me to notice that you've already written it down. If you must do something, just point at it!) Okay, now that's out of my system. I feel better.

• Hoo hoo! This one is great. When K-9 and the rebels storm the Tower, the second guard to be shot by K-9 collapses in a most unnatural manner. First he falls down, then he bounces once (on what is supposed to be a stone floor!), then he gradually rolls himself back onto his left side, presumably to allow K-9 room to pass, after which he relaxes his upper body before realizing that he'd be better off lying totally flush with the wall, and straightening up again! It's hilarious, he just can't stay still!

• A creepy line, nicely delivered by James.

  Habris: "Unless you aid us, we shall all be killed!"
  Aukon: "Then die! That is the purpose of guards."

• What would the Doctor have done, had the third scout ship not had enough power to fly? We'd have had a very different ending to this story, that's for sure! And as long as we're on the subject of extremely fortunate coincidences, the Great Vampire's heart can't be that big, and there's a huge radius in which the scout ship could have fallen. The Doctor (and N-Space) is just really, really lucky that the scout ship didn't go off-target and skewer the Great Vampire's gonads by mistake.

• When they evacuate the Tower, all those poor stunned guards get left behind to be killed. Well, presumably. I'm not sure why detaching the scout ship would require an evacuation; I feel quite sure the Hydrax didn't evacuate every time it launched its scout ship in deep space. Maybe the Doctor's just taking extra precautions in case the scout ship misses its target and comes crashing back into the Tower instead (which is a distinct possibility). At any rate, I suppose the guards did count as evil, so perhaps they didn't merit rescuing?

• Another thing that I appreciate about Dicks' script is that even though the Doctor has killed the Great Vampire, that's not the end of the vampires as a potentially recurring monster. Presumably there are still billions of them or more scattered around N-Space. Although... onscreen evidence does suggest that when a vampire is killed, so are all of the vampires that it sired. Does that mean that during the Time Lord vs Vampires war, all of the humanoid vampires in N-Space were gradually wiped out as their sires were bowshipped through the heart? I hope not.

• While State of Decay ends on a high note, with the vampires destroyed and the settlement liberated, it does make you wonder what's going to happen next. How will this society, barely more advanced than hunter-gatherers, manage to learn enough to become truly technological, and how long will it take? I'd love to see a followup.

Sandwiched in between the complex sci-fi stories of Full Circle and Warriors' Gate, in some ways State of Decay feels like the uncouth country cousin visiting sophisticated relatives in the big city. This story is a really good example, though, of Doctor Who's simpler pleasures. State of Decay may not have grand ambitions beyond telling a chilling vampire horror story, but it doesn't need them. For me, this one's a classic.