Space is no longer the final frontier. The Darkness is coming and only the Time Warriors stand between it and Earth. Grab your copies today on Amazon!
To celebrate Eastercon, The Time Warriors were honoured to be part of the signing of the souvenir edition of Phantasmagoria Magazine to celebrate the con’s arrival to Belfast. Along with an array of writers and artists, it waxsa great turnout showing that fandom is alive and well on a very rainy and sodden Belfast afternoon.
Thank you to everyone that came today and bought the magazine.
Check out the photos below.
Join Stephen and Owen for another delve into the world of horror movies. This time up is a favourite of mine, Silver Bullet. This is Stephen’s first time watching it so what did he think? It’s all just a bot of craic so join the fun! If you like it, give us a likre and comment if you want.
We are delighted to announce our next guest for DCC Summer Edition this August, none other than Ross Marquand!
After portraying Paul Newman on “Mad Men,” Ross Marquand went on to land perhaps his best known role, Aaron, on “The Walking Dead.” Following this came numerous appearances in the Marvel universe (“Avengers: Infinity War & Endgame,” “What If?”, and X-Men ’97) as four of the MCU’s most prominent characters – Red Skull, Ultron, Professor X and Apocalypse.
Also an accomplished voice actor, Ross has lent his unique vocal talents to such animated projects as “Invincible,” “LEGO Star Wars,” “Family Guy,” “Robot Chicken,” and “American Dad.” He is known for impersonating a plethora of celebrities including Harrison Ford, Brad Pitt, Matthew McConaughey and over 60 others.
Don’t forget to get your tickets before they sell out! https://tixr.com/groups/comicconireland/summer2025
By Owen Quinn author
Photo copyright Owen Quinn
I was recently made aware of just how many movies and television shows the younger generation have never heard of, never mind seen. So to that end, we look back at some characters you really need to see before you kick the bucket.
When we first met the cold, sadistic Captain Richard Ryan (Liam Cunningham) he is the head of a special forces unit testing for new recruits. Lawrence Cooper is trying for a position on his team and impresses having evaded the hunting squad for twenty two hours and 47 minutes. Ryan then instructs Cooper to shoot the dog. Cooper quickly refuses saying the dog has done nothing wrong. Ryan insists but Cooper will not do it. Ryan shoots the dog instead and informs Cooper he has failed for not being able to kill the dog.
The conversation between them is interesting as it says a lot about Ryan. Cooper’s refusal to kill the animal shows he has a conscience and Ryan does not need men of conscience. He needs men that will carry out orders no matter how they appear. He tells him his squad is on a different level and that he needs men of action not deeds, before shooting the dog. Ryan’s voice is very monotone only rising when he shouts at Cooper that he failed himself. He comes across as a tough man that has no time for discussion. His word is law no matter what the situation. His reasoning is that an enemy can use dogs to track you, so in order to take away that ability you must kill the animals first to make the hunt harder. Cooper would agree but this situation is not an enemy one. To kill a perfectly healthy dog used in their own armed forces is a waste and unconscionable. But Ryan’s face is impassive and when he pulls the trigger he gives a slight tilt of his head as if he is mocking Cooper that he is a better soldier than he.
Cooper attacks him but Ryan puts a gun in his face telling him that until he can kill a dog, to live and learn. Cooper lands a punch but is overpowered by Ryan who tells him he doesn’t do second chances and he never forgets. This will come back to haunt them later in the movie.
Four weeks later Cooper is with a squad led by Sarge (Sean Pertwee) on a training mission. It isn’t long before strange things start to happen and they are attacked by werewolves. They find a camp and a wounded Ryan, who screams there should have been only one. He has been badly clawed but by luck they are rescued by a local zoologist Megan who happens to be driving by.
Holing up in a farmhouse they fortify the doors and windows while tending to their wounded. However the truth comes out as Ryan is still obviously holding a deep hatred for Cooper and taunts them. He is growing stronger, his wounds impossibly healing fast. Neither is it a coincidence that Megan just happened by in the middle of all this wilderness. She works with Ryan.
He reveals he was tasked with bringing a werewolf back to weaponise but they were misinformed. Sarge’s squad was the bait to lure it out into the open but they didn’t know there was a pack of them. They slaughtered his squad, the squad Cooper was to be part of. Megan is also one of them and now Ryan transforms into a wolf right before their eyes. He escapes and joins the attack on the house.
