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8th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

“X” And The Daleks

Doctor WhoThe Doctor is now more certain than ever that Molly is the central pawn in a deadly game playing out between the Daleks and the Time Lords thanks to a traitorous Time Lord. The trail leads back to the planet Srangor, which has been enslaved by the Daleks, and also serves as their base of operations with their Time Lord ally Kotris. The Doctor befriends one of the natives at Srangor, enlisting his help to break into the Daleks’ base, but the Daleks and Kotris are seemingly a step ahead of him at every turn. Kotris has planted something in Molly’s DNA, designed to ensure a permanent Dalek victory over the Time Lords. But Kotris has already been outmaneuvered by an old adversary who knows him intimately. In the meantime, the Doctor simply wants to put an end to the Daleks’ killing… but this time, will he wipe them from history for good to achieve that?

Order this CD written by Nicholas Briggs
directed by Nicholas Briggs
music by Andy Hardwick

Cast: Paul McGann (The Doctor), Ruth Bradley (Molly O’Sullivan), Peter Egan (Straxus), Toby Jones (Kotris), Nicholas Briggs (The Daleks), John Banks (Thelus / Mezcoranis 2 / Srangor Herder), Alex Mallinson (Mezcoranis 1), Tim Treolar (Lord President / Sandum), Beth Chalmers (Catherine O’Sullivan), Jonathan Forbes (Patrick O’Sullivan)

Notes: The Dalek Time Controller was introduced in the sixth Doctor audio story Patient Zero, reappearing in the final two episodes of the eighth Doctor’s previous adventures, Lucie Miller and To The Death.

Timeline: after Tangled Web and before Night Of The Doctor

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

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7th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

The Shadow Heart

Doctor WhoFifty years after his reprogramming of the Wrath, the Doctor is on the run from them, and has fallen into the clutches of the Wrath’s hired mercenary, Vienna Salvatori. A number of close calls forces the Doctor to rely on the crew of a modified, space-faring snail to help him escape. The Wrath are never far behind, and the Earth warship Trafalgar, taking part in Earth’s war against the onslaught of the Wrath across the galaxy, is only a step behind them. The Wrath want the two men responsible for their existence: their creator, Tenebris, and the man who turned them into an unstoppable force of flawed justice, the Doctor. Tenebris has been preparing for this reunion with his deadly creation for decades. But it turns out that the Doctor has been working toward the end game even longer.

Order this CDwritten by Jonathan Morris
directed by Ken Bentley
music by Wilfredo Acosta

Cast: Sylvester McCoy (The Doctor), James Wilby (Tenebris), Chase Masterson (Vienna Salavatori), Eve Karpf (Talbar), Alex Mallinson (Horval), John Banks (Captain Webster / Starbaff / Wrath Emperor), Jaimi Barbakoff (Lt. Dervish)

Notes: When Vienna remarks that the Doctor isn’t dead, he tells her he’s “merely pining for the fjords”, providing that moment for which we’ve all been waiting for decades, the meeting of Monty Python and Doctor Who. Chase Masterson also appeared in the subscriber bonus release Night Of The Stormcrow, starring Tom Baker, released the following month in 2012, though she has reprised the role of Vienna in an audio spinoff series revolving around that character for Big Finish.

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

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Season 1 Wizards vs. Aliens

Rebel Magic – Part 1

Wizards vs. AliensVarg and Lexi accost a teenage wizard named Jackson Hawke and try to abduct him to drain his magic. He quickly shows that he has no intention of becoming their latest victim – and has the magic to back it up despite his modest age – by banishing them to the Egyptian desert with a single spell.

Tom is having problems at school – his grades are falling because he had been using magic to complete his homework, magic which he now feels he has to reserve for Nekross-related emergencies. Naturally, Tom’s dad has a thing or two to say about this revelation, and even at school, Tom is finding himself ostracized from his old crowd because of his recent tendency to spend his time with Benny. Tom narrowly escapes being mugged when Jackson Hawke steps in, and Tom is immediately fascinated by the older boy’s magical prowess, though he quickly learns that Jackson uses magic to avoid school, to avoid work, to avoid paying for anything – and he’s ready to teach Tom how to use his magic the same way.

