The Haunting Of Villa Diodati

“Definitely a hand!”

The Haunting Of Villa Diodati comes weighted with expectations. The Year Without A Summer is one of those stories that science fiction, horror and fantasy fans know very well, from the resulting Frankenstein and The Vampyre to Ken Russell’s Gothic and many more.

I did it in The Door In Time too, drawing ideas from Frankenstein’s Womb by Warren Ellis and Marek Oleksicki, and I suggested it as a historical setting for the Frankenstein-inspired Chronicles Of Darkness RPG Promethean: The Created.

This includes audio and comic Doctor Who. So the TV version is not the first, but as the one that gets on TV it will be the definitive Whovian take for many.

Indeed it’s not even the first time Mary Shelley has met a Cyberman.

Ada gets a mention, which is nice, though connecting the stories would have been nicer still. Especially as both stories are Celebrity Historicals which take a back seat to the regular plot. So with that happening in both cases it seems a bit of a waste of the premise, especially here as a fun take on the story gives way to a preview of next week’s two-parter.

And Percy is the really important one? Huh.

I mean, Mary seeing something and running with it still works... though I prefer versions where it’s the inspiration that draws in the thing.

I did like how much Claire Clairmont got to do, and the light-hearted ghost story take to begin with, so a mixed bag.