All the way through you can see in Cunningham’s performance that he holds a boiling fury for Cooper and being disrespected by Sarge’s team does not sit well with him. He is used to men following his orders without question and he is tough enough to take down even someone like Cooper. He is not a pushover by any means but a warrior to be feared. With no conscience is Ryan is a scary enough thing in a person but when that is brought over to a werewolf that makes it a powerful animal and foe indeed. You can see in his very eyes the wolf part grow in him and you can be sure that since he never forgets, all of the remaining members of Sarge’s team especially Cooper are on his hit list. Director Neil Marshall does a fantastic job using the lighting to emphasis the internal change while emoting dark emotion.
Cooper emerges the only survivor but survival instinct is one of Ryan’s strengths. He has managed to survive the explosion and hid in the cellar while the rest of the wolves died. The cellar contains the bodies of his squad. Cooper knows straight away that it is Cooper from the wood sticking from his chest and they fight. But rather than just tear him apart with his teeth, Ryan fights like a human punching Cooper. He also shows his sadistic side when he tries to impale Cooper through the mouth with the end of the wood in his chest. When Sam the dog attacks Ryan, Cooper manages to kill him with a silver letter opener and a gun this time but even in wolf form it is clear Ryan’s grudge with him is still brewing.
What does that say about the strength of Ryan’s personality that he can retain his human skills while in wolf form? Imagine that kind of persona on the side of the good guys.
By Owen Quinn author
Star Trek Enterprise goes 40 First Dates as Captain Archer suffers a debilitating mental condition in which he wakes every day with no memory since her was hit by an anomaly while saving T’Pol. T’pol tells him what has happened in the twelve years since the accident every day without fail. But the Xindi are still a threat, having virtually wiped out humanity. Will Doctor Phlox’s cure work in time to save what is left of humanity or is this the day humans are exterminated completely from the universe?
All photos copyright Paramount Pictures
I am rather partial to alternate timelines and ‘what if’ scenarios in sci-fi. It has been done many times in Star Trek history but Star Trek Enterprise did it best in the third season episode Twilight. It skillfully explores the impact of a rehabilitating mental illness on a person and those surrounding him.
The third season of Enterprise dealt with the mission to the Expanse from which a species called the Xindi have launched a devastating attack on Earth killing millions including Trip Tucker’s sister (Connor Trinneer). Scott Bakula’s Captain Archer must lead a desperate mission to an unexplored area of space filled with strange anomalies and distortions that can destroy ships. Their mission is to contact the Xindi, whom they discover are actually a conglomerate of different species, and negotiate a peace before the Xindi launch their superweapon to destroy the Earth completely. The initial attack was a suicide run. The Xindi are being by extradimensional beings intent on changing the Expanse into their new homeground resulting in the eradication of the unsuspecting Xindi. They have been fed a story about how humans will wipe out the Xindi which keeps them focused and unaware of the disaster the dimensional beings are planning behind the scenes.
We have already seen Earth attacked but the constant threat of the superweapon is always there in every episode so we finally get to see what would happen if the Xindi succeeded in destroying the Earth.
As the episode hook opens, Archer wakes up to the ship shaking. He stumbles on to the bridge where there is a battle taking place. T’Pol is dressed in a captain’s uniform while barking orders. But the scenario they have all feared plays out before them as the Xindi weapon fires at the Earth. It boils and breaks apart before exploding. Their mission has failed and why is T’Pol telling guards to remove Archer from the bridge? In the next scene, Archer wakes up in unfamiliar surroundings and with grey hair. He leaves his room and meets T’Pol making breakfast in a kitchen. She is not wearing her uniform and has long hair. She says that today is an important day and she has much to tell him. Over the first half of the story, she takes him through what happened to them.
Archer and T’Pol are caught in an anomaly which traps the Vulcan science officer under a door in the anomaly’s path. Refusing to leave her, Archer saves her but is hit by the force wave. When he awakes he discovers that it has been three days since he was hurt and the last thing he remembers is saving T’Pol. The anomaly has left an unknown parasite in his brain that causes him to forget everything after the anomaly in hours. Soon the mission suffers. Archer believes he is adding great ideas to the mission but he has forgotten they have all been given before.