Order the serieswritten by Joseph Lidster
directed by Griff Rowland
music by Sam Watts

Wizards vs. AliensCast: Scott Haran (Tom Clarke), Percelle Ascott (Benny Sherwood), Annette Badland (Ursula Crowe), Michael Higgs (Michael Clarke), Jefferson Hall (Varg), Gwendoline Christie (Lexi), Brian Blessed (voice of the Nekross King), Tim Rose (Nekross King puppeteer), Connor Scarlett (Quinn Christopher), Andy Rush (Jackson Hawke), Joshua Herdman (Steve), Claire Cage (Julia Hawke), Holli Dempsey (Meena)

Notes: The Nekross King devoured his own brother to ascend to the throne; it’s apparently not uncommon for sibling rivalries to be resolving in this manner on their planet.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Season 1 Wizards vs. Aliens

Rebel Magic – Part 2

Wizards vs. AliensTom and Jackson Hawke return to Jackson’s house, finding that Benny followed Tom there – and so did the Nekross hunter Varg, who is holding Benny at gunpoint. Jackson urges Tom to use a darker magical force to banish Varg, and then Jackson himself uses the same kind of magic to erase Benny’s memory and send him on his way. The two young wizards plan to wait until sunrise for their magic to recharge, and then launch their own offensive against the Nekross aboard the Zarantulus. Benny, thinking that it’s that morning, goes to Tom’s house, where Ursula recognizes the spell that he’s been placed under and reverses it, learning of Jackson’s use of grim magic. At sunrise, the two wizards attack the Nekross ship with a spell, drawing the aliens’ attention enough to earn an invitation to deep space. Jackson plans to use grim magic to eliminate the Nekross forever – even if his continued use of it burns out his own mind.

Order the serieswritten by Joseph Lidster
directed by Griff Rowland
music by Sam Watts

Wizards vs. AliensCast: Scott Haran (Tom Clarke), Percelle Ascott (Benny Sherwood), Annette Badland (Ursula Crowe), Michael Higgs (Michael Clarke), Jefferson Hall (Varg), Gwendoline Christie (Lexi), Brian Blessed (voice of the Nekross King), Tim Rose (Nekross King puppeteer), Dan Starkey (Randal Moon), Andy Rush (Jackson Hawke), Claire Cage (Julia Hawke)

Notes: On the surface, it would appear that the concept of grim magic is interchangeable with the more familiar concept of “black magic”, though the latter term was probably omitted to avoid offending anyone (particularly those who are likely to protest any mention of magic in children’s entertainment to begin with).

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Season 1 Wizards vs. Aliens

Friend Or Foe – Part 1

Wizards vs. AliensAt the bidding of the King, Lexi devises an impressive disguise allowing her to pass for a human – so well, in fact, that her brother thinks an unauthorized human has boarded the Zarantulus. She plans to use this disguise to capture Tom, unaware that she’s competing with someone to control his power: a secret organization of Earth is trying to prove the existence of wizards, and has spotted Tom using his powers on London’s ubiquitous closed circuit TV cameras. Men in black capture Tom and the disguised Lexi, shove them into black vans, and take off…and before the day is out, the human race is aware of the Nekross as well. Now Benny and Varg have to join forces to find them.

Order the serieswritten by Clayton Hickman
directed by Griff Rowland
music by Sam Watts

Wizards vs. AliensCast: Scott Haran (Tom Clarke), Percelle Ascott (Benny Sherwood), Annette Badland (Ursula Crowe), Michael Higgs (Michael Clarke), Jefferson Hall (Varg), Gwendoline Christie (Lexi), Brian Blessed (voice of the Nekross King), Tim Rose (Nekross King puppeteer), Dan Starkey (Randal Moon), Manpreet Bambra (Katie Lord), Connor Scarlett (Quinn Christopher), Ruthie Henshall (Stephanie Gaunt), Chuk Iwuji (Adams), James Barriscale (Mr. Fisher)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Season 1 Wizards vs. Aliens

Friend Or Foe – Part 2

Wizards vs. AliensMs. Gaunt’s shadowy organization isn’t part of the government; she’s trying to harness magic to help her commit crimes. When she discovers that Lexi is an alien with technology beyond the human race, it’s all the better – and she begins interrogating Lexi, something to which even Tom takes offense. Varg, looking for his sister, reluctantly turns to Benny and to Tom’s grandmother for help, though Varg’s definition of “help” is “submitting to an excruciatingly painful brain scan”. With Ms. Gaunt trying to enslave them both, wizards and aliens form an unlikely alliance to defeat her.

