Project Twilight

Stopping in London for a spot of fine dining, the Doctor and Evelyn encounter a backstreet illegal casino and brothel run by gangsters - gangsters who turn out to be vampires. Unlike their classical counterparts, these vampires are bred in a laboratory known as the Forge, and they have escaped only to be hunted by the ruthless Nimrod. The leader of the vampires, Amelia, claims to be searching for a cure for the twilight virus which infected them, but Nimrod's mission is to destroy the runaways before they cause mass destruction, and anything that gets in his way is disposable, even the Doctor and Evelyn...

This one in parts almost smacks of Buffy the Vampire Slayer with its violence and grit, although Nimrod is no blonde from Sunnydale by any stretch. He's big. He's mean. He's armed to the teeth with hi tech vampire hunting equipment including protective body armour made of polycarbide - a substance the Doctor knows as the outer casing of a Dalek. The resources of the Forge stretch beyond conventional science and into alien technology gathered in the wake of invasion attempts. The whole tone of the tale is very dark, very gritty - a lot of the usual light moments between the Doctor and Evelyn are toned down in favour of more grim dialogue, with Evelyn taking one of the casino girls, Cassie, under her wing. There's an intersting moment where the Doctor quietly sings himself an old Galifreyan song:

Zagreus sits inside your head

Zagreus lives among the dead

Zagreus sees you in your bed

And eats you when you're sleeping

At the moment this means nothing, but further down the road it will be crucial, moreso to the Doctor's eighth self. The release order of the Big Finish audios though, had Project Twilight coming out very close to Zagreus; the way I am looking at the episodes here puts them literally years apart, and the reference will be lost in all liklihood. Or maybe not. f it's the year 2009 and I am still doing this blog, check the posts for the Zagreus listing and peek ahead - it's okay.

Encountering vampires raises the Doctor's usual ire about destroying them, as the Time Lords are sworn to do so, but he finds himelf torn as the vampires are not the spawn of the Great Vampires. Doesn't mean their intentions are pure, though.

As the slaughter of the vampires begins their true intentions come to light, but not before Cassie is infected by the twilight virus. Evelyn's motherly interest in Cassie causes her gret pain, and the girl is saved and taken to Sweden to hide out while the Doctor works on a cure for the virus, something he knows will take time. Cassie leaves tha TARDIS to await the Doctor's return, setting the series up for a sequel somewhere down the line, but not for a while.

NEXT EPISODE : THE SANDMAN