The werewolf is a mythical creature that has had many depictions throughout Earth’s history. However, the Doctor has encountered werewolves many times in Doctor Who and he knows that they are real. Werewolves often have human hosts or forms until a full moon transforms them into beasts. Werewolves then hunt for humans and other animals to devour…

The Greatest Show in the Galaxy

★★★☆☆

TX: 14/12/1988 – 04/01/1989

Written by Stephen Wyatt    Directed by Alan Wareing

The Seventh Doctor takes his companion Ace to the planet Segonax to visit the Psychic Circus. All visitors to the circus are forced to entertain the Gods of Ragnarok. As soon as they stop entertaining the Gods, the unfortunate attendees are destroyed. This includes the Circus’s biggest fan Whizz Kid, a biker called Nord and also Flower Child. The Doctor and Ace meet Mags and the selfish intergalactic explorer Captain Cook. Captain Cook sacrifices the Doctor to the Gods and turns Mags into a werewolf using the Devil Moon effect. But Mags kills Cook instead of the Doctor. With no other entertainment, the family orders the Ringmaster and Morgana to perform, but they fail to entertain and are also killed. Ace and Dead Beat recover his medallion piece from the bus and, once attached, Dead Beat recovers his Kingpin personality. Kingpin helps defeat the Chief Clown and his robots before they return to the circus, only to find the Doctor has again been called to entertain the family. The Doctor has determined that the family are really Gods of Ragnarok, who feed on entertainment and kill those who do not satisfy them. The Doctor instructs Ace and Kingpin to throw Kingpin’s medallion, linked to the dimensional portal that the Gods use, into the energy well while he tries to give them time by performing for them. Ace and Kingpin complete this task just as the Doctor is about to be obliterated; the medallion falls into the ring—as the well was a dimensional portal—and the Doctor uses the medallion to reflect the Gods’ powers back onto them. The Doctor leaves the main tent as it explodes. The Doctor regroups with Ace, Mags, and Kingpin. Kingpin and Mags decide to reclaim the circus and take it to a new planet to start it anew. The Doctor and Ace say their goodbyes.

Tooth and Claw

★★★★☆

TX: 22/04/2006

Written by Russell T Davies    Directed by Euros Lyn

The Tenth Doctor and Rose arrive in Scotland, 1879 where they bump into Queen Victoria on her way to the Torchwood Estate. Unfortunately, the house has been taken over by warrior monks and the owner Sir Robert MacLeish has been blackmailed into doing their bidding. The monks, led by Father Angelo want to unleash a caged werewolf on Queen Victoria, which is being kept in the cellar of the house along with the monks’ prisoners. The werewolf tells Rose and the other prisoners that it will bite Queen Victoria, pass into her blood and begin “the Empire of the Wolf”. The full moon causes the werewolf to transform and break out of the cage. The terrifying creature devours many people in the house. The Doctor, Rose, the Queen and Sir Robert hide in the estate’s library, which has been coated in mistletoe to repel the werewolf. Sir Robert’s father studied the beast for years and the books in the library reveal that the wolf is a parasitic alien that fell to Earth in a meteorite, inhabiting host after host over the centuries since. The Doctor also realises that Sir Robert’s father designed the estate as a trap for the werewolf. The estate has a strange telescope, which when used with the Queen’s Koh-i-Noor diamond, its cut fashioned by Prince Albert, can be used to destroy the werewolf. The telescope in this story is later glimpsed by Clara inside the TARDIS in Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS. Sir Robert sacrifices himself to allow the Doctor, Rose and the Queen to prepare the telescope in the Observatory. The werewolf breaks in but the Doctor and Rose use the telescope to kill the werewolf with the concentrated light of the full moon collected by the diamond. The Doctor asks Queen Victoria if the werewolf bit her but she is reluctant to answer. Queen Victoria knights the Doctor and Rose before banishing them. After the time travellers leave, Queen Victoria tells Sir Robert’s grieving widow that she will establish an institute to investigate extraterrestrial threats to Great Britain. The Queen names it the Torchwood Institute after the estate in which she encountered the werewolf.