Mary Shelley, Frankenstein and the Doctor

In this week's episode of Doctor Who, "The Haunting of Vila Diodati", the Doctor and her companions Yaz, Ryan and Graham will meet legendary author Mary Shelley, writer of the novel "Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus". Only, this isn't the first time that the Doctor has met Mary Shelley, nor is it the first time that they've been involved in adventures inspired by Shelley's seminal novel. Join me as I take a look through all these references and off-screen adventures to show that, far from being the first time they will meet, Doctor Who has a long history with one of the founding figures of science fiction!

The CD cover for "The Silver Turk", one of the Big Finish
adventures with Mary Shelley (Julie Cox) as the Eighth
Doctor's (Paul McGann) companion. Cover designed by Alex
Mallinson.

To start with, this isn't the first time that the Doctor has met Mary Shelley: the Eighth Doctor (Paul McGann) has a long history with the horror novelist. Back in 2001, an innocuous comment in the very first Paul McGann audio adventure from Big Finish Productions, "Storm Warning", lead to a whole off-screen narrative being created by fans, implying that the Doctor knew Mary Shelley. More references in 2002's "Neverland" and 2003's "Shada" added to the mystery surrounding this meeting between the Doctor and the founder of Gothic horror fiction. Finally, in 2009, we got the long-awaited meeting between the two, as part of "The Company of Friends" anthology collection. In the episode entitled "Mary's Story", Mary comes across the Doctor after his TARDIS has been struck by vitreous time, and cares for him while he attempts to recover. Percy Shelley, however, decides to experiment upon him after it appears he has died, using lightning to bring him back to life. However, the process turns him into a crazed monster, unable to control his actions. Just in time, however, a earlier version of the Eighth Doctor arrives near Lake Geneva, in response to a distress call his future self sent before his crash. The earlier Doctor is able to heal his future self's TARDIS, and, in the process, his future self. He then offers Mary the opportunity to travel with him, an offer she accepts. This story is then followed up in three further adventures in 2011: "The Silver Turk", "The Witch from the Well" and "Army of Death". "The Silver Turk" sees the Doctor and Mary encountering the original Cybermen from Mondas in 18th Century Vienna, who are desperately scavenging to survive after crashing on Earth. "The Witch from the Well" splits the Doctor and Mary across two time periods: the 17th Century village of Trenchard's Fell and the house of Trenchard's Folly in the 21st Century. Here, Mary meets a man who knew all about her, and she finds out details about her future, in particular her relationship with Percy Shelley and Lord Byron. Finally, in "Army of Death", she and the Doctor arrive on the planet Draxine, where an army of skeletons are marching on the city of Stronghaven, controlled by a being known as the Bone Lord. At the end of this story, Mary instructs the Doctor to return her to Earth, fearing his other companion, death, would befall her. While their eventually parting has remained undocumented, we must assume that she eventually returned to her own time, so the Eighth Doctor could go on to meet companion Charlotte Pollard. Aside from a cameo appearance in the 2015 Twelfth Doctor novel "Big Bang Generation", Mary hasn't been seen in any adventures since. However, in the 1995 Virgin Missing Adventure novel "Managra", the Fourth Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith did find themselves on a planet called Europa, which featured a facsimile copy of Mary Shelley, in a world inspired by the varied past of Europe.

The First Doctor (William Hartnell) finds himself surrounded
by Count Dracula (Malcolm Rodgers) and Frankenstein
(John Maxim) in a promotional picture for "The Chase." 

