Doctor Who: “Vampire Weekend” Review – A Confident Invitation to Revisit Thirteen

Reviewed by Gustaff Behr.

Yaz’s friend, Zoya, has booked a sprawling country manor for a weekend hen party for their mate, Gina, who’s getting married soon. Yaz is there to unwind, but she’s suspiciously quiet on her travels lately. Here to make sure her weekend is anything but unwinding is the Doctor, who arrives unannounced, carrying two chickens named Ian and Barbara. Before the prosecco can even flow, one of the hen-do guests is bitten by some kind of vampiric creature. What follows is a sharp, comedic mystery in the style of a Cluedo-style horror with funny one-liners, tension, and a little much-needed character development all squeezed into fifty minutes.

Doctor Who fans often view the show through rose-tinted glasses, overlooking the flaws of their favourite incarnations or pretending the rough patches never happened. Cold hard truths, but Colin Baker was fired from the role, many of the classic Doctors were often static in characterization with minimal development, and Paul McGann is a fan-favourite today not because of his one-off TV movie, but thanks to the rich expansion of his Doctor in Big Finish audios and the novels of the Wilderness Years.

Then there’s Jodie Whittaker, the first woman to be cast as the Doctor, a decision that was always going to be divisive, no matter how well-executed. Unfortunately it was far from well-executed, with her era hamstrung by a number of factors. From the outset, she faced backlash not only from those uncomfortable with a female Doctor, but also from long-time fans who felt that many of the scripts leaned too heavily into clumsy social commentary, copious amounts of exposition or were simply mundane. Add to that the controversial Fugitive Doctor overshadowing her occasionally, and the Timeless Child retcon unravelling decades of established lore, and it’s no wonder her era left many feeling cold (myself included).

And yet, of all the Doctor Who releases I’ve been anticipating this year, none has excited me more than Jodie Whittaker’s return to the role under the creative direction of Big Finish. With their strong track record of character-driven storytelling and a deeper understanding of what makes the Doctor tick, this feels like her true second chance.

Sharp Dialogue, Strong Structure

Kudos to writer Tim Foley for managing to juggle more than half a dozen characters across just fifty minutes. That might not sound like a tall order, but it absolutely is. One character even jokes about using name tags just to keep track of everyone. By the end of the story, I genuinely felt like I had a solid grasp of the entire cast. But the real focus is on two characters: Yaz, who despite four years on screen, was given frustratingly little character development, and the Thirteenth Doctor, who, much like the Sixth before her, was let down by uneven scripts numerous times. So, the question is: how does “Vampire Weekend” handle them?

Short answer: Surprisingly well.
Long answer: No, it’s not “Heaven Sent”, but that was never the goal.

Emotion, Wit and the Right Balance

The goal here is to make audiences “want” to give Yaz and the Doctor another chance, and this script absolutely achieves that. It’s whimsical like “Partners in Crime”, fun like “The Unicorn and the Wasp”… in short, it’s exactly what Doctor Who is meant to be on a normal day: a fun, clever escape.

But Foley goes beyond just trimming the exposition (something the TV series struggled with). He gives Yaz actual emotional weight. Over the course of this single episode, we explore how travelling with the Doctor has quietly eroded her personal relationships. Yaz has grown distant from her old friends, not intentionally, but inevitably. Friendships are like gardens: neglect them and they wither. This theme has been touched on before, notably in “The Caretaker” and “Last Christmas”, but “Vampire Weekend” finds a rare balance between emotional depth, breezy fun, and a compelling plot. Yaz even briefly ponders leaving the Doctor behind to pursue a more grounded life.

Foley also deserves praise for toning down Thirteen’s exaggerated mannerisms, which made it hard to take her seriously at times on TV. This portrayal feels closer to her stronger moments like in “The Haunting of Villa Diodati”. The eccentricity is still there, but it’s tempered, much like how Big Finish softened and refined the Sixth Doctor’s bombast.

Layers of the Doctor

The script also dares to dig into why Thirteen keeps her companions at arm’s length. In a moment of vulnerability, bitten and disoriented, she confesses that there’s “so much she wants to forget.” It’s a small but striking line that retroactively reframes much of her distant behaviour throughout the Chibnall era. I’m in two minds over how short this exploration is. On the one hand, we still have eleven more episodes to go, but on the other, it’s such a beautiful scene that I want MORE. If this is the level of introspection Big Finish is bringing to the Thirteenth Doctor going forward, then we may be on the verge of the real golden age of her character.

A New Sound

One of the strangest elements of Jodie Whittaker’s return is the music, oddly enough. This time, the score is provided by Joe Kraemer, and the tonal shift is immediate. It’s bold and lively, but it’s also wildly different from the soundscape crafted by Segun Akinola during Series 11 through 13. So much so, in fact, that there are moments where it feels like we’ve stepped into an entirely different era of Doctor Who. Kraemer’s score is fun, but if you’re expecting the moody, minimalist textures that defined Thirteen’s original TV run, be warned: this is something else entirely. Whether that’s a good or bad thing will depend on how attached you were to the atmosphere of the Chibnall era, but it’s definitely worth noting.

The Missed Beats

It’s not all perfect, though. I had two main issues with “Vampire Weekend”.

The first is the underdeveloped nature of the titular vampire. While this is somewhat justified since the story revolves around the mystery of who among the characters is the vampire, it still feels like a missed opportunity. Once the reveal happens, the vampire functions purely as a narrative device to set up a broader arc for the next eleven episodes. In essence, they’re less of a character and more of a plot mechanism, similar to Prisoner Zero in “The Eleventh Hour”: memorable in concept, but thin on substance.

The second issue is a scene involving one of Yaz’s friends, who is seemingly going through a breakup after coming out as trans. The scene feels tokenistic and disconnected. The conversation is very brief and self-contained, and essentially amounts to “X is trying to get my pronouns right, and I can tell it annoys them.” That thread is never picked up again. Worse, we later find out that the issue was resolved off-screen by the characters talking things out. Which begs the question: why include the moment at all if it’s going to be handled entirely in the margins? If the resolution happens off-screen, it might as well all have happened off-screen.

Final Thoughts

Despite a few missteps, “Vampire Weekend” succeeds where it counts. It offers Jodie Whittaker and Mandip Gill the character work they were too often denied on television. It’s smart, funny, heartfelt, and proof that with the right writers, the Thirteenth Doctor can finally be given the space to shine. If this is any indication of where Big Finish is taking her era, we’re not just revisiting old ground, we’re finally uncovering the potential that was always there. For fans who gave up during the Chibnall years or felt disappointed by how Yaz and Thirteen were handled, this story is a gentle but confident invitation to return. And for those of you who never stopped hoping, it’s a deeply satisfying reminder of why you stuck around.