Category: Doctor Who

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Doctor Who New Series Season 07

Asylum Of The Daleks

Doctor WhoOne by one, the Doctor, Amy, and Rory are abducted by the Daleks and brought to a ship housing the Dalek Parliament. Fully expecting extermination, the Doctor and his friends are shocked to hear the Daleks demanding that the Time Lord save them from an unspecified threat – namely, the Daleks’ own past. On a remote planet, the Daleks have imprisoned the most insane, battle-scarred members of their own race, sealed in with a shield. But a ship has managed to crash there, and is broadcasting a signal that could give away the planet’s secret. The Daleks have captured the Doctor and his friends to send them to deal with the crashed ship, facing an onslaught of mad Daleks along the way.

Order the DVDDownload this episodewritten by Steven Moffat
directed by Nick Hurran
music by Murray Gold

Cast: Matt Smith (The Doctor), Karen Gillan (Amy Pond), Arthur Darvill (Rory Williams), Jenna-Louise Coleman (Oswin), Anamaria Marinca (Darla), Naomi Ryan (Cassandra), David Gyasi (Harvey), Nicholas Briggs (voice of the Daleks), Barnaby Edwards (Dalek 1), Nicholas Pegg (Dalek 2)

Doctor WhoNotes: The Daleks in the “intensive care unit” are survivors of conflicts with past Doctors; Oswin points out that they’re veterans of Spiridon (Planet Of The Daleks, 1973), Kembel (The Daleks’ Master Plan, 1965/66), Aridius (The Chase, 1965), Vulcan (Power Of The Daleks, 1966), and Exxilon (Death To The Daleks, 1974). Despite this, and despite much pre-publicity stating that nearly every style of Dalek ever seen in the original series would be seen here, the Daleks seen in this area are all the up-armored Dalek casings introduced in 2005’s Dalek. Glimpsed in the part of the asylum first visited by Rory is the Special Weapons Dalek (Remembrance Of The Daleks, 1988), a legendary major variation on the standard Dalek casing despite this being only its second on-screen appearance in the history of the series.

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

Categories
Doctor Who New Series Season 07

Dinosaurs On A Spaceship

Doctor WhoWith a motley retinue of companions and helpers in tow – ranging from Amy, Rory, and Rory’s bewildered dad to a big game hunter and Queen Nefertiti of Egypt – the Doctor boards a spaceship on a collision course for 22nd century Earth, quickly discovering that it has a live cargo: dinosaurs from Earth’s past. The Doctor, Rory, and Rory’s dad find themselves in the ship’s control area, herded by strangely-behaved robots toward a meeting with the ship’s captain, while Amy and the others discover that whoever’s in charge of the ship now isn’t the one who loaded and launched it. The man in charge, a vicious space pirate named Solomon, hijacked the ship from its Silurian crew and killed them, intending to sell the specimens of the extinct dinosaur species on the black market. Solomon wants the Doctor to heal the injuries he suffered as a result, but the Doctor knows something he doesn’t: the Indian Space Agency has launched missiles toward the ship to destroy it before it collides with the planet. No matter what threats Solomon makes, the dinosaurs, along with the last Time Lord, may be facing extinction once more.

Order the DVDDownload this episodewritten by Chris Chibnall
directed by Saul Metzstein
music by Murray Gold

Doctor WhoCast: Matt Smith (The Doctor), Karen Gillan (Amy Pond), Arthur Darvill (Rory Williams), Rupert Graves (Riddell), Mark Williams (Brian Williams), David Bradley (Solomon), Riann Steele (Queen Nefertiti), Sunetra Sarker (Indira), Noel Byrne (Robot 1), Richard Garaghty (Robot 2), Richard Hope (Bleytal), Rudi Dharmalingam (ISA Worker), David Mitchell (Robot 1 voice), Robert Webb (Robot 2 voice)

Notes: Mark Williams is probably best known now for appearing as Ron Weasley’s father in the Harry Potter movies; longtime fans of British SF may also recognize him as Red Dwarf’s Swedish crewmember Petersen, or as one of the wayward alien leads of Red Dwarf co-creator Rob Grant’s short-lived SF comedy The Doctor WhoStrangerers. This is the first on-screen evidence that the Silurians were capable of space travel; the Doctor’s previous encounters with them all involved enclaves of Silurians who opted to wait out the Earth’s extinction event in underground chambers. It could be that the Silurian space ark was a more desperate, radical attempt to preserve the Earth’s species. Ironically, this also gives the Silurians – normally enemies of the human race – something in common with their foes: both species, faced with imminent extinction-level events on Earth, took to space to preserve the planet’s life forms (also see Nerva Beacon in The Ark In Space). There seems to be no indication that other Silurian ships were launched. The notion of an artificially constructed beach providing the ship with hydroelectric power matches up well with previous evidence of Earthbound Silurians utilizing geothermal power. The Doctor’s warning about messing with Egyptian queens comes from experience; this may be a reference to the Big Finish audio stories, in which the fifth Doctor traveled with Erimem, the first female Pharaoh, following an attempt on her life.