Order the serieswritten by Clayton Hickman
directed by Griff Rowland
music by Sam Watts

Wizards vs. AliensCast: Scott Haran (Tom Clarke), Percelle Ascott (Benny Sherwood), Annette Badland (Ursula Crowe), Michael Higgs (Michael Clarke), Jefferson Hall (Varg), Gwendoline Christie (Lexi), Brian Blessed (voice of the Nekross King), Tim Rose (Nekross King puppeteer), Dan Starkey (Randal Moon), Ruthie Henshall (Stephanie Gaunt), Chuk Iwuji (Adams)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Season 1 Wizards vs. Aliens

Fall Of The Nekross – Part 1

Wizards vs. AliensTired of living under constant Nekross threat, Ursula casts an obscure spell to repel the Zarantulus using Earth’s own gravity…but it barely causes the ship to budge. Benny suggests fighting Nekross science with perfectly ordinary Earth computer science: he hacks into a global distributed computing network intended for educational purposes, and uses it to transmit an Earthly computer virus to the Nekross. Barely spaceworthy, the Zarantulus withdraws to conduct extensive repairs. They contact Benny, demanding merciful treatment instead of ann attack that leaves their ship unable to sustain life. But Ursula, having praised Benny for fending off the Nekross without bloodshed, decides this is no time for mercy.

Order the serieswritten by Gareth Roberts
directed by Joss Agnew
music by Sam Watts

Wizards vs. AliensCast: Scott Haran (Tom Clarke), Percelle Ascott (Benny Sherwood), Annette Badland (Ursula Crowe), Michael Higgs (Michael Clarke), Jefferson Hall (Varg), Gwendoline Christie (Lexi), Brian Blessed (voice of the Nekross King), Tim Rose (Nekross King puppeteer), Dan Starkey (Randal Moon), Tom Bell (Jathro)

Notes: Apparently technomages – wizards who achieve their “magic” by using technology and science – exist in the Wizards vs. Aliens universe as well as the Babylon 5 universe. The Nekross really need to install McAffee or Avast or something, or at least learn some IT best practices while they’re observing Earth.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Season 1 Wizards vs. Aliens

Fall Of The Nekross – Part 2

Wizards vs. AliensWith the Zarantulus mere hours away from falling apart in deep space, Benny is wracked with guilt over what he has done, and is shocked to find that the entire Crow family seems to be all in favor of killing the Nekross. But Tom, feeling equally guilty, rushes to help Benny find a way to deliver help to the Nekross, in the form of Benny himself. Tom plans to use a stone circle to magically “remember” how the Nekross’ teleport works, so Benny can eliminate the virus from their ship, but for the use of such powerful magic, the stones exact a punishing price on whoever uses them.

Order the serieswritten by Gareth Roberts
directed by Joss Agnew
music by Sam Watts

Wizards vs. AliensCast: Scott Haran (Tom Clarke), Percelle Ascott (Benny Sherwood), Annette Badland (Ursula Crowe), Michael Higgs (Michael Clarke), Jefferson Hall (Varg), Gwendoline Christie (Lexi), Brian Blessed (voice of the Nekross King), Tim Rose (Nekross King puppeteer), Dan Starkey (Randal Moon), Tom Bell (Jathro), Gabriel Woolf (voice of the Stones)

Notes: Gabriel Woolf provided the voice of Sutekh in the classic 1976 Doctor Who story The Pyramids Of Mars, a role he has also reprised for Big Finish Productions.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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4th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

Night Of The Stormcrow

Doctor WhoAfter colliding with something in the time vortex, the TARDIS lands at an isolated observatory in Hawaii, where the staff has already suffered casualties at the hands of an alien force. Professor Cazalet, the astronomer currently booking telescope time at the observatory, obsessively talks about her discovery of something she calls the Stormcrow. Once the Doctor gets a look at the Stormcrow, he realizes that he knows it by quite a different name – and that it has come to feed on what it thinks is a dying planet. Not everyone will survive the fight to fend off the Stormcrow, but failing to fight it at all will spell doom for the entire human race.

