Leviathan
The TARDIS experiences problems in flight, and lands at the earliest opportunity so the Doctor can try to effect repairs. The scanner shows that the TARDIS has landed in medieval England, complete with a mythical hunter who stalks the locals “when their time comes.” If that isn’t strange enough, evidence of energy weapons and robotics are barely hidden from view as well. The locals are instantly suspicious of the time travelers, especially when the Doctor decides to take up the cause of freeing them from the terror that stalks the land. But the Doctor and Peri are in too deep before they discover that it isn’t land, and it’s not inhabited by locals… and that the hunter is among the least of their problems.
written by Brian & Paul Finch
directed by Ken Bentley
music by Simon RobinsonCast: Colin Baker (The Doctor), Nicola Bryant (Peri), Howard Gossington (Gurth), John Banks (Herne the Hunter), Beth Chalmers (Althya), Jamie Parker (Wulfric), Derek Carlyle (Siward)
Notes: Leviathan was written by the late Brian Finch (1936-2007), who had a strong connection with Colin Baker’s career – he was a frequent writer of The Brothers, the early 1970s prime time soap which Baker joined as its chief villain halfway through the series’ run. (Baker’s stint as unscrupulous banker Paul Merroney was his claim to fame prior to Doctor Who.) Leviathan was originally submitted for season 22, not the cancelled season 23, but Finch’s son, also a writer, pitched the script to Big Finish just as they were about to wrap production on the planned Lost Stories releases, leading to the mysterious lack of announcements about which titles were forthcoming in that range.
Timeline: after Mission To Magnus and before The Hollows Of Time
LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green
The Doctor and Peri have a difficult time remembering their latest adventure, but bit by bit, details come back to them: they visited the quaint village of Hollowdean in the early 1980s, with the Doctor planning to visit the Reverend Foxworth, formerly a Bletchley Park artificial intelligence expert who worked with Alan Turing on early computer technology. But Foxworth hasn’t abandoned his penchant for creating new technology, and that has the Doctor worried. Also worrying is the hold that self-styled religious guru Professor Stream has over the entire village. Peri befriends a local boy named Simon, who shows her a piece of a scaly carapace – a fragment that the Doctor instantly recognizes as part of the outer shell of a Tractator, an alien species he once met who can influence gravity. Peri and Simon discover that the Tractators are being enslaves for their unique gravitational properties, but whoever has trapped them needs something that only the Doctor can provide: a working TARDIS, and the coordinates of the Gravis, the most powerful of the Tractators.
Klein’s Story: The Doctor is curious as to how Klein went from the future to Colditz Castle, the first time he encountered her. He learns of an alternate Doctor’s grisly fate, and the very precise guidance of a young man named Johann Schmidt in helping Klein learn how to control the fallen Doctor’s TARDIS. And Klein learns, to her alarm, that the Doctor has been pulling the strings of her life all along.
The TARDIS is now in Klein’s hands, and she has rewritten history as she pleases. Whenever threats arise to challenge her “Fourth Reich”, she simply goes further back in time and prevents those threats from existing. The web of time is stretched to its breaking point. In a cell in Klein’s headquarters, a Time Lord called the Doctor is kept in chains, because he remembers events that Klein wiped from history, from meeting her in in Kenya during the Mau Mau uprising to taking her to an alien world to thwart genocide. To anger Klein is to risk being erased from time itself; even though she’s not the nominal Fuhrer of the Fourth Reich, few dare to cross her. But when a Selachian attack force arrives with its own time travel technology, the Doctor instantly becomes a suspect – and, it turns out, he helped to plan the Selachian invasion in advance. Or maybe he did that in another timeline. In any case, Klein and her “Bureau of Temporal Affairs” have met their match, and her own place in history is subject to revision.
Notes: The lightning and thunderclaps in the new opening titles hearken back to the very origins of Doctor Who; the unaired pilot version of 
Notes: Oscar-winning actress Sophie Okonedo makes her second Doctor Who “appearance” here; her first was in animated form in the 2003 BBCi webcast 
Notes: This isn’t the first time that the 
Notes: 
A strange, scream-like signal from a rogue asteroid leads the Doctor to send a response, which only has the effect of making the asteroid stop and change course toward the TARDIS. To avoid a colliskion, the Doctor dematerializes the TARDIS and arrives in 16th century London, where the strange screaming sound can still be heard. The Doctor and Peri find themselves at a nearby inn with none other than playwright Christopher Marlowe, who is sorting through strange – and possibly unearthly – ideas for a play about Dr. Faustus. Marlowe has been consorting with a Spaniard named Velez, rarely seen in public due to his skin’s habit of falling away from his skeleton, and claims that Velez has shown him the secrets of astral projection, giving him glimpses of unearthly events that now inspire his work. The Doctor suspects that Velez is putting Marlowe under some unearthly influence, and tries to cast doubt on Marlowe’s reliability as a spy for the British government. The accusation only lands the Doctor in the Tower of London, while Peri and one of Marlowe’s actors try to free the playwright from the influence of Velez. When they learn that Velez draws his power from blood sacrifices, they become fast candidates to be Velez’ next victim.
The Doctor returns to Scotland, finding history changed. The Jacobite uprising has lasted far longer than history records, and the oil well has been developed far ahead of schedule. Someone has begun stripping Scotland of its natural resources, and the fight for freedom is as bloody as ever, decades after it should have ended. Even more surprisingly, after encountering both British occupiers and Scottish freedom fighters, the Doctor is brought before the leader of the Scottish rebellion, Black Donald – a man the Doctor knows as Jamie McCrimmon. Naturally, thanks to the Time Lords wiping Jamie’s memories, Jamie has no idea who this incarnation of the Doctor is. All he knows is the ongoing fight to free his homeland from the domination of the Redcaps and their Overlord. Once Rob Roy turns up in the same time zone – decades before he should even be alive – the Doctor is determined to find out who’s playing fast and loose with human history. But with no idea of who this oddly-dressed English interloper is, Jamie McCrimmon isn’t sure who to trust.
Notes: This episode marks the first appearance of the