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

Categories
Doctor Who New Series Season 07

A Town Called Mercy

Doctor WhoThe TARDIS brings the Doctor, Amy and Rory to the old west, where they find an entire town that seems to have walled itself in. The locals are more suspicious of the three strangers than the time travelers expect; they’re warned that stepping outside the barrier at the edge of Mercy leaves one open to the mysterious Gunslinger. Only the sheriff, Isaac, prevents the townsfolk from throwing the Doctor across the barrier and leaving him to his fate. The Doctor learns that the Gunslinger wants the locals to hand over a stranded Kahler named Jex, who has helped the people of Mercy install electricity decades ahead of time, powered by his crashed ship. But Jex doesn’t dare stray outside of Mercy, and a visit to his ship shows the Doctor why: Jex was a military surgeon performing augmentations on Kahler soldiers, and the Gunslinger was among his patients – and is one of the few who lived. The saviour of Mercy is a war criminal, and the Doctor feels an obligation to see that justice is done. Isaac dies protecting Kahler Jex from the Gunslinger’s next attack, and leaves the Doctor with the sheriff’s badge, a tough decision to make, and a slowly growing lynch mob to face.

Order the DVDDownload this episodewritten by Toby Whithouse
directed by Saul Metzstein
music by Murray Gold

Cast: Matt Smith (The Doctor), Karen Gillan (Amy Pond), Arthur Darvill (Rory Williams), Andrew Brooke (The Gunslinger), Adrian Scarborough (Kahler-Jex), Dominic Kemp (Kahler-Mab), Joanne McQuinn (Sadie), Byrd Wilkins (The Preacher), Garrick Doctor WhoHagon (Abraham), Ben Browder (Isaac), Sean Benedict (Dockery), Rob Cavazos (Walter)

Notes: American actor Ben Browder is best known for his starring role in another popular science fiction series, Farscape, and for taking on the thankless job of succeeding Richard Dean Anderson as the star of Stargate SG-1 in its final two seasons. Garrick Hagon has previously appeared in classic Doctor Who (1972’s The Mutants), a few years before being cast as Biggs Darklighter in Star Wars, and more recently in the Big Finish audio Doctor Who story Axis Of Insanity.

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

Categories
5th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

The Burning Prince

Doctor WhoThe TARDIS arrives aboard a starship carring Prince Kylo of the Sorsha family to his wedding with Princess Aliona, a union that promises to end war between the Sorsha and the rival Gadarel families. Contact has been lost with the ship carrying the princess, and Kylo is en route with a full military rescue detail to find her. But the mission isn’t going well, and the Doctor is quickly suspected to be a saboteur. Before long, problems both technical and otherwise – including a captive beast who breaks free and manages to eliminate much of the crew – force Kylo’s ship down on the same planet where contact was lost with the princess’ entourage. A number of close calls with death convince the Doctor that the real saboteur is still at large, and even the miraculous recovery of Princess Aliona only serves to intensify those suspicions. The Prince, believing his betrothed to be dead, reveals his true power as a psychokinetic who can light fires with his mind, particularly when under great stress. When Aliona reveals the true reason for the royal wedding, Kylo will have tremendous difficulty keeping his fiery temper under control.

Order this CDwritten by John Dorney
directed by Ken Bentley
music by Toby Hrycek-Robinson

Cast: Peter Davison (The Doctor), Caroline Langrishe (Shira), George Rainsford (Prince Kylo), Clive Mantle (Tuvold), Dominic Rowan (Corwyn), Derek Hutchinson (Altus), Caroline Keiff (Riga), Tim Treolar (Tyron), Kirsty Besterman (Princess Aliona)

Timeline: This story takes place during the TV story Arc Of Infinity, occurring after the audio story Omega (which takes place in the same interval).