Without Archer, the mission fails and Earth is destroyed. The Xindi flood the galaxy and exterminate nearly all of humanity. The Enterprise becomes a Battlestar Galactica of sorts as it leads a rag tag fleet of human survivors to the Ceti Alpha system where ships were deconstructed to form houses for those remaining. Less than 6,000 humans remain. Trip is now captain of the Enterprise and Malcom Reed (Dominic Keating) is about to become a captain too. He will command the Intrepid. All they can do is patrol and ensure the Xindi do not discover their location. Now they live in isolation, hunted by the Xindi whose presence is ever present.
Our greatest fear is to lose our minds to some mental illness and when we see someone as strong as Archer fall to such an illness, it is saddening to say the least. We all know someone who has dementia, Alzheimer’s or another mental illness and the effects are heartbreaking. We get top see Archer’s frustration then slow acceptance that he is no longer fit to command. The sad thing is this is a daily thing for him as every day for him is a new one where he is learning all of this for the first time. This also means that when he learns of the Earth’s destruction and how many people are left, the pain is as intense as the first day he learned of it. All he can really do on a day to day basis is walk his dog Porthos and tell the school children about his past adventures. In Archer’s words, all he can do is stay out of the way of the Xindi mission. Illness robs you of dignity at the best of times and routine keeps us going so when this is taken away then it has a severe detrimental effect. Archer was tasked to stop the Xindi threat and this has brought him down from a beacon of hope to a nuisance. How many times do we see that in life? Were someone that was once active and full of life is reduced to an armchair now reliant on others, both medical and loved ones for daily help.
And on the flipside, we look at the impact of caring for someone with a mental illness actually has on someone’s life. T’Pol gives up everything to be Archer’s carer. She even refuses an offer from Ambassador Soval to return to Vulcan and bring Archer with her so the experts on Vulcan can help him. She owes him her life as it could so easily have been her in Archer’s position. She has a care of duty for him that goes way beyond her sphere of command. Soval and Phlox both acknowledge her feelings for Archer which clouds her logic. But since she became part of the crew, she has learned how wrong her superiors were about the capability of humanity.
Imagine the great patience she must possess to endure this pain. While it is bad for Archer, it is equally hard on her. Being the bearer of bad news is a difficult position to be in so imagine being that for twelve years. She must be the one that tells Archer every day of the disaster and watch helplessly as he is plagued with pain and guilt over the failure of their mission. Remember there was no hope or inkling of a cure or treatment for Archer’s parasites so this would be a lifetime commitment. Or perhaps the word vocation would fit better. There are millions of people in the position of unpaid carers all across the world who must struggle with this every day. It is stressful and frustrating at times with only the death of the afflicted person their way out. So it is nice to see this acknowledged in a sci-fi show of all things.
The two handed scenes focus the attention on Archer and T’Pol almost like a stage play. In many ways, the relationship between carers and those with the illness is a two handed scenario which unfortunately does not have the trappings of sci-fi to make it alive and interesting. You hope each and every day that some cure will be found. People spent so much time searching the internet for a possible cure, some test trial or the discovery that some animal holds the key to cure Alzheimer’s. And all the while, all we can really do is stand and watch those we love fade away to a mere shadow of those former selves and shed silent tears at your own helplessness and the failings of the medical world. When a parent no longer recognises their own child, it can destroy you. But when they, for a god given instant, do recognise you, it is equally heartbreaking and joyous at the same time.
In all the doom and gloom, there is always the hope for a cure and Twilight certainly brings it. In an alternate timeline, you can do anything you want including kill everybody. Dr Phlox has finally found a cure to destroy the parasites but it requires the energy produced by the warp engines. The crew are reunited and T’Pol discovers that the first set of parasites Phlox has nuetralised have disappeared from all the scans ever taken, including the very first one twelve years ago. It seems the parasites exist in both spatial and temporal bodies of existence. So what happens to them now, will happen in the past. It means that this history will never happen and they still have a chance to save Earth.
For one last time, Archer is the man he was. The Xindi locate the colony and board Enterprise. The bridge explodes killing everyone there. As Archer overloads the ship to self destruct, the resulting explosion will vaporise him and the parasites just as Phlox’s colleagues suggested. Phlox is killed leaving just T’Pol and Archer to destroy the Enterprise. It goes out in a blaze of glory resulting in history being restored.
