The Stones of Blood is a
serial in the
BritishThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
science fiction television series
Doctor WhoDoctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a mysterious alien time-traveller known as "the Doctor" who travels in his space and time-ship, the TARDIS, which normally appears from the exterior to be a blue 1950s police box...
, which was first broadcast in four weekly parts from October 28 to November 18, 1978. This was the 100th story of the series.
Searching for the third segment to the Key to Time brings the
DoctorThe Doctor is the central character in the long-running BBC television science-fiction series Doctor Who, and also features in a vast range of spin-off novels, audio dramas and comic strips connected to the series....
and
RomanaRomana, short for Romanadvoratrelundar, is a fictional character in the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who...
to 1970's
EarthEarth is the third planet from the Sun. It is the fifth largest of the eight planets in the solar system, and the largest of the terrestrial planets in the Solar System in terms of diameter, mass and density...
, where the travellers have to contend with stone circles, Druidic rituals, and a not-so-mythical goddess known as the Cailleach.
The Doctor and
RomanaRomana, short for Romanadvoratrelundar, is a fictional character in the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who...
, after
finding another partThe Pirate Planet is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four weekly parts from September 30 to October 21, 1978. It forms the second serial of The Key to Time...
are about to embark in search of the third segment of the Key to Time when an aural warning tells them to "Beware the Black Guardian." At this prompt the Doctor reveals Romana was not sent on this quest by the President of the
Time LordThe Time Lords are a fictional extraterrestrial race and civilization in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, of which the series' main character, the Doctor, is a member...
s, but rather by the omni-powerful White Guardian, who wishes them to gather the Key to maintain galactic stability.
The Stones of Blood is a
serial in the
BritishThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
science fiction television series
Doctor WhoDoctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a mysterious alien time-traveller known as "the Doctor" who travels in his space and time-ship, the TARDIS, which normally appears from the exterior to be a blue 1950s police box...
, which was first broadcast in four weekly parts from October 28 to November 18, 1978. This was the 100th story of the series.
Synopsis
Searching for the third segment to the Key to Time brings the
DoctorThe Doctor is the central character in the long-running BBC television science-fiction series Doctor Who, and also features in a vast range of spin-off novels, audio dramas and comic strips connected to the series....
and
RomanaRomana, short for Romanadvoratrelundar, is a fictional character in the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who...
to 1970's
EarthEarth is the third planet from the Sun. It is the fifth largest of the eight planets in the solar system, and the largest of the terrestrial planets in the Solar System in terms of diameter, mass and density...
, where the travellers have to contend with stone circles, Druidic rituals, and a not-so-mythical goddess known as the Cailleach.
Plot
The Doctor and
RomanaRomana, short for Romanadvoratrelundar, is a fictional character in the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who...
, after
finding another partThe Pirate Planet is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four weekly parts from September 30 to October 21, 1978. It forms the second serial of The Key to Time...
are about to embark in search of the third segment of the Key to Time when an aural warning tells them to "Beware the Black Guardian." At this prompt the Doctor reveals Romana was not sent on this quest by the President of the
Time LordThe Time Lords are a fictional extraterrestrial race and civilization in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, of which the series' main character, the Doctor, is a member...
s, but rather by the omni-powerful White Guardian, who wishes them to gather the Key to maintain galactic stability. They venture outside to find themselves near the Nine Travellers, a group of gromlech or
standing stoneStanding stones, orthostats, liths or more commonly, megaliths because of their large and cumbersome size, are solitary stones set vertically in the ground and come in many different varieties. Where they appear in groups together, often in a circular, oval, or horseshoe formation, or henge. They...
s in Boscombe Moor,
CornwallCornwall is a county of England in the United Kingdom, forming the tip of the south-western peninsula of Great Britain. It is bordered to the north and west by the Atlantic Ocean, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Taken with the...
. Also interested in the location is aged archaeologist, Professor Amelia Rumford, who is surveying the stones along with her friend, Vivien Fay.
Alerted to the activities of a local druidic sect, the Doctor heads off to meet its implied leader, de Vries, who lives in a large property nearby, Boscombe Hall, built on the site of the Convent of the Sisters of St Gudula. Inside, de Vries and his maid Martha are incanting to the
CailleachIn Irish and Scottish mythology, the , also known as the Cailleach Bheur, is a divine hag, a creatrix, and possibly an ancestral deity or deified ancestor...
, the
DruidA druid was a member of the priestly and learned class active in Gaul, and perhaps in Celtic culture more generally, during the final centuries BCE...
ic goddess of war and magic. The Doctor interrupts and is entertained briefly by de Vries until his host sees the opportunity to knock him out. De Vries and his mistress, dressed in a hideous bird costume, aim to sacrifice him to the Cailleach, but are disturbed by Professor Rumford, who helps the Doctor get free.
