The Doctor, with his usual ability to pick just the wrong place to be at the wrong time, lands his crew in an especially tight spot: Romania in the fifteenth century, between the advancing army of Sultan Mehmed II and the retreating army of Vlad Tepes.
Also known as Dracula.
Now the Doctor, Peri, and Erimem are making their way across a devastated landscape, and discovering a side of history that doesn't welcome interlopers. The Doctor's broad and deep knowledge gets him labelled a spy. Peri's American spunkiness nearly gets her killed. Only when Erimem offers to stay with Vlad does he agree to let them live.
Tropes
- Action Girl: Erimem is ready to start to fight in a war until the Doctor talks her out of it and gets straight out of a direct battle.
- Arrowgram: The Doctor sends a warning to Vlad by tying a piece of parchment to an arrow and firing it through the window of the tower room at Castle Dracula. His shot is so accurate that the arrow snuffs the candle flame he was aiming at.
- Bat Deduction: The Doctor manages to make some deductions without complete data, and is right.
- Been There, Shaped History: Erimem's intervention prevents Vlad Tepes from being killed during The Night Battle.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Apparently the Fifth Doctor was a vital part in rerouting the war against the Transylvanians from the assault of the Turks.
- Call-Back: When Peri asks the Doctor whether or not he's met any actual vampires.. He can't deny it...
- Character Exaggeration: The Doctor implies this is the case for Vladimir Tepes, yet that the Dracula stories somehow still don't do him justice.
- Deadpan Snarker: The Fifth Doctor has a moment or two here.Radu: [gets a blade drawn on the Doctor] Do you know what we do with spies?
The Doctor: Offer him a glass of mint tea and some Turkish delights? - Deliberate Values Dissonance: The Doctor says that Peri is from a nation that isn't used to women "knowing" their place. The Doctor quite literally invokes this trope later on when explaining it to Peri.
- Distressed Dude: The first thing that happens to the Doctor after the intro is the Doctor falling down a pitfall.
- Expecting Someone Taller: the first words out of a terrified and babbling Peri's mouth on being confronted by Vlad the Impaler, a.k.a. Dracula, are "You're shorter than I thought you'd be". Her follow-up lines do not help the situation. (Also a nice bit of Shown Their Work - the only physical description of Vlad we have notes that he was surprisingly short.)
- The Fool: Radu literally thinks Erimem is the owner of the Doctor, as one of these.
- Healing Factor: The Doctor claims to have one, after he gets stabbed in a heart, but due to the fact he's got two his body is capable of repairing the other.
- Historical Domain Character: Radu the Handsome.
- Historical Injoke: The words "The Bride of Dracula" is namedropped.
- I Have Many Names: Peri mocks Vladimir Tepes.Peri: Really, how many names does a guy need!?
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: To be expected in a story dealing with Vlad the Impaler. At one stage the Doctor and Radu stumble in the 'Forest of the Dead' where Vlad impaled 20,000 of his countrymen on stakes.
- Major Injury Underreaction: The Doctor performs one.The Doctor: Peri, did you see that man that just brushed past us?
Peri: Not really, was he someone important?
The Doctor: In a way, I suppose, yes, I don't wish to alarm you, I suspect, in fact I am fairly certain he had a knife.
Peri: A knife?!
The Doctor: Yes, erm, and he, er, just stabbed me in the chest. - Mercy Kill: Radu performs one for a soldier the Doctor is attempting to save. When the Doctor objects, Radu points out that even if the Doctor saves him from blood loss, the wound is poisoned and the man will die a few days hence, and that they do not have the resources to care for him in any case.
- Mistaken for Spies: A recurring theme in the story. Maria accuses Erimem of being a spy for the Sultan (and the letter she is writing to Peri in English of being a secret cypher). Radu accuses the Doctor of being a soy for his brother when he returns to Radu's camp. Vlad accuses Erimem of being a Hungarian agent when Radu's troops are closing in and it becomes obvious that Hungary is not coming to his aid.
- Narrator: Starting off the story in the form of a diary, starting out.
- Screw Destiny: Once the Doctor figures out the correct history and the events, he goes out to change it.
- Sound-Effect Bleep: Peri at one point swears up a storm. ... But is interrupted by cannonfire.
- Stable Time Loop: The Doctor, eventually, is the cause why history wasn't recorded properly for this period of time.
- Title Drop:Victim: It was him... The Son of the Dragon... Dracula!"
- The Doctor:
The Doctor: I brought my friends here, and I'll intend to fight the Son of Dracula himself if I have to. - Vomit Discretion Shot: Peri throws up, but we don't hear it.
- War Is Hell: The moment the Doctor, Peri and Erimem arrive, the first thing they see is a burned village and its impaled inhabitants. Including one who is still alive.
- You Already Changed the Past: The Doctor thinks Erimem has already done this, due to the fact the history of the time they're in weren't properly documented.