In their final moments, it comes down to the afflicted and his carer to save the day. Twilight does a great job on exploring, actually exploring the impact of mental illness for both the patient and their carers. It delivers a great story packed with emotion and action that is relatable to the viewer as well as rewatchable. It also touched on themes of surviving disaster and how the individual copes with it as well as mass genocide form a foe that will not listen to reason.
This is a great episode you should really catch.
By Owen Quinn author
This Friday sees an exclusive signing event for this weekend’s Eastercon. Eastercon is being held at the Hilton Hotel at Lanyon Place. Named Reconnect it will take place from Friday 18th April to Monday 21st April.
Some of those in attendance at the convention will be Belfast’s Ian McDonald, Derek Landy, Lauren Beukes, Rebecca Roanhorse and Will Simpson.
The signing takes place at Forbidden Planet in Ann Street Belfast between 4pm and 6pm this Friday 18th April. Magazine creator and contributor, Trevor Kennedy with Ramsey Campbell and Owen Quinn will be in attendance with special guests dropping in over the two hours to sign copies of the Eastercon 2025 souvenir issue. Come along and meet the team.
By Owen Quinn author
photos copyright BBC
Just as we get new Doctor Who on screen, the show has lost a former companion. Jean Marsh whose career has spanned decades from the classic Upstairs, Downstairs to movies like The Eagle Has Landed and The Changeling. She was also a power behind the camera as co-creator of the House of Eliott. She is an Emmy award winner and in demand both here and in America. She appeared in The Twilight Zone, Return to Oz, Willow and so much more.
But for Doctor Who fans, she is one of ours and started with William Hartnell when she played Lady Joanna in The Crusade . She would later earn companion status when she joined the Doctor, William Hartnell, in the Daleks’ Masterplan as Space Security Service agent Sara Kingdom. She joined the Doctor and Steven, Peter Purves, in the battle to save the universe. While we take kickass companions for granted these days, Sara was the original and the best. Like an Avengers girl, she brought girl power to the Tardis like never before. She was tough, sassy and totally loyal to the Doctor and Steven. This loyalty was twisted by the evil Mavic Chen who allied himself with the Daleks. He persuaded her to murder her own brother under false pretences which she did before joining the Doctor. That brother was Bret Vyon played by future Brigadier actor Nicholas Courtney.
Sara would be the second companion to die when she sacrificed herself to save the universe. She grabs the Time Destructor and is aged to death right before Steven’s eyes before the Doctor can deactivate it. Thanks to Sara, Chen and the Daleks were defeated but with two companions dead, Trojan handmaiden, Katarina and Sara, at a terrible cost.
Jean was married to the third Doctor, Jon Pertwee for five years before they divorced but she would make another appearance in Doctor Who and this time she was an enemy of the seventh Doctor, Sylvester McCoy.
In Season 26, the legend of Merlin crosses dimensions as Jean as the magically powerful witch Morgaine and her troops including mad son, Mordred. She says the seventh Doctor is Merlin and this will be their last battlefield. Beautifully weaving the Arthur mythology into the story, Jean was not a one dimensional villain. She was a real badass, capable of summoning the Satan like Destroyer in a classic cliffhanger when she attempts to entice Ace, Sophie Aldred and Shou Yuing, Ling Tai into giving her the Excalibur to ensure her victory. Using her powers, she uses racism to break the girls apart but fails.
Battlefield was a special story because it marked the final appearance of both Jean in the show but also the Brigadier. For fans, it was lovely to see Bret Vyon and his sister reunited on screen once more. The scene where she meets the Brigadier and honours the fact he is a soldier was nicely done, again giving another level to the character. She may be a mad witch but she has honour and her defeat is brought about because her heart is broken when she discovers her true love, Arthur, is dead. She is devastated and ends up in a prison owned by UNIT. To this day, that is where she still remains.
Jean would appear in a photo in The Day of the Doctor when Clara found photos of all the Doctor’s former companions in the Back Archive. In the photo, she is with Mike Yates, fallen UNIT soldier from the Pertwee era leading to fans trying to piece how Sara and Mike Yates crossed paths.
Jean Marsh was pure quality in everything she has done and her contribution to the lore of Doctor Who cannot be overstated enough. Rest easy.
I’ll leave you with one final quote I’ve taken from Battlefield. which reflects today.
“Jean Marsh, who burned like starfire and was as beautiful. Rest in peace.”