At the same time Romana is wandering by the cliff edge when an apparition of the Doctor confronts her and she nearly falls over the edge. When the real Doctor saves her she is somewhat confused, but the newly arrived
K-9K-9, or K9, is the name of several fictional robotic dogs in the long-running British science fiction television series, Doctor Who, and its spin-off series, The Sarah Jane Adventures. There have been at least four separate K-9 units in the series, with the first two being companions of the Fourth...
calms her by assuring Romana it is indeed the Doctor – and he is convinced of the existence of a projected doppelganger. He determines that de Vries can answer some questions, and sets off for Boscombe Hall. When he gets there he finds the owner and his maid dead, crushed to death and the place under attack by a pair of mobile giant stones like those from the Moor. The Doctor and K-9 repel the attack, though the robot is badly damaged and needs repair work in the TARDIS. Some more curious facts come to life: the Doctor works out that the stones are depend on globulin and therefore need blood to survive; and Romana has pieced together that the owners of the Hall and the preceding convent were all women. It soon becomes clear they all had the same face too – that of Vivien Fay.
Meanwhile the woman in the bird costume has brought more stones (or Ogri, as she calls them) to life using poured blood. Romana ventures back to the stone circle and there finds Miss Fay in the costume. When challenged, she fires a weapon at Romana which sends her to
hyperspaceHyperspace is a plot device sometimes used in science fiction. It is typically described as an alternate region of space co-existing with our own universe which may be entered using an energy field or other device...
. After destroying one of the stones which is pursuing them, the Doctor and Professor Rumford reach the stone circle they are told by Miss Fay that Romana will be safe providing the Doctor stops interfering, and then disappears. The Doctor now identifies the stones as Ogri, a life form from Ogros in the Tau Ceti system, and there are two of them still missing and moving around the countryside. Two innocent campers help quench their taste for blood.
The Doctor calculates Romana and her captor must be in hyperspace, and builds a projecting device which he uses to transmit himself there. He arrives on a hyperspace craft which appears to be a prison vessel. He soon breaks a lock on a sealed door, releasing two floating globes. They are Megara, justice machines - dispensing the law as judge, jury and executioner. They contend that as the Doctor broke the seals he has transgressed the law and should be eliminated.
K-9 and Amelia have meanwhile been tasked with protecting the projector used by the Doctor to cross the dimensions, but find themselves under attack from two of the Ogri. Vivien returns to Earth and destroys the device but spares her friend. She takes the Ogri back to the hyperspace vessel with her and there tells the Doctor and Romana she has destroyed their linking device between the dimensions, leaving them trapped in hyperspace though she, with her wand, can cross the dimensions easily. The Megara destroy one of the Ogri when it threatens them.
The Doctor now faces trial by the Megara, an abrupt and unfair process dependent on the word but not the spirit of the law. Conducting his own defence, he attempts to draw Vivien Fay into the trial and to get the Megara to subject her to truth indicators, surmising she is one of the criminals from the prison ship. He finds out that one of the prisoners the ship was carrying is Cessair of Diplos, a criminal wanted for murder and the removal and misuse of the Great Seal of Diplos, which had the powers of transmutation, transformation, and the establishing of hyper spatial and temporal coordinates.
Amelia and K-9 have meanwhile repaired the projector and use the device to beam Romana back from the hyperspace vessel – plus the one surviving Ogri, which pursues them. They find some incriminating data at Miss Fay’s cottage and then Romana and the Ogri return to the spacecraft to await the verdict.
At the close of his trial, the Doctor is convicted and the Megara fire executing beams at him. He quickly drags Vivien into the beams’ focus, forcing the Megara to examine her to see if she is badly hurt. On doing so they find that she is indeed Cessair of Diplos. She is charged with her crimes when she awakes and the last Ogri is confined in a cell aboard ship to be returned to its own planet. Cessair is sentenced to confinement for 1500 years and perpetual imprisonment, both to run consecutively, and is turned into stone on Boscawen Moor.
After further questioning by the Megara on the matter of his delayed execution, the Doctor, K-9 and Romana return to the TARDIS, thanking Amelia for her great assistance. As he suspected the Great Seal of Diplos – removed from the Cessair’s neck before she was turned to stone - is the third segment of the Key to Time and he translates it to its proper form, and it leads to the
next part of the storyThe Androids of Tara is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four weekly parts from November 25 to December 16, 1978.-Synopsis:...
.
Cast notes
- Director Darrol Blake originally offered the role of Vivien to Honor Blackman
Honor Blackman is an English actress, who is perhaps best known for the roles of Cathy Gale in The Avengers and as Bond girl Pussy Galore in Goldfinger.-Early life:...
