Day: November 15, 2013

Categories
7th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

The Assassination Games

Doctor WhoIt is late 1963, and one of the leading figures in a project to reposition Britain as a major player in the nuclear arms race is assassinated before the eyes of dozens of witnesses at a press conference. Among those witnesses is Group Captain Gilmore, who draws his weapon and pursues the assassin into an underground station. The assassin draws a bead on Gilmore, but his aim is thrown off at the last second by a man Gilmore has met before – the Doctor. But even this is not a guarantee of bringing the assassin to justice: he jumps in front of the next underground train after dropping a hint that he may be a member of a radical group of nuclear disarmament activists. The Doctor has assumed the identity of a public servant and a position within the British government, keeping a low profile while trying to observe the activities of a mysterious group operating within the government itself. Ace, in the meantime, is also undercover, and encounters Dr. Rachel Jensen, Gilmore’s scientific advisor, and the two are soon embroiled in a plot being carried out by a shadowy agency that has radically unpeaceful intentions. The race is on to start or prevent a war, and this time, the Doctor doesn’t have all the facts.

Order this CDwritten by John Dorney
directed by Ken Bentley
music by Wilfredo Acosta

Cast: Sylvester McCoy (The Doctor), Sophie Aldred (Ace), Simon Williams (Group Captain Gilmore), Pamela Salem (Rachel Jensen), Karen Gledhill (Allison Williams), Hugh Ross (Sir Toby Kinsella), Oliver Cotton (Sir Gideon Vale / Handler), Gemma Saunders (Eleanor Vale / Amanda Caulfield), Gerald Kyd (Martin Regan / Sir Robert Devere / Mulryne), Alisdair Simpson (Sir Francis White / Ritchie)

Notes: This story is meant to serve retroactively as a “pilot” for the Big Finish audio spinoff Counter-Measures, involving Gilmore, Dr. Jensen and Allison Williams, a group of characters introduced in the 1988 television story Remembrance Of The Daleks. By the time The Assassination Games saw release, there had already been two box sets of Counter-Measures adventures released by Big Finish. This also concludes the loosely-linked trilogy of 1963-themed stories released to coincide with the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who in 2013.

Timeline: after Remembrance Of The Daleks and before The Harvest

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
For All Mankind Season 1

Into The Abyss

For All Mankind1971: A flyover of Shackleton Crater at the moon’s south pole reveals a much higher concentration of water ice than exists at Apollo 15’s planned landing site at Mare Frigoris. With pressure from both mission commander Ed Baldwin and from the White House itself, concerned that finding water ice on the lunar surface could jumpstart plans for a permanently occupied lunar military base ahead of the Soviets, Apollo 15’s flight plan is changed late in the game, but Baldwin and Cobb still manage to bring their lunar module in for a safe landing…but on the rim of the crater, rather than inside it, where so little sunlight hits the crater floor that it’s impossible to see. But the ice isn’t on the rim in the sunlight, and another major change to the mission plan is made: one of the astronauts must rappel into the crater with a makeshift harness made of items that were never intended to serve that purpose. Molly Cobb, pointing out that she’s lighter, is the ideal candidate…but the search for the all-important ice could become a life-or-death mission.

For All Mankindwritten by David Weddle & Bradley Thompson
directed by Sergio Mimica-Gezzan
music by Jeff Russo

Cast: Joel Kinnaman (Edward Baldwin), Michael Dorman (Gordo Stevens), Sarah Jones (Tracy Stevens), Shantel VanSanten (Karen Baldwin), Jodi Balfour (Ellen Waverly), Wrenn Schmidt (Margo Madison), Chris Bauer (Deke Slayton), Sonya Walger (Molly Cobb), Eric Ladin (Gene Kranz), Michael J. Harney (Jack Broadstreet), Dan Donohue (Thomas Paine), Krys Marshall (Danielle Poole), Lenny Jacobson (Wayne Cobb), Edwin Hodge (Clayton Poole), Dave Power (Frank Sedgewick), Noah Harpster (Bill Strausser), Nick Toren (Tim “Bird Dog” McKiernan), Daniel Scott Robbins (Hank Poppen), Nick Wechsler (Fred), Teddy Blum (young Shane Baldwin), Jason Scott David (young Daniel Stevens), William Lee Holler (young Jimmy Stevens), Tracy Mulholland (Gloria Sedgewick), For All MankindBenjamin Seay (Ray Schumer), Korey Simeone (Doctor Chase), Nick Heyman (Sentry)

Notes: In the alternate timeline of For All Mankind, the Apollo missions upgrade to something a bit more modern than the DSKY computers that powered the real Apollo missions. In reality, ice wasn’t discovered to be likely in Shackleton Crater until 2012, when NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter detected signs that nearly a quarter of the surface material in the crater was probably water ice.

LogBook entry by Earl Green