Order this CDwritten by Marc Platt
directed by Nicholas Briggs
music by Jamie Robertson

Cast: Tom Baker (The Doctor), Louise Jameson (Leela), Chase Masterson (Peggy Brooks), Ann Bell (Professor Gesima Cazalet), Jonathan Forbes (Trevor Gale), Mandi Symonds (Erica MacMillan)

Timeline: after The Talons Of Weng-Chiang; after The Oseidon Adventure and before The King Of Sontar

Notes: The CD cover for Night Of The Stormcrow was redesigned at a very late stage to bring the Big Finish audios’ cover art in line with the BBC design guidelines for merchandise released during the 50th anniversary of the television series, and was the first cover to have the anniversary logo (basically the Hartnell-era video feedback title sequence framed within the Pertwee/McGann style lettering) applied to it. Originally released as a bonus for subscribers only, Night Of The Stormcrow was given a general release in December 2013.

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

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5th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

1001 Nights

Doctor WhoIn an Arabian palace, the Doctor languishes in the dungeon with a feeble man claiming to be the Sultan, while another man claiming to be the Sultan forces Nyssa to tell tale after tale of the Doctor’s exploits, without ever questioning the Doctor’s talents, his TARDIS, or his otherworldly nature. As the Doctor tries to escape and to free the real Sultan, he begins to realize that the phenomenon that has affected the Sultan’s mind is beginning to affect his as well. He suspects that the palace is now being run by a creature which can replace any living being about which it gathers enough information. As the fake Sultan compels Nyssa to tell it stories of her travels with the Doctor (under pain of death), it’s gathering all the intelligence it needs.

Order this CDMy Brother’s Keeper written by Emma Beeby and Gordon Rennie
The Interplanetarian written by Jonathan Barnes
Smuggling Tales written by Catherine Harvey
1001 Nights written by Emma Beeby and Gordon Rennie
directed by Barnaby Edwards
music by Jamie Robertson

My Brother’s Keeper Cast: Peter Davison (The Doctor), Sarah Sutton (Nyssa), Alexander Siddig (The Sultan), Nadim Sawalha (The Old Man), Teddy Kempner (Prisoner), Malcolm Tierney (Warder)

The Interplanetarian Cast: Peter Davison (The Doctor), Sarah Sutton (Nyssa), Alexander Siddig (The Sultan), Nadim Sawalha (The Old Man), Debbie Leigh-Simmons (Elizabeth Spinnaker), Oliver Coopersmith (Hill)

Smuggling Tales Cast: Peter Davison (The Doctor), Sarah Sutton (Nyssa), Alexander Siddig (The Sultan), Nadim Sawalha (The Old Man), Kim Ismay (Lottie), Debbie Leigh-Simmons (Bessie), Christopher Luscombe (Balladeer), Oliver Coopersmith (Archie)

1001 Nights Cast: Peter Davison (The Doctor), Sarah Sutton (Nyssa), Alexander Siddig (The Sultan), Nadim Sawalha (The Old Man), Teddy Kempner (Nazar), Kim Ismay (Woman Stallholder), Malcolm Tierney (Gantha), Debbie Leigh-Simmons (Crying Woman), Christopher Luscombe (Alien Psychiatrist)

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

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6th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

Voyage To The New World

Doctor WhoPromising to take Jago and Litefoot from the wild environs of Venus to a decent pub, the Doctor brings the TARDIS in for a landing… near Roanoke, Virgina in 1590, a missing British colony in the Americas, and decidedly bereft of pubs… or, for that matter, people. The expedition sent to check up on Roanoke has found nothing except for three suspiciously out-of-place Englishmen and a group of Native Americans believed to have massacred the missing colonists. Jago falls ill and begins to fade away – quite literally, gradually turning transparent. It’s a fate that he shares with many others, both British and Native American alike, as a mysterious translucent being and a swarm of spectral children routinely appear to claim new victims. None of this is in the history books, because something has caused a major diversion in history… namely, the arrival of the TARDIS. The Doctor must set history right with little more than the power of persuasion on his side.

Order this CDwritten by Matthew Sweet
directed by Ken Bentley
music by Andy Hardwick / ERS

Cast: Colin Baker (The Doctor), Christopher Benjamin (Henry Gordon Jago), Trevor Baxter (Professor George Litefoot), Philip Pope (John White), Ramon Tikaram (Wanchese), Mark Lockyer (Sir Walter Raleigh), Emerald O’Hanrahan (Eleanor Dare)

Notes: Litefoot’s exclamation that Jago vanished “like breath on a mirror!” precedes the eleventh Doctor’s use of the same phrase just prior to regenerating in The Time Of The Doctor by two years. The Doctor eventually deposits Jago and Litefoot at the right pub, but in the wrong era, dropping them off in 1968, setting the quintessential Victorian paranormal investigators up for the adventures in their fifth box set “season” of audio tales.