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
7th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

Gods And Monsters

Doctor WhoThe Doctor is trapped in an unfamiliar realm with Fenric, once again playing chess against the elder god. The TARDIS, once again its original shade of blue, materializes with Ace, Hex, Aristedes and Private Morgan aboard, and they promptly run into trouble: a Persian prince with an enchanted hammer, pursued by Fenric’s hordes of haemovores. Ace, familiar with Fenric’s games, goes rogue with the help of the prince’s hammer, while Hex finds himself protecting Weyland’s shield. Fenric sends Aristedes and Morgan away with a time storm, isolating the Time Lord from his small army of pawns. But only when the blacksmith to the gods, Weyland himself, appears, does the Doctor realize that he isn’t one of the players in this game. He isn’t even one of the pieces critical to the game, but Hex is – and the bearer of Weyland’s shield may become a sacrifice in the endgame.

Order this CDwritten by Mike Maddox and Alan Barnes
directed by Ken Bentley
music by Howard Carter

Cast: Sylvester McCoy (The Doctor), Sophie Aldred (Ace), Philip Olivier (Hex), Maggie O’Neill (Lysandra Aristedes), Amy Pemberton (Sally Morgan), John Standing (Fenric), Blake Ritson (Hurmzid), Gus Brown (Weyland), Tim Treloar (The Ancient One)

Notes: Fenric was first encountered on TV in 1989’s The Curse Of Fenric, though the Doctor claimed to be aware of Fenric’s manipulations as early as Dragonfire (1987) and Silver Nemesis (1988). The novels carried forward the idea of the Doctor battling Lovecraftian “elder gods” and established the notion that they were powerful beings left over from a previous iteration of the universe; in the Missing Adventures novel Twilight Of The Gods, such enemies as the Great Intelligence (known by its elder god name, Yog-Sothoth), the Gods of Ragnarok (The Greatest Show In The Galaxy) and Fenric were part of a pantheon of enormously powerful beings. Big Finish has carried that idea forward from there: the seventh Doctor’s recent series of battles with elder goes include the Karnas’Koi (Lurkers At Sunlight’s Edge), the Mi’en Kalarash (House Of Blue Fire), Moloch, “Albert”, and “Peggy” (Protect And Survive), and arguably earlier stories could be part of this long battle between the Doctor and the gods, all the way back to Primeval (2001), which implied that the fifth Doctor’s defeat of the godlike being Kwundaar at Traken had “sounded a dinner bell” for other ancient and powerful beings.

Timeline: after Black And White and before Afterlife

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
Doctor Who New Series Season 07

The Power Of Three

Doctor WhoThe Doctor returns to Earth to discover that black cubes have appeared all over the planet, mystifying the entire world: is it an alien attack or some kind of viral marketing ploy? When the cubes show no sign of activity, the Doctor decides to move in with Amy and Rory to observe the cubes over time. The cubes’ inactivity – and his own – drives the Doctor to distraction. Even when Rory’s dad Brian pitches in to observe the cubes, the cubes do nothing. The Doctor is surprised when UNIT arrives to question him, led by Kate Stewart – Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart’s daughter. When they do awaken, the cubes’ behavior ranges from benign to deadly to baffling, and the attention of the entire human race is riveted – which is exactly what the mind behind the cubes wants. The slow invasion of Earth is about to speed up, and even the Doctor can’t stop it.

Order the DVDDownload this episodewritten by Chris Chibnall
directed by Douglas MacKinnon
music by Murray Gold

Cast: Matt Smith (The Doctor), Karen Gillan (Amy Pond), Arthur Darvill (Rory Williams), Mark Williams (Brian Williams), Jemma Redgrave (Kate Stewart), Steven Berkoff (Shakri), Selva Rasalingam (Ranjit), Alice O’Connell (Laura), Peter Cartwright (Arnold Underwood), David Beck (Orderly 1), Daniel Beck (Orderly 2), David Hartley (UNIT Researcher), Professor Brian Cox (himself)

Doctor WhoNotes: The character of Kate Stewart was established in the 1995 direct-to-video spinoff Downtime, on which occasion she was played by Beverley Cressman. At that point, Kate showed no interest in UNIT, though obviously her priorities changed, perhaps as a result of UNIT’s intervention in the Yeti incursion at NeWorld University in that story. (It’s entirely possible that the two iterations of Kate Stewart weren’t meant to be the same person, but for those who like a wider Doctor Who universe, nothing in either this episode or Downtime directly contradicts the other story.) It is strongly implied that Kate has reformed UNIT somewhat (previous Doctor Who and Torchwood episodes had depicted UNIT becoming more ruthlessly militaristic).