, who declined the part as she felt Beatrix Lehmann had all the best material. Blake then asked Maria AitkenMaria Aitken is an English actress and director.Aitken was born in Dublin, the daughter of Sir William Aitken, a Conservative MP, and socialite Penelope Aitken, whose father was John Maffey, 1st Baron Rugby. She is a great-niece of newspaper magnate and war-time minister Lord Beaverbrook. She...
, who wasn't interested. Susan Engel was finally hired for the part. Blackman would later appear in the Sixth DoctorThe Sixth Doctor is the name given to the sixth incarnation of the fictional character known as the Doctor, seen on screen in the long-running BBC television science-fiction series Doctor Who. He was portrayed by actor Colin Baker, and briefly by Sylvester McCoy during the Sixth Doctor's...
serial Terror of the VervoidsTerror of the Vervoids is the title commonly used for a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four weekly parts from November 1 to November 22, 1986. It is part of the larger narrative known as The Trial of a Time Lord, emcompassing the...
(1986).
- Gerald Cross
Gerald Cross , was an English actor. Among his credits are Doctor Who, Francis Durbridge's The World of Tim Frazer and the Miss Marple films Murder, She Said and Murder Ahoy....
also provided the voice of the White GuardianThe White Guardian is a character in the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. He was played by Cyril Luckham, with the exception of a vocal message in The Stones of Blood which was performed by Gerald Cross....
, uncredited.
Continuity
- This is the third of six linked serials that comprise the whole of Season 16, known collectively as The Key to Time.
- The cells on the Cessair's ship contain a dead Wirrn (The Ark in Space
The Ark in Space is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four weekly parts from January 25 to February 15, 1975. It featured Tom Baker as the fourth incarnation of the Doctor.-Part one:...
) and the skeletonIn biology, a skeleton is a rigid framework that provides protection and structure in many types of animal, particularly those of the phylum Chordata and of the superphylum Ecdysozoa. Exoskeletons are external, as is typical of many invertebrates; they enclose the soft tissues and organs of the...
of a Kraal android (The Android InvasionThe Android Invasion is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four weekly parts from November 22 to December 13, 1975-Synopsis:...
).
Production
- Working titles for this story included The Nine Maidens and "The Stones of Time".
- The exteriors of this story were filmed on location at the Rollright Stones
The Rollright Stones are a complex of megalithic oolitic limestone monuments near the villages of Long Compton, Great Rollright and Little Rollright in England, lying across the present county border between the counties of Oxfordshire and Warwickshire . The complex consists of three separate...
, a real megalithic site in central England. An actual legend of the site states that it is impossible to count the stones. As the serial ends, the Doctor notes that the number of stones in the circle has changed (due to the removal of 3 Ogri and the addition of Cessair's imprisoned form) and suggests Dr. Rumford write a monograph about it.
- The fifteenth anniversary of the programme took place on 23 November 1978, five days after the broadcast of episode four. To commemorate this, Anthony Read asked David Fisher to write a new scene (expanded by Darrol Blake) featuring Romana and K-9 surprising the Doctor with a cake celebrating his 751st birthday (and a new, identical scarf). However, producer Graham Williams vetoed this idea as being too self-indulgent, and the scene was never shot. Blake had already ordered a cake, and this was eventually eaten by the cast and crew. This was also the 100th serial.
- This was the one of only two stories between Frontier in Space
Frontier in Space is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in six weekly parts from February 24 to March 31, 1973...
and the end of the series' initial run not to have the special sounds created by Dick MillsDick Mills is a British sound engineer, specialising in electronic sound effects which he produced at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop....
. Due to Mills suffering a brief illness, Elizabeth Parker provided the sound effects instead.
- The first episode cliff-hanger called for a scene in which Cessair, disguised as the Doctor, pushed Romana off the cliff. Baker objected to the scene, as he felt it would be very upsetting to children. Instead the scene was filmed so that the viewer never sees who pushed Romana.
- When the Doctor and Amelia are first chased by the Ogri, two crew-members are quite clearly visible in the doorway manipulating the creature. One appears in the right side of the doorway just after the Ogri enters, the other can be glimpsed behind the Ogri itself, pushing it forward. In addition, in part four a boom mike can be seen at the top of the screen while Romana was searching Cessair's cabin.
Outside references
- In addition to Cessair posing as a goddess, both her real name and her assumed identity come from Celtic mythology
Celtic mythology is the mythology of Celtic polytheism, apparently the religion of the Iron Age Celts. Like other Iron Age Europeans, the early Celts maintained a polytheistic mythology and religious structure...
. CessairIn Irish mythology, Cessair was the leader of the first inhabitants of Ireland before the Biblical Flood, in what may be a Christianisation of a legend that pre-dates the conversion, but may alternatively be the product of post-conversion pseudohistory.She was daughter of Noah's son Bith and his...
is a heroine in the mythology of Ireland, and Vivien Fay suggests Viviane and Morgan le FayMorgan le Fay, alternatively known as Morgane, Morgaine, Morgana and other variants, is a powerful sorceress in the Arthurian legend. Early works featuring Morgan do not elaborate her character beyond her role as a fay or magician...