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

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Doctor Who New Series Season 07

The Snowmen

Doctor WhoForlorn and bitter after the unexpected departure of Amy and Rory, the Doctor has retreated into hiding in Victorian London – actually, a cloud hovering above it – refusing to lift a finger to alter the destiny of the world. The human race is on its own, at least until a barmaid named Clara draws the Doctor’s attention to snowmen that seem to appear out of nowhere, during one of the Time Lord’s infrequent visits to London. Despite encountering Strax the Sontaran and the Silurian Madame Vastra, Clara unflinchingly asks for the Doctor’s help when she learns that the snowmen are made of snow that responds to the deepest fears of those around them. The Doctor follows Clara to her second job – as a governess taking care of the children at a mansion in the heart of London – and finds that something else lurks beneath a frozen pond on the estate. The mysterious Dr. Simeon is determined to claim it for himself, and he seems to command the slowly growing army of snowmen. But who is Simeon working for – and is all of the mystery finally enough to draw the Doctor out of his melancholy?

Order the DVDwritten by Steven Moffat
directed by Saul Metzstein
music by Murray Gold

Cast: Matt Smith (The Doctor), Jenna-Louise Coleman (Clara), Tom Ward (Captain Latimer), Richard E. Grant (Dr. Simeon), Catrin Stewart (Jenny), Neve McIntosh (Madame Vastra), Dan Starkey (Strax), Joseph Darcey-Alden (Digby), Ellie Darcey-Alden (Francesca), Liz White (Alice), Jim Conway (Uncle Josh), Cameron Strefford (Walter), Annabelle Dowler (Walter’s Mother), Ben Addis (Bob Chilcott), Sophie Miller-Sheen (Clara’s Friend), Daniel Hyde (Lead Workman), Ian McKellen (voice of the Great Intelligence), Juliet Cadzow (voice of the Ice Governess)

Doctor WhoNotes: The second Doctor encountered the Great Intelligence in Tibet, 1935, and again in the London Underground in the late 1960s. By showing the Intelligence a lunchbox with a map of the Underground, the eleventh Doctor could well be ensuring that the disembodied being well attempt its fateful takeover of the London subway system (an incursion which leads to the Doctor’s first meeting with Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart, later promoted to Brigadier). The Intelligence’s usual minions, robotic Yeti, do not appear in this episode. A 1995 fan film, Downtime (referenced once already this season), depicts a third attempt by the Great Intelligence to gain a foothold on Earth via the Yeti. Clara first appeared in the season premiere, Asylum Of The Daleks. Doctor WhoGuest star Richard E. Grant was the ninth Doctor in an animated alternate universe in 2003’s Scream Of The Shalka (a web-based story that, while produced by the BBC’s interactive wing, has generally been relegated to the “unofficial” column), but is much better known for Withnail & I, in which he co-starred with Paul McGann. This episode debuts a new TARDIS interior (the second major rethink of the vehicle’s console room in Matt Smith’s era) and a new title sequence, only the third time in the show’s history that a new title sequence has premiered in the middle of a season (the other two occasions were the late-in-the-season transition from the fifth to sixth Doctor, and Patrick Troughton inheriting the William Hartnell titles for several episodes). The Doctor now says he is over a thousand years old, which lines up with the unofficial pre-publicity line that hundreds of years of isolation may have elapsed for him since The Angels Take Manhattan.

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

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Destiny Of The Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

Hunters Of Earth

Doctor WhoA year or so into their full-time residence on Earth, the Doctor and Susan try to live relatively normal lives incognito. The Doctor has quietly been stealing electronic components to fix the TARDIS, while Susan attends nearby Coal Hill School. While spending time with her friends (who still regard her interests in science and history as unusual), Susan experiences a severe headache and is then attacked by her fellow students, who are acting strangely (and in some cases, violently). Moments after the Doctor arrives to take her home, a radio disc jockey makes a cryptic dedication to “the Doctor and Sue”, along with a message that makes it clear that someone knows they are time travelers. A newspaper advertisement for electronic parts draws the Doctor’s attention, and he’s not entirely surprised when it turns out to be a trap laid for him. Susan experiences more displays of violence by her fellow Coal Hill students, including some she regards as her friends. In the junkyard at Totter’s Lane, someone scrawls the message “ALIENS OUT” – but how far are they willing to go to make that happen?

