About 
Crunchyroll's big Anime Expo announcements include the return of Black Clover, a new anime from the creator of Fullmetal Alchemist, and more!
Posted in: Audio Dramas, BBC, Doctor Who, Review, TV | Tagged: big finish, doctor who
Doctor Who: "Vampire Weekend" All About The Doctor & Yaz's Chemistry
Big Finish's Doctor Who: Vampire Weekend sees Jodie Whittaker and Mandip Gill going "Mork & Mindy" in this winning new audio adventure.
Article Summary
- Big Finish's Doctor Who: Vampire Weekend reunites Jodie Whittaker and Mandip Gill for new audio adventures.
- The story follows Yaz's awkward hen-do as the Doctor crashes the party, leading to comic chaos and alien threats.
- Whittaker and Gill shine with lively, "Mork & Mindy"-style chemistry, delivering the era's best character dynamic.
- Vampire Weekend gives fans the Thirteenth Doctor season dynamic they always wanted, with humor and heart.
We're at the stage in Doctor Who where fans are caught between exhaustion at the past season's flaws and nervous anticipation over what comes next, like when there will be another season on television. What to do? Why not go travel back to a happier time, time travel, as it were, to back when the show was on more solid footing. Let's revisit the Thirteenth Doctor and the time she was traveling with Yaz after Graham and Ryan left. Let's check out "Vampire Weekend", the first audio drama from Big Finish that reunited Jodie Whittaker and Mandip Gill in the "lost" season before their final season, "Flux."
"Vampire Weekend" serves as a pilot for the Thirteenth Doctor and Yaz season. Yaz hasn't seen The Doctor for a while and is trying to convince herself that normal life with her family and friends is as important and as much of an adventure as traveling through Space and Time. Maybe that's why she decides to throw herself into the stressful adventure of going to her friend Gina's hen-do weekend in the Lake District. Gina is one step away from going full Bridezilla if nothing goes right. And the gang wants to know what kind of adventures Yaz had been on when she mysteriously disappeared for months on end. Then Yaz's worst nightmare and best dream happens – The Doctor shows up uninvited as her plus-one, and chaos immediately ensues, starting with a whole pack of hens she brought with her because she took the term "hen party" just a bit too literally. Then things go from cringe to worse when an alien menace starts attacking the hotel, and it becomes one of those adventures where the Doctor and a bunch of people are under siege, but this time it's a resort hotel instead of another space station or a 19th-century lighthouse.
Doctor Who as a Female "Mork & Mindy" – And That's a Good Thing!
Doctor Who: Vampire Weekend establishes the main appeal that the rest of the upcoming Thirteenth Doctor adventures from Big Finish will continue: the comic chemistry between Jodie Whittaker and Mandip Gill. That's what the heart of the series should have been all along. Without the Graham and Ryan soap opera, which bored the hell out of some of us, we get what we should have been getting all along: how wacky this Doctor is. Whittaker's zaniness has a unique flavour different from David Tennant and Matt Smith. Her bizarro puppy dog act that drives Yaz to embarrassed distraction feels like a remake of Mork & Mindy fighting bad guys. Even when the writing gets a bit ropey, the comedy duo dynamic between the two, with Yaz as the straight man, never gets old. A procedural plot that doesn't involve the universe ending and involves more character interplay is the magic formula that we should have had throughout the Thirteenth Doctor's era, which is finally realised in these Big Finish audio dramas. "Vampire Weekend" feels like the beginning of a lost season that should have existed all along. If Big Finish stories are comfort food, producing what Whittaker's stories should have been like all along, then this is as good as it gets, and possibly better and funnier than the TV version.
Doctor Who: Vampire Weekend is out in July 2025.
Doctor Who: Vampire Weekend
8.5/10
Big Finish's Doctor Who: Vampire Weekend reunites Jodie Whittaker and Mandip Gill in new audio dramas that feel like a female "Mork and Mindy" in the best ways possible. More important, it vibes like that was what the original television version of Whittaker's era should have been all along with Whittaker's zany humour and Glll playing the "straight man," carrying us through for the best kind of "comfort food" programming we can possibly get.
Enjoyed this? Please share on social media!
Stay up-to-date and support the site by following Bleeding Cool on Google News today!