Original title: Cubed

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

Categories
Doctor Who New Series Season 07

The Angels Take Manhattan

Doctor WhoA visit to modern-day New York City takes an unexpected twist. While Rory goes for lunch, the Doctor and Amy realize that the mystery novel that the Doctor is reading was, in fact, written by River Song, and describes Rory’s sudden abduction through time into the 1920s. The Doctor and Amy follow, discovering that River has become embroiled in shady dealings with a sinister collector of statues who happen to be Weeping Angels. Even the Statue of Liberty stalks the streets of New York at night. After escaping their immediate predicament, they find Rory – in his 80s, dying in a hotel room – even though they’ve rescued the younger Rory. It seems that he is fated to die, the temporal energy from his time travels feeding the Angels of New York. Amy and Rory take drastic steps – and, the Doctor warns, very ill-advised ones – to end the Angels’ reign by creating a dangerous paradox in their personal history. But this time, even the Time Lord can’t help his friends escape their inevitable fate.

Order the DVDDownload this episodewritten by Steven Moffat
directed by Nick Hurran
music by Murray Gold

Cast: Matt Smith (The Doctor), Karen Gillan (Amy Pond), Arthur Darvill (Rory Williams), Alex Kingston (River Song), Mike McShane (Grayle), Rob David (Sam Garner), Bently Kalu (Hood), Doctor WhoOzzie Yue (Foreman), Burnell Tucker (Old Garner), Zac Fox (Photoshoot PA)

Notes: This episode, featuring the long-anticipated, heavily-hyped exit of Rory and Amy, is the end of “Series 7A” (a term coined by the production team; following the Christmas episode, the remainder of the season aired in 2013). Location filming was done in New York, the second time a Doctor Who film crew, complete with the show’s stars, has filmed on location in the United States.

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

Categories
7th Doctor Big Finish Spinoffs Doctor Who The Audio Dramas UNIT

UNIT: Dominion

Doctor WhoOn Earth, a seashell-like organic mass appears in London, burrows its roots into the city’s power grid, and slowly begins growing in size as it feeds. UNIT has been called in to deal with it, though UNIT’s scientific advisor, Dr. Elizabeth Klein, is unable to discover much about it.

The Doctor’s TARDIS follows a telepathic trail into an alternate dimension, landing on the world of the Tolians. They, too, are dealing with a seashell-like organic mass draining their power, though this one has taken things to a more advanced stage: having brought Tolian civilization to its knees, it now drains the life force from the Tolians themselves for lack of a more potent power source. The Doctor recongizes it as an interdimensional node, but when another TARDIS materializes and a younger, more brash incarnation of the Doctor strides out, the “new” Doctor warns the seventh Doctor not to help the Tolians. The Doctor ignores the future Doctor’s warning and tries to help, only to find himself ensnared in a trap: the Tolians force the Doctor to use the interdimensional node to drain energy from other dimensions.

The Doctor and Raine escape with their lives, emerging through a dimensional gateway to Earth, where they discover that the future Doctor has been helping Klein and UNIT battle a series of alien incursions in rapid succession. Klein is less than thrilled when the “Umbrella Man” returns to her life, and UNIT’s Major Wyland is concerned that the two Doctors don’t appear to be getting along very well – the “new” Doctor seems concerned only with getting back to his TARDIS as soon as possible, and seems to have an unusual rapport with nearly every interdimensional invader to appear. The Doctor discovers, far too late, that the man claiming to be his future self is acting only in his own interests, and has already taken steps to turn Klein against him… and every living thing on Earth may pay the price.

Order this CDwritten by Nicholas Briggs and Jason Arnopp
directed by Nicholas Briggs
music by Martin Johnson

Cast: Sylvester McCoy (The Doctor), Tracey Childs (Dr. Elizabeth Klein), Beth Chalmers (Raine Creevy) Alex Macqueen (The Other Doctor), Julian Dutton (Colonel Lafayette), Bradley Gardner (Sergeant Pete Wilson), Miranda Keeling (Sylvie/Liz Morrison), Ben Porter (Private Phillips/John Starr), Sam Clemens (Major Wyland-Jones), Alex Mallinson (Private Maynard/Arunzell), Sophie Aldred (Ace)

Notes: Alex McQueen played Julius in the British political comedy The Thick Of It; fellow cast member Peter Capaldi was cast as the Doctor just a few months after the release of UNIT Dominion.