By Owen Quinn author
Photos copyright BBC
So the Tardis is back with Ncuti Gatwa at the helm once again after a woke filled and terrible first season (saved only by Steven Moffat, Gatwa, Dot and Bubble and Bonnie Langford) with a climax that can only be labelled as shit.
Ruby is gone after the events of Empire of Death and a new companion comes to fill her place; a companion with a face the Doctor has seen before. Actors that have appeared in Doctor Who before becoming companions has been going on since the sixties in the William Hartnell era but it is only the new era that has decided to connect these things, sometimes unnecessarily, e.g.: the reason the 12th Doctor looks like Caecilius from the David Tennant episode ‘Fires of Pompeii’, the 6th Doctor taking his face from Commander Maxil , a Gallifreyan guard who tried to execute the Doctor in ‘Arc of Infinity’.
You all know the story so I won’t go into detail. Nurse Belinda Chandra is taken by robots in the middle of the night to claim her rightful place as the Queen of planet Miss Belinda Chandra and all thanks to an old boyfriend buying her a star for her birthday seventeen years ago. Now she must take the throne and marry the great AI generator to bring about peace between the humans and the robots.
Got it so far? Good. Stay with me. So was it good? Was it an introduction worthy of yet another plucky woman to take her place by the side of the Doctor? After hearing other reviews say it was a shaky start and the new companion, played by Varada Sethu, was good and brought a new energy, I wasn’t sure what I was walking into and let me reiterate, I have been a fan since Pertwee and stayed during the wilderness years while the masses pissed off elsewhere. So this show is in my heart literally and when I hear others cry about its death knells, it annoys me. There is still plenty of mileage in this show with the right people in place and with no agendas to take you out of the story. After watching The Robot Revolution, I have hope. Hope dammit! HOPE! Let’s just hope that hope is not short lived.
I really liked this episode. It felt the way Capaldi’s era felt invigorated with the introduction of Bill (Pearl Mackie). She deserved more than a season. This was a great set up for the rest of the season.
It opens with a mystery and ends with yet another powerful mystery that I loved. Do you remember the wonderful one season show Odyssey 5 starring Peter Weller? That’s what the end reminded me of. But let’s break it down and address things.
When Mrs Flood breaks the fourth wall and tells the viewer not to say they saw her something in the back of my head but can’t recall what from the show’s past. I’ve heard the rumour and if it is, it’ll be a Sutekh sized anticlimax. So why is she hiding from the Doctor? Why did she say goodbye to Belinda? What does she know or is she setting it all up going as far back as Ruby?
I loved the robots but were reminiscent of those from the Sarah Jane Adventures episode ‘The Empty Earth’. I loved the wee cleaning robot with his “polish, polish”. Gatwa is simply the Doctor. He has it nailed on so many levels you would like to think the powers that be won’t screw this up and lose the show with him at the helm. I adored the every ninth word scene. Very clever.
The whole storyline of the time fracture stranding him six months on Miss Belinda Chandra and teaming up with the rebels to fight the robots was cool. As he said, timey-wimey and it was woven perfectly into the story structure.
It made sense that the Doctor would have yet another costume change and while he was crying within 17 minutes of the episode (something his incarnation has been criticised for) it was justified. You could see the bond he had created with Sacha 55 so her death when she was on the verge of travelling in the Tardis with him hit home. It proved a stark contrast to Belinda who takes no prisoners but in a real way this time. Her instinct is to help the sick and wounded, not follow the Doctor round like an impressed puppy. She doesn’t want this life and has no desire to travel with him because of actions. The carefree Doctor who bounces with the very joy of life and mystery. She takes him to task for just taking her DNA without permission just to prove his theory about Mundy in Boom. She reminds him that he made the same promise of adventure to Sacha and she died. He is passionately dangerous and it is this passion that gets others killed. He is in danger of seeing her, not as a person, but an adventure to be solved. He did this with Ruby, Donna and Clara and see how they ended.
Tegan and Turlough also wanted to go home as did Ian and Barbara but they soon changed their tune. Now the fact the Doctor cannot get to earth on the day of Belinda’s kidnapping is intriguing. Also notice the Doctor’s reaction; he is laughing at first until he realises something is wrong. When he looks out the Tardis door, how did he not see what we saw? That ominous rumble of the destroyed Earth was spooky and effective. It was a great shot and a wonderful way to keep us hooked. Whatever is coming now, whatever Ruby is referring to when she tells them to stay at home and lock their doors is powerful to say the least. The only race to ever mess earth up on this scale was the Time Lords themselves in ‘Trial of a Time Lord’ when they shifted it across space and renamed it to hide their crimes. Could it be?
