Brave New Town
September, 1991: the TARDIS brings the Doctor and Lucie to a town which seems to be frozen in time. With no electricity, nothing here has been cleaned for years, and the friendly locals have no problem with the idea that yesterday’s date was the same as today’s – just like tomorrow’s will be. Surrounding the town is a bleak desert, though everyone living there swears that the tide is out. One thing disrupts the calm here: armored vehicles routinely patrol the area, crossing the desert that shouldn’t be there, and all the locals have to do to avoid detection is stand still. Lucie is captured by one of the patrols, and discovers that their occupants seem fairly certain that it’s 2008. The Doctor, trying to track down a missing local girl, discovers that the town – and the desert – are actually deep inside the borders of Uzbekistan, and that the locals are anything but. They’re Autons who, without control from the Nestene Consciousness, have blended in to the point that they think they’re human. But somewhere in the desert, a Nestene control unit is trying to re-establish contact with its Auton army, and the innocuous townsfolk may justify the armed presence patrolling their home.
written by Jonathan Clements
directed by Jason Haigh-Ellery
music by ERSCast: Paul McGann (The Doctor), Sheridan Smith (Lucie Miller), Derek Griffiths (Jason Taylor), Adrian Dunbar (McCarthy), Lorna Want (Sally Taylor), Nick Wilton (PC Sharp / Karimov), Katarina Olsson (Margaret / Vitas)
Notes: This marks the Autons’ first appearance in a Big Finish audio production; they had already appeared as both the first villain and the first classic villain in 2005’s Rose, the first episode of the new TV series. The Autons also inspired a trilogy of fan-made video productions in the 1990s, though the interpretation of them seen there is very different from either Rose or Brave New Town.
Timeline: after Max Warp and before The Skull Of Sobek
LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green
The TARDIS brings the Doctor and his companion, retired Brigadier Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart, to the ravaged planet Skaro, devastated by centuries of war and left with only one habitable city. The Doctor and Alistair almost immediately run afoul of a Dalek-imposed curfew; they’re only saved by members of the Thal underground resistance that seeks to overthrow their Dalek rulers. The Doctor and Alistair get a crash course in local history: due to the first Doctor’s intervention during his first visit to Skaro, the Thals rose up and effectively drove the Daleks away from Skaro. The Daleks spread into space, but then abruptly returned to Skaro to enslave the Thals anew. Having helped to change Skaro’s history enough to create the present situation, the Doctor feels a responsibility to change the planet’s destiny again. Alistair relishes the chance to lead the resistance fighters in their fight against the Daleks, but in the background, the Doctor notices repeated propaganda broadcasts focusing on a being he has never heard of before: Davros, the creator of the Daleks, attempting to instill a messianic fervor into his creations. But Davros left Skaro long ago, his destination and his mission unknown, and the Doctor is able to use that mystery to turn the Dalek-Thal conflict into a Dalek civil war. When another invading force arrives – this time neither Dalek nor Thal – the Doctor realizes that his actions have played into the hands of another race that wants to rule Skaro.
The TARDIS brings the Doctor and Lucie to a space city which, according to the TARDIS sensors, is devoid of life. That doesn’t mean it’s completely uninhabited, however – the time travelers are quickly cornered by a band of marauding robots. A barrier separates the two, allowing Lucie to escape to safety, while the Doctor has to talk his way out of danger with a little help from his sonic screwdriver and a helpful cleaning robot who hasn’t joined his savage brethren. Lucie finds herself in the company of the Assemblers, a band of elder robots so pacifistic that they’re in constant danger from the Cannibalists, the all-consuming robots who see any other robot or life form as a source of spare parts. In the middle of the seemingly endless conflict between these two groups are Servo, a meek maintenance droid who simply wants to carry on the work of tending to the city’s needs, and Minerva, an access point for the city itself who could grant immense power to anyone, even to the point of resetting the entire system. Soon, the race is on to see who can control Minerva and rule the city… and the Doctor isn’t sure that either group has earned that power.