Staying in E-space, the Doctor and Romana come across a planet with some form of feudal society where a few Lords rule over everything, and always have. When the Doctor discovers evidence of technology far ahead of the current state, the group explore the root of this, only to find powers much greater, and more dangerous, than they expected.
After the 'ideas' of the previous serial, we stay in E-Space for another serial where this next planet seems to be a film set from the 1960's Hammer Horror era. What starts out a bit fusty quickly turns into a solid horror serial as vampires and their overall Lord rules over stolen humans. It takes a bit to get used to this sudden move into campy horror, but it works well apart from it being dated. The stiffness of some of the performances rob it of some horror, but then at the same time the sheer silliness of the plot probably is helped by the cast playing it as straight as could reasonably be expected. The gothic tone is well established by internals and externals, and generally it looks pretty good. It is a bit cheesy perhaps, but it did make the horror work well (or at least well enough for a family show), and in particular the final episode brought it home nicely.
The cast are led well by Baker and Ward; unfortunately they have been joined by one of the weakest of the cast from last time - Waterhouse. He seems to have the range of a cheap Bluetooth headset, and I'm hoping he lasts as long too because he is annoyingly clunky throughout. The villagers and vampires are all decent enough and do well with what they are asked to do. I would have liked to have seen more of the vampire Great One, but effects were limited to a quick look and a big hand I guess.
Enjoyable serial due to the commitment to make the horror element work.