I do have to raise the constant cry that he is the last of the Time Lords. He isn’t. He hasn’t forgotten about his other self because he asked Rose in ‘The Legend of Ruby Sunday’ how her uncle was; the name they gave the 14th Doctor. So is the Master as we saw when someone took the Toymaker’s gold tooth in ‘The Giggle’. And I’ve never bought the idea that all the Time Lords were on Gallifrey when the Master murdered everyone. Not a chance. Plus part Time Lord Jenny is loose too.
But like the ‘Joy To The World’ Christmas episode, this is not as simple a story as it seems and is expertly shown at the beginning so deftly, many will have missed it.
The great AI Generators that Belinda must join with is in fact her old boyfriend, Alan from the opening of the episode. This is why he has a duplicate of the certificate of the star named after Belinda, not just a duplicate but the exact same certificate somehow gotten from the future. In the opening, she rips off the wrapping, he mutters if she had unfolded it, the paper could be used again later. Such an off the cuff remark, we associate with Data from Star Trek The Next Generation where he did unfold the paper from a present only to be told to rip it off.
‘The Robot Revolution’ is in fact a commentary on abusive and controlling boyfriends. The whole thing has been staged by Alan to get the girl he asked to marry him ten years before. Belinda refused and he moved away to what she thought was Margate, In fact, it was stargate.
We see how Belinda will be joined in marriage to him when she is mechanised very similar to the character of Vera is turned into a cyborg by the super computer. Alan started the war but Belinda caused his kidnapping by the robots when, during the time fracture, she told them to go get him. It isn’t until the AI generator asks her if she is married, does Belinda catch on who he is; Alan has been fully and very willingly transformed into a nightmare.
He is like a steampunk Locutus of Borg and really is the stuff of nightmares. This is the true face of the man that Belinda could have married; the devil behind the blond haired nerd that bought her a star. He started the war and only by merging with Belinda will the war end. We then see that when he wanted her to marry him, he wanted her to wear looser fitting cloth, no more texting after eight o’clock. He wants to absorb Belinda’s mind and is so deranged he wants to control everything. This war will never end. The fact that Belinda never caught it on is so real because many women and men in that position realise when it’s too late or in some cases just live with it. Russell T Davies should have just called this abuse rather than calling it coercive control. This is abuse on a planetary scale from a weak-minded fool who finds his power in the control others making them subversive under the label of love.
Tell it for what it is, not some fancy term. If they had, people would click on straight away but I suppose it keeps the children from asking.
Overall, this was far from a shaky start but a solid opener that delivered the central mystery only to add more intrigue. I have to admit, I did slow the faces sequence down when Belinda touched her certificate’s to Alan’s. I was betting that there were some hidden clues in there for what’s going to come but I couldn’t see anything or did I? In an episode that is all about the power of words, cause and effect , timey-wimey and a powerful new mystery, we are off to a great start. Now where do I buy a “polish , polish” robot?
Join us for the craic as we answer questions from the public like top Marvel movies, who would you love to kick in the nuts and can anyone name more than 2 M Night Shyamalan movies or does anyone care? Join us for the craic and give us a like.
By Owen Quinn author
Photo copyright Mutant Enemy
I was recently made aware of just how many movies and television shows the younger generation have never heard of, never mind seen. So to that end, we look back at some characters you really need to see before you kick the bucket.
With every shop there is a constant thread that our heroes may die or nearly die or survive to the end with some scars but essentially human or Klingon or Gallifreyan whatever nothing terminal happens to them. In Buffy the Vampire Slayer we always had the threat of our heroes being turned into vampires. Being a friend of the Slayer or simply living in Sunnydale made you a prime target for a bloodsucker upgrade. Sometimes they came close but it never happened.
However in the third season episode The Wish, a hurt Cordelia wishes that Buffy had never moved to Sunnydale. She discovered that her boyfriend Xander Harris (Nicholas Brendon) cheated on her with Willow Rosenburg (Alyson Hannigan). While they had always been close friends, Willow had a crush on Xander and they finally acted upon it.