But that isn't the end of Doctor Who's association with Mary Shelley. Quite the opposite, in fact. The Doctor's meetings with the author are just part of a varied tapestry of adventures inspired by, or featuring elements and echoes of, her work. The novel "Frankenstein" has been referenced a number of times in the show, both directly and indirectly, stretching back to the 1965 TV story "The Chase". In a segment of that story, the First Doctor, Ian, Barbara and Vicki, on the run from the Daleks, arrive in a seemingly haunted house, featuring such horrors as Dracula, the ghost of the Grey Lady and Frankenstein's monster (although inspired more by the 1931 film version than that of the novel). These were all, as it was revealed later, robots for a fairground attraction, however the Doctor, the companions and the Daleks were not privy to this information. In the 1996 TV Movie, the same 1931 film is being watched by morgue attendant Pete as the Seventh Doctor regenerates into the Eighth, having seemingly died some hours earlier at the hands of Dr Grace Holloway. Several parallels are drawn between the scene of the monster's creation (being watched by Pete at the time) and the Doctor's regeneration, including the lightning effect, the hand twitches and the cry of "he's alive!" as the Doctor sits up. Several, smaller, references have been made to both the novel and the film throughout the show's history, especially related to the character of Luke Smith from the TV spin-off series The Sarah Jane Adventures. Being created by the Bane, Luke's origin was similar to that of Victor Frankenstein's creation, and several characters, including Clyde Langer and Alan Jackson, commented upon the similarities. Other references have included it being the novel that helps Judoon captain Kybo learn to read English in the Big Finish audio "Judoon in Chains", the Tenth Doctor referring to a character as like Frankenstein in the novel "Sick Building", Tegan Jovanka commenting that a building in the Big Finish audio "Psychodrome" looked like Frankenstein's castle, and Big Finish companion Hex Schofield remarking that a laboratory looked a lot like Frankenstein's in the audio drama "The Harvest".

The clean DVD cover artwork for "The Brain of Morbius",
designed by Clayton Hickman.

Outside of the fiction of Doctor Who, "Frankenstein" has had its part to play in inspiring the show's stories. Most of the Gothic horror of the Philip Hinchcliffe era can trace its origins back to "Frankenstein", the most notable example being, of course, "The Brain of Morbius" from 1976. When the Fourth Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith are dragged to the planet Karn by the Time Lords, the pair find that deranged scientist Solon is attempting to create a new body for the brain of Time Lord criminal Morbius. When composing the story, producer Philip Hinchcliffe and script editor Robert Holmes drew direct inspiration from "Frankenstein": both the Shelley novel and the 1931 film of the same name. Originally, Holmes asked writer Terrence Dicks to come up with a story involving a robot trying to create a new body for their master. However, as the story developed, Holmes wanted something that hewed closer to the original novel, and found that the robot would have been too costly to realise. Dicks, however, was unhappy with the changes, and decided he wanted his name taken off the project. He infamously said that the story should be credited to some bland pseudonym, and so it ended up credited to 'Robin Bland'. The story ends up being the show's closest homage to "Frankenstein", with Morbius the perfect embodiment of the monster role, while Solon (played by Who legend Philip Madoc) makes for a far more chilling opponent than Victor Frankenstein. The characters of Condo and the Sisterhood of Karn are inspired more by the Universal film than the novel, but make for excellent detail all the same. The Gothic tone, combined with the phenomenal performances of Tom Baker and Elisabeth Sladen, make for one of Doctor Who's best ever stories, and all based off of one horror novel. Other stories that have been inspired by "Frankenstein" include The War Master story "The Sky Man", the Cyberman genesis stories "Spare Parts" and "Rise of the Cybemen/The Age of Steel" and the I Davros mini-series from Big Finish. Another link Doctor Who and "Frankenstein" share is actor Peter Cushing, who has played both the Doctor and Frankenstein on screen, while the script for the Twelfth Doctor's debut story, "Deep Breath", makes reference to the Half-Face Man and the escape pod looking like things from "Frankenstein". And several Doctor Who monsters, including the Daleks, the Cybermen, the Clockwork Droids, the Voc Robots, the Sontarans, the Ice Warriors, the Flesh and the Kandyman among others, all deal with the issues surrounding the creation of life by human (or even alien) hands, which is a key theme of the novel.

As one of the founders of both the Gothic horror genre and the science fiction genre, "Frankenstein", and its author Mary Shelley have had a influence upon TV's longest-running science fiction show. From Mary's appearances alongside the Eighth Doctor, to her novel's legacy on the show both in front of and behind the cameras, she casts a long shadow over the programme, and so it only seems right that she, at long last, gets the chance to star in an episode of the TV show itself. I can't wait to see what "The Haunting of Vila Diodati" has in store for the Doctor, her friends and Mary Shelley! Will we see another take on the inspiration for "Frankenstein"? Will the Cybermen feature? Will Mary get to see the inside of the TARDIS? We only have to wait a few days to find out!

The Doctor (Jodie Whittaker), sitting in the bedroom of Mary Shelley in a promotional photo for "The Haunting of Vila Diodati".

All pictures copyright to the BBC, BBC Studios and Big Finish Productions. Thank you very much for reading.