Timeline: after Animal and before the 1996 TV Movie

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
7th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

Love And War

Doctor Who: Love And WarThe Doctor, having taken Ace to a funeral for one of her Perivale friends, takes her to the planet Heaven to recuperate as he goes on an abrupt quest to retrieve the Papers of Felsecar. Ace encounters a band of gypsy-like Travelers, some of whom hide extremely dark secrets; she begins to fall in love with Jan, their ringleader. During a group linkup to a virtual reality mechanism, Christopher, the most mysterious of the Travelers, is apparently killed as his comrades see their first glimpse of an enemy who is closer than they think. The Doctor, growing increasingly aware of a grave threat to Heaven and everyone on it, meets archaeologist Bernice Summerfield, who currently holds the Papers of Felsecar. At the center of the growing danger is Ace, confused by her love for Jan and her intense loyalty to the Doctor, and determined to bring the two together. But by the time the Hoothi – an enormous, self-contained necrosphere consciousness who reanimate and absorb the dead – are finished with Heaven, Ace will have lost both.

Order this CDadapted by Jacqueline Rayner
from the novel by Paul Cornell
directed by Gary Russell
music by Steve Foxon

Cast: Sylvester McCoy (The Doctor), Sophie Aldred (Ace), Lisa Bowerman (Bernice Summerfield), James Redmond (Jan Rydd), Riona O Connor (Máire Mab Finn), Aysha Kala (Roisa McIlnery), Ela Gaworzewska (Christopher), Bernard Holley (Brother Phaedrus), Maggie Ollerenshaw (Audrey McShane), Christopher Allen (Clive Aubrey), James Unsworth (Julian Milton), Scott Handcock (Piers Gavenal), Charlie Hayes (Death), Peter Sheward (Eros)

Timeline: placement among other Big Finish audio stories uncertain; after the New Adventures novel “Nightshade” and before “Transit”

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
6th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

The Acheron Pulse

Doctor WhoThirty years after the tragic betrayal of Prince Kylo by Princess Aliona, the Doctor returns – one regeneration later – to the Drashani Empire, intending to return the crown jewels that survived that horrific event. Since he was the only surviving witness, and has never bothered to tell the true story of Kylo’s betrayal, the Doctor finds that their story has now become a legend of a doomed romance without a hint of the true treachery between them. The late Ambassador Tuvold’s daughter, Cheni, is now the Empress of an empire fending off constant attacks from a masked warlord named Tenebris, leading a horde of faceless warriors called the Wrath. Only by unmasking Tenebris can the Doctor learn where the Wrath come from and how to stop them, but doing so will also reveal that the Doctor himself may bear some blame for how history has unfolded.

Order this CDwritten by Rick Briggs
directed by Ken Bentley
music by Toby Hrycek-Robinson

Cast: Colin Baker (The Doctor), James Wilby (Tenebris), Joseph Kloska (Dukhin), Jane Slavin (Teesha), Chris Porter (Vincol), John Banks (Boritz), Chook Sibtain (Athrid), Carol Noakes (Olerik)

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
6th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

Voyage To Venus

Doctor WhoReunited with his old friends, theatre impresario Henry Gordon Jago and Professor George Litefoot, the sixth Doctor whisks them away in the TARDIS for a brief adventure, landing on the planet Venus in that world’s terraformed future. The Venusians – mostly women – who inhabit the second planet of the solar system are distant descendants of humanity, having fled ecological disaster on Earth. The Venusians are in turmoil, their chief scientist having died under mysterious circumstances. When her replacement continues her work, she too finds herself in the crosshairs of the Venusian Empress, Vulpina. The Doctor discovers that the future of the Venusian transplants from Earth is in peril, and offers his help, only to find that anyone who has discovered this secret is marked for death.

Order this CDwritten by Jonathan Morris
directed by Ken Bentley
music by Fool Circle Productions

Cast: Colin Baker (The Doctor), Christopher Benjamin (Henry Gordon Jago), Trevor Baxter (Professor George Litefoot), Juliet Aubrey (Vulpina), Catherine Harvey (Felina), Charlie Norfolk (Ursina), Hugh Ross (Vepaja)

Notes: “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen” is revealed to be the musical inspiration for a Venusian lullabye (sung by the third Doctor to Aggedor in The Curse Of Peladon). The Doctor says that he learned Venusiain Aikido – a martial art that was a trademark of his third incarnation – toward the end of his second incarnation. A Venusian crystal pocketed by Jago becomes instrumental in the fifth Jago & Litefoot box set.