Cordelia took a risk becoming involved with Xander due to her status as most popular girl in school and him being a nerd. But when Cordelia made that wish she didn’t realise her new friend Anya was a vengeance demon. Vengeance demons grant wishes for women betrayed by men and she creates a new timeline where Buffy never came. Sunnydale is now overrun with vampires led by the Master. With no Buffy there was no one to stop him from rising at the end of season one. Now it is a hellhole where the Bronze nightclub is openly vamp where they keep in cages unfortunate victims.
Cordelia is confused at first until she meets Willow and Xander dressed strangely and soon realises they are vampires and lovers. Becoming a vamp frees all your inhibitions and they act upon their attraction which only winds up Cordelia even more. She is only saved from them by the town’s only defence the White Hats consisting of Giles (Anthony Head), Oz (Seth Green), Larry Blaisdell and Nancy.
Willow along with Xander is now part of the Master’s elite guard, the Order of Aurelius, his right hand persons so to speak. She is everything that our Willow isn’t; sensual, sexual, unafraid to speak her mind and fights like a demon. Like all vamps she is sadistic and uncaring about her victims. This Willow likes it when her victims die fighting and screaming. There is nothing human about her anymore and is a prime example of how becoming a vampire makes a person so far removed from the one you knew. Without a soul, good kind Willow is gone forever. It is a far cry from the guilt ridden one we saw earlier in the episode trying to apologise to Oz only to be rejected.
Willow’s outfit is Moulin Rouge in appearance announcing her lack of inhibitions In fear of being killed by the Master she and Xander murder Cordelia something Willow finishes with a little wave. Here Willow gets bored easily so passes her time being sadistic which she calls playing; her puppy is Angel, chained in a cell and Willow’s plaything. So good is she at torture that Xander likes to watch.
When Buffy does arrive, all hell breaks loose and there is a huge fight. Willow launches herself into it and her and Buffy battle. However ironically it is her spurned lover from this reality that kills her along with Larry by impaling her. As heroes fall, Giles stops Anya by smashing her amulet and reverses the wish.
But as we know death isn’t always permanent in this genre. In Doppelgangland, Willow and Anya try a spell to bring back Anya’s amulet. Alternate Giles destroyed the vengeance demon’s amulet to restore reality leaving Anya human in our world. She isn’t happy and desperately wants to be a demon again. Willow has begun practicing magic but is still a learner. Instead her spell creates a temporal fold that brings vampire Willow into our world.
Her world has a curfew, people do not go out once darkness falls and everyone wears dull clothes to avoid attracting vamps. Vampire Willow cannot believe humans walk the streets at night so freely and wear the most up to date fashion. She meets Buffy and Xander. She is horrified that her lover is a human and tells Buffy she hates her. When Buffy goes to stop her leaving, Willow shows her vamp face. They believe their friend has been turned only to meet her in the library as her normal self.
Vamp Willow is attacked by vampires thinking she is our Willow but she slaps them down. She then organises them to storm the Bronze where she intends to turn everyone into vampires. She kills a girl on the spot to prove her intentions. Oz is trapped there as is Anya and Angel escapes to get Buffy. Anya explains what is really going on to her telling her about her alternate self that brought her here.
Vampire Willow finds our Willow and at first wants to be sent back to her reality but comes round to the idea of a universe with two Willows. She licks her neck and our Willow is creeped out. It is the first indication that Willow is actually gay which will later come to fruition. She manages to hit her with a tranquiliser dart and lock her in a cage. Our Willow then has to impersonate her other self while swapping outfits. Camp Willow is horrified at being dressed as “fuzzy” and tricks Cordelia into letting her out but not before Cordelia nearly bores her to death with her wittering about stealing boyfriends.
After an unsuccessful attempt to kill Cordelia only to be stopped by Wesley, vamp Willow enters the Bronze as there is a free for all fight. She tries to kill our Willow by strangulation. Buffy leaps to stake her but our Willow stops her. They have to send her back to her world but still arrives at the point where she is killed by Oz.
Alyson Hannigan does a great job making the two Willows individuals and not verge into the camp exaggerated territory. It is always great to see a good guy go to the dark side but when it’s done so well as it was with these two episodes, it stands out from the crowd. Add to that the story is not just a stunt but has ripples that will echo until the end of the series.
The Time Warriors and Beyond 