, both from Arthurian legend. Emphasising this, one of Cessair's previous identities is "Lady Morgana Montcalm".
- The Doctor refers to the Ogri as Gog and Magog, and also links their name to the word ogre
An ogre is a large, cruel and hideous humanoid monster, featured in mythology, folklore and fiction. Ogres are often depicted in fairy tales and no folklore as feeding on human beings, and have appeared in many classic works of literature. In art, ogres are often depicted with a large head,...
.
- When the Doctor says "Nobody home except us druids" he is referencing the popular Louis Jordan song "Ain't Nobody Here But Us Chickens."
- The Doctor claims to have met John Aubrey
John Aubrey was an English antiquary and writer, best known as the author of the collection of short biographical pieces usually referred to as Brief Lives and as the discoverer of the Aubrey holes in Stonehenge....
, who first suggested stone circles were connected to druids, saying Aubrey invented druidism as a joke.
- At one point, Amelia says "I'm an archaeologist, not an engineer." This seems to reference Doctor McCoy's popular "I'm a doctor, not a/n [insert profession here]" catchphrase in Star Trek
Star Trek is an American science fiction entertainment series.The original Star Trek was an American television series, created by Gene Roddenberry, which debuted in 1966 and ran for three seasons, following the interstellar adventures of Captain James T. Kirk and the crew of the Federation...
.
In print
A novelisation of this serial, written by
Terrance DicksTerrance Dicks is an English writer, best known for his work in television and for writing a large number of popular children's books during the 1970s and 80s....
, was published by
Target BooksTarget Books was a British publishing imprint, established in 1973 by Universal-Tandem Publishing Co Ltd, a paperback publishing company. The imprint was established as a children's imprint to complement the adult Tandem imprint, and became well known for their highly successful range of...
in March 1980.
Broadcast, VHS and DVD releases
- This story was released on VHS
Video Home System, better known by its abbreviation VHS, was a video tape recording standard developed during the 1970s. It was released to the public during the latter half of the decade. During the late part of the 1970s and the early 1980s it formed one-half of the VHS vs Betamax war, which it...
in May 1995. This release contained an extended cut of episode two, which featured a longer exchange between de Vries and his mistress before they were attacked by the Ogri. This scene had been removed from the UK broadcast of the story because of concerns about its presentation of adults consumed by terror. The scene is contained in full in the deleted scenes package on the later dvd release, which contains the episode as televised.
- This serial, along with the rest of season sixteen, was released in North America as part of the Key to Time box set which was released on region 2 DVD on September 24, 2007.
- The UK DVD release included a number of special features, including Getting Blood from the Stones, a retrospective documentary including interviews with David Fisher
David Fisher is a writer for television. He was born in 1929.He wrote the scripts for four serials of Doctor Who. He first contributed The Stones of Blood and The Androids of Tara during that show's sixteenth season, and The Creature from the Pit for the seventeenth season...
, Darrol Blake, Mary TammMary Tamm is an English actress. She is best known for being the first actress to play the character of Romana in the science fiction television series Doctor Who, opposite Tom Baker as the Doctor, from the 1978 - 1979 season known collectively as The Key to Time...
, John LeesonJohn Leeson is a British actor who although having had a varied stage and television career spanning forty years including both work in repertory and West End productions including "Plaza Suite" ; "Flint" and "Don't Start Without Me" and character work across a wide range of 1970s television...
, Susan EngelSusan Engel is a British actress.-Theatre:Engel's work in theatre includes: Angels in America , Richard III, King Lear , The Good Person of Sezuan, Watch on the Rhine , Spring Awakening, The Hour We Knew Nothing Of Each Other and Her Naked Skin at the National Theatre, London; Women...
, Mat IrvineMat Irvine was born on 7 July 1948. He was a Technical Consultant and Visual Effects Designer who worked on television, primarily for the BBC, from the 1970s to the 1990s....
and others, produced by Ed StradlingEd Stradling , is a freelance TV/video producer/director, whose most notable work is The Doctor Who Years, a series of three webcast programmes commissioned by the BBC to coincide with the return of the famous science-fiction series in 2005.- Documentaries :Stradling has also produced over a dozen...
. Other features included a look at Hammer Horror influences in the show, and Stones Free, in which Mary TammMary Tamm is an English actress. She is best known for being the first actress to play the character of Romana in the science fiction television series Doctor Who, opposite Tom Baker as the Doctor, from the 1978 - 1979 season known collectively as The Key to Time...
returned to the Rollright Stones location.
Target novelisation