1. Vampires
Undoubtedly, the most prominent of the Universal Monsters to appear in Doctor Who are vampires - the most famous of which (Count Dracula) appeared in Universal Pictures' 1931 classic "Dracula". In a First Doctor adventure that we have already mentioned, "The Chase", as well as being attacked by a robot Frankenstein's monster, the Daleks also got in to a confrontation with a robot version of Count Dracula. Just prior to the Daleks being attacked by the robot Frankenstein's monster, a single Dalek had cornered the Doctor and his friends Ian, Barbara and Vicki. Robot Dracula appears and distracts the Daleks just long enough for the quartet to get out of the corner. Another prominent vampire arc was "State of the Decay". The Fourth Doctor, whilst trapped in E-Space (a smaller universe existing alongside the prime universe or N-Space), materialises with his TARDIS on a medieval planet. The population of the town in which the Doctor finds himself lives in fear of a trio know as the Three Who Rule, who govern everything with an iron fist from their enormous castle. Upon investigation, the Doctor discovers that the Three Who Rule are ancient astronauts who became vampires many, many years ago and that their castle is actually their spaceship. The Doctor then becomes embroiled in a battle in which me must ally himself with a band of renegade peasants to stop the resurrection of the mighty King Vampire himself. "The Curse of Fenric" sees the Seventh Doctor in the post-apocalyptic Earth in the year 500,000 AD. He encounters humans who have been transformed into hideous vampiric creatures by the Ancient Haemovore the last survivor of a pollution-ravaged future Earth, who has been brought back in time by Fenric - an immensely powerful sentient force that was at least as old as the universe itself and an intelligence of pure evil. He would drive the vampiric creatures away by using his faith - by chanting the names of his former companions, the Doctor's Faith forms a psychic barrier that the Haemovores cannot penetrate, causing them to scream and retreat. In a scene in the Tenth Doctor story "Smith and Jones", Florence Finnegan - the alias of a Plasmavore fugitive - was hiding from the Judoon in the Royal Hope Hospital. Whilst in a room with Dr. B. Stoker (the head of the hospital and an obvious reference to Bram Stoker - the author of Dracula), she asks her minions to hold him while she uses a stripy bendy straw to drink his blood. Finally, a very prominent vampire story occurred very recently in the Eleventh Doctor story "The Vampires of Venice" (pictured). When Amy tries to seduce the Doctor, he takes her and her fiancé Rory on a romantic trip to 1580s Venice in order to make her focus on him. Upon their arrival, the city's patron, Signora Rosanna Calvierri, claims that the Black Plague is running rampant outside of Venice. However, the Doctor knows this to be untrue and that it appears she is using the plague as an excuse to seal off the city for some reason. That reason becomes clear when the Doctor questions Calvierri and she confirms that she and many other beings in Venice are Saturnynians - a race of aquatic beings with vampire-like tendencies from the planet Saturnyn who are assuming human form, living as wolves amongst the sheep, so to speak. She and the others landed on Earth after seeing the cracks in the universe and, along with her son Francesco, they intend to use a device that will sink the city under the water and convert humans into "Sisters of the Water" in order to continue their race. The Doctor stops the device before it gets the chance to do that and defeats Calvierri and her evil allies, as he tends to do. So there you have it; Five classic Universal Monsters (in various forms) that the Doctor has faced. Can you think of any more? Let us know in the comments box below. And please feel free to follow me on
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