Order this CDadapted by Nigel Robinson
directed by John Ainsworth
music by Simon Hunt

Cast: Carole Ann Ford (Susan), Tam Williams (Cedric)

Notes: Susan mentions the (fictional) band John Smith and the Common Men (An Unearthly Child, Fanfare For The Common Men). She began school in the autumn term in 1962, the same time as new schoolmaster Colonel Rook (retired) first appeared. She is more interested in news of the space race than in news of the cold war. The dedication read by the disc jockey is a message from the eleventh Doctor (The Time Machine). The Telstar satellite was launched in 1962, but ceased to function in February 1963. This is significant in dating the story: the Beatles are mentioned as being chart-toppers, and their first UK #1 single, “Please Please Me”, didn’t reach #1 until February 22nd, 1963 – one day after Telstar stopped communicating with Earth. Perhaps the Doctor’s commandeering of the satellite is what caused it to shut down, thus placing this story on the 22nd of February 1963.

Timeline: after Quinnis and before An Unearthly Child

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

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4th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

The Auntie Matter

Doctor WhoThe Doctor, having set the TARDIS’ randomizer to send the timeship to a thousand planets under the supervision of K-9 in order to throw the Black Guardian off his scent, settles down in 1920s England to relax. Romana reluctantly joins him, finding little to stimulate her intellectually. She happens upon Reginald Bassett, the heir-apparent of a local estate, and is stunned when he seems to demonstrate a more-than-passing acquaintance with quantum theory. She’s even more stunned, however, when he pops the question unexpectedly, asking her to marry him and insisting upon introducing her to his aunt, a sinister matriarch whose interest in Reggie’s choices in women is more than mere family concern.

Order this CDwritten by Jonathan Morris
directed by Ken Bentley
music by Howard Carter

Cast: Tom Baker (The Doctor), Mary Tamm (Romana), Julia McKenzie (Florence), Robert Portal (Reggie), Lucy Griffiths (Mabel), Alan Cox (Grenville), Jane Slavin (Ligeia)

Notes: Both Earth and the Doctor himself are described as “harmless… well, mostly,” a nod to Earth’s “mostly harmless” status in The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, which was written by Douglas Adams. His earliest produced Doctor Who scripts were part of the 16th season, which introduced Romana.

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

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6th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

The Wrong Doctors

Doctor Who: The Wrong DoctorsAfter: Prematurely introduced to Melanie during the course of his trial, the Doctor returns her to Pease Pottage. He hasn’t met her or begun his travels with her yet, and keeping her around is begging for a paradox to be created.

Before: The Doctor has parted ways with Evelyn Smythe, and resigns himself to the future that he already knows is coming: traveling with Melanie toward the end of his sixth incarnation. He sets the TARDIS on a course for Pease Pottage, and meets Mel right on schedule. But there’s one than one Mel there at the same time, and it’s not because the TARDIS has come to the right place at the wrong time. Someone else is tinkering with time, and it will take two Doctors and two Melanies to stop them.

Order this CDwritten by Matt Fitton
directed by Nicholas Briggs
music by Simon Robinson

Cast: Colin Baker (The Doctor), Bonnie Langford (Mel), Tony Gardner (Stapleton Petherbridge), James Joyce (Jedediah Thurwell), Patricia Leventon (Mrs. Wilberforce), Beth Chalmers (Vaneesh), John Banks (Ksllak)

Notes: This story attempts to resolve one of Doctor Who’s longest-standing paradoxes: how the sixth Doctor, on trial, could present a future adventure with Melanie (whom he has yet to meet) as evidence, only to have a future Melanie brought to the trial by the Time Lords to testify, and then leave with her at the end of the story. Even the Target novelization of that story strongly implied that the Doctor drops Melanie off in her timeline and then goes about his business, not meeting her “properly” until later. Another chronicle of Melanie’s first meeting with the sixth Doctor – from her perspective – occurs in Gary Russell’s novel Business Unusual, which this story does not necessarily contradict.

Timeline: For the sixth Doctor and Melanie, after part 14 of Trial Of A Time Lord. For the sixth Doctor and Melanie, on the other hand, before part 9 of Trial Of A Time Lord.

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green