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
8th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

The Great War

Doctor WhoStricken with grief and rage from the losses suffered in the fight to free future Earth from the Daleks, the Doctor sets the TARDIS on a course for the end of everything, so he can “see how it all turned out.” The sudden appearance of Time Lord agent Straxus in the Doctor’s TARDIS does little to alleviate his rage. Straxus has a job for the Doctor, to investigate a massive shakeup in Earth’s timeline, an assignment the Doctor almost refuses to take until it becomes apparent that the Time Lords will allow the TARDIS to go nowhere else.

The Doctor finds himself on the battlefield in the first World War, and almost succumbs to a gas attack. He awakens in a triage tent, tended to by an overworked Irish VAD named Molly O’Sullivan. But soon the combat hospital has to be evacuated when the sound of bombing nears – but the Doctor recognizes that it isn’t the sound of any kind of earthly ordnance. The Daleks have returned again, but this time, his old enemies don’t seem to be after him – and it would appear that they have allies among the human race in this time period.

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), Laura Molyneaux (Isabel Stanford), Jonathan Forbes (Dr. Sturgiss), Alex Mallinson (Tucker), Beth Chalmers (Matron / Kitty Donaldson / Nurse Harriet), Tim Treloar (Lord President), John Banks (Hodgeson), Nicholas Briggs (The Daleks)

Notes: Though he is pictured on the cover of the individual CD for The Great War in his new costume, the Doctor is said to still have long hair and “fancy dress” for this story, and his sonic screwdriver is still said to resemble a pennywhistle. Straxus has regenerated since last seen in The Vengeance Of Morbius (though between that story and the Dark Eyes box set, yet another incarnation of Straxus appeared in the audio spinoff Bernice Summerfield and the Diogenes Damsel).

Timeline: after To The Death and before Fugitives and Night Of The Doctor

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
8th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

Fugitives

Doctor WhoWith the Daleks closing in on his heels on a World War I battlefield, the Doctor leads Molly back to the TARDIS, but rather than gaping at the console room and stating the obvious, Molly surprises the Doctor by simply saying that she’s been here before. Through various eras of Earth history, the Doctor tries to evade the Daleks, and yet every time they lie in wait for him. Even when the Doctor decides to open Molly’s eyes to the universe by taking her to the planet Halalka, they are not safe – the Daleks are never more than a few steps behind them. And then Molly further surprises the Doctor by flying the TARDIS out of harm’s way…

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), Natalie Burt (Dr. Sally Armstrong), Nicholas Briggs (The Daleks / VSAI 001), John Banks (Dunkirk Sergeant / Halalkan Policeman / Srangor Herder / Window Cleaner), Alex Mallinson (Cab Driver / Baker Street Security Guard)

Notes: The Doctor’s house on Baker Street was previously occupied by his fifth incarnation during the 1850s in the audio story The Haunting Of Thomas Brewster; he later bequeathed it to Brewster in the 21st century. (The Doctor has also owned two other homes: Nest Cottage, the setting of much of the Hornets’ Nest pentalogy starring Tom Baker, and a house on Allen Road, visited semi-frequently in the 1990s comics and novels.) Actor Toby Jones, playing Dalek ally Kotris, has also appeared in TV Doctor Who as the Dream Lord in Amy’s Choice (2010); the two characters don’t appear to be related.

Timeline: after The Great War and before Tangled Web and Night Of The Doctor

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
8th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

Tangled Web

Doctor WhoFleeing from a Dalek strike force on Halalka, the TARDIS is piloted to momentary safety, but not by the Doctor. He checks and discovers that Molly seems to have more than a passing acquaintance with the operation of a TARDIS, which seems highly unlikely for a girl plucked from a World War I battlefield. The Doctor probes Molly’s memories and discovers that she first found herself in a Gallifreyan time machine on her second birthday, when she went missing from home for a time and was found by a man named Kotris. Still pursued by the Daleks, the Doctor and Molly take refuge on another planet, but the Daleks are only a step behind them… and claim they want to help the Doctor, just as they have helped themselves to overcome their warlike tendencies.

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 “future Daleks” claim to be descended from the few survivors of a “great war” that wiped out most of the Daleks and all of the Time Lords.

Timeline: after Fugitives and before “X” And The Daleks and Night Of The Doctor

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
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