The Doctor and Nyssa are partaking in some R&R and watching a Panto play about Sir George fighting the Dragon. Nyssa doesn't understand any of the goings on, and requests the Doctor to bring her away from the 19th Century Stockbridge when the play suddenly starts talking about a Doctor, Earl of Space, Lord of Time.
An attack by a possessed actor later, the Doctor and Nyssa try to figure out where the story originated from, and a huge fortress is under control by different forces than the Upper-Class Twit that was supposed to inherit it...
Part of a trilogy taking place in Stockbridge along with The Eternal Summer which concludes in Plague of the Daleks.
- Bluff the Impostor: Sir Roland invokes this against Earl Hubert, by talking about Sir Justin of Wells' great big, bushy, red beard. The Doctor corrects him by saying he was actually a small, slight man. And didn't have a hair on him.
- Burn the Witch!: The Doctor nearly gets burnt on the stake as an EEEEVIL Wizard.
- Call-Back:
- Nyssa mentions Andrew and wanting to avoid the 21st century.
- The Doctor employs the Fast return switch.
- The Doctor when he encounters the many clones of Yavuz, they're all being experimented on to test the limits of their survival.
The Doctor: I name you, Demon. I name you ... Rutan!- Whom he suspects to be hot on the trail of Lynx.
- Call-Forward:
- The above accusation very similar to how the Doctor would later name the Carrionites.
- The vegetable in the Doctor's lapel is mentioned to have reviving qualities.
- Casual Danger Dialog: When the Doctor is on the rack, he puns:The Doctor: This is stretching the point, isn't it?
- Christmas Episode: The jingling of bells starts the episode off, and flows directly into a pantomime play.
- Cold-Blooded Torture: The Doctor is victim of this, by pain of the rack.
- Contrived Coincidence: When the Panto wheels out a blue cart, and the actors implore a doctor to come out of the cart which is bigger within than out, the Doctor doesn't believe it's intentional. Then they mention he's an Earl of Space and a Lord of Time.
- Dead Person Impersonation: Earl Hubert is pulling this off, though he only did it temporarily. But when he was pretending to be him, he got captured by the enemy.
- Demonic Possession: One of the players of the play starts acting really strange when the real Doctor shows up in the play.
- Dirty Coward: Earl Hubert forces Nyssa to join him in the Castle Stockbridge (Which they suspect to be invested with Demons) so he could essentially use her as a meatshield.
- Fake Nationality: The French knights aren't really French. Though Roland of Brittany might be a Fauxreigner seeing as his accent decreases in intensity when things get really serious.
- Fun with Acronyms: Osbert tells a story about a a man that collected crimes (and the letters they burned into his skin as a result of those crimes), being Thievery, Witchcraft, Indecency...
- I Call It "Vera": The blacksmith calls one of his Branding irons "Russell".
- Insistent Terminology:Drone leader: Rutans do not retreat! They withdraw!
- In the Style of: Earl Hubert's speech (and banter) with the crowd of peasants could directly have come out of Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
- Involuntary Shapeshifter: Rutans are unable to maintain a single form for very long, being natural gelatinous, semi-fluid creatures.
- Keystone Army: The Rutans stop functioning if the waterwheel is tampered with, which provides them with an electrical current.
- Leeroy Jenkins: The French knights charge straight into the castle Stockbridge without a plan, not knowing what they're getting themselves into.
- Lighter and Softer: A very comical story, with pratfalls and banter. Well, until the French knights show up.
- Metaphorically True: The Doctor mentions he let Hubert assume several things, not all he chose not to correct.
- Mind Your Step: The Doctor misses one... And hits every step on the way down the stairs.
- Ominous Fog: Castle Stockbridge is cloaked in perpetual mist.
- Pantomime: The Doctor and Nyssa watch a play about Father Christmas, St. George and the Dragon.
- Post-Climax Confrontation: The Doctor and Nyssa defeat the Rutan host, only to realize that due to the events, humans in the future might have traces of Rutan left in them, so they travel back to 1889 to confront them.
- Shock and Awe: The Clone soldiers and Rutans are capable of shooting lightning bolts powerful enough to turn a grown man into ash.
- Stable Time Loop: The Doctor and Nyssa experience the play (and get attacked) which causes them to travel back into the past to Stockbridge Castle, which causes the legend to be passed down, and the panto to be performed.
- Title Drop:Osbert: Redemptnote us all you like, there's no power in Heaven or Earth that could get me to step foot inside that Castle of Fear again!
- Torches and Pitchforks: When The Doctor, Nyssa and Osbert leave Earl Hubert at the castle, he assembles a mob to chase them.Osbert: I done told ya! Pitchforks!
- Upper-Class Twit: When Earl Hubert is told to "Run before the demon gets you" accompanied by several screams he goes:"Run? ... Run. .... Run!"
- The Doctor: A warpcore emission... It's going to explode! Nyssa, I'm so so—"
