Category: Doctor Who

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5th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

Eldrad Must Die!

Doctor WhoThe TARDIS arrives near a beach, where Tegan hopes to show Nyssa and Turlough a thing or two about Earth recreation, but the beach proves to be hazardous – growths on local birds and fish seem to be forcing quartz crystals through their skin, and even the sand beneath the water is full of sharp crystal shards. An old school friend of Turlough’s is nearby, and though they are now separated by decades of age, he appears to have big plans for Turlough. Turlough falls under the thrall of the living crystal slowly encroaching on the beach, which fills his mind with a singular new purpose: he must kill Eldrad. Others exposed to the living crystal feel differently: Eldrad must live. The Doctor comes to a terrible realization: the planet Kastria is still nothing but dust, and a clash of titans between Eldrad and an executioner appointed by his people has been relocated to Earth.

Order this CDwritten by Marc Platt
directed by Ken Bentley
music by Wilfredo Acosta

Cast: Peter Davison (The Doctor), Janet Fielding (Tegan Jovanka), Mark Strickson (Turlough), Sarah Sutton (Nyssa), Stephen Thorne (Eldrad), Nancy Carroll (Mulkris), Pip Torrens (Charlie Gibbs), Jessica Claire (Kate Sherrin), Brian Protheroe (Bob Gell), Mark Field (Jim)

Notes: The fourth Doctor encountered Eldrad when it briefly took over the body of Sarah Jane Smith in The Hand Of Fear (1976). Turlough’s background at Brendan School was part of his introductory television adventure, Mawdryn Undead (1983); references are also made to Deela (Kiss Of Death, 2009).

Timeline: for the Doctor, Tegan and Turlough: between Enlightenment and The King’s Demons; for Nyssa: 50 years after Terminus. This story takes place after The Jupiter Conjunction and before Eldrad Must Die!.

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

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Doctor Who New Series Season 07

Cold War

Doctor WhoThe TARDIS arrives aboard a Soviet nuclear submarine secretly operating near the North Pole in 1983, though the sub and her crew already have problems of their own. This doesn’t stop them from blaming the new arrivals for all of these problems, however. The real problem quickly becomes apparent to the Doctor: the Soviets retrieved a large chunk of ice with something humanoid inside, and thawed it out. The humanoid is an Ice Warrior with a bad reputation: the Martian warlord Skaldak. The Doctor’s attempts to appeal to Skaldak’s feudal sense of honor are useless, since Skaldak perceives the humans’ every act as an attack upon him. Skaldak unexpectedly leaves his armor, slithering around the innards of the sub in his native Martian form, eliminating the sub’s crew one by one. When the Ice Warrior learns that the sub is armed with nuclear weapons, he sees an opportunity to avenge his indignities upon the entire human race… unless the Doctor can stop him.

Order the DVDwritten by Mark Gatiss
directed by Douglas MacKinnon
music by Murray Gold

Cast: Matt Smith (The Doctor), Jenna-Louise Coleman (Clara), Liam Cunningham (Captain Zhukov), David Warner (Professor Grisenko), Tobias Menzies (Lieutenant Stepashin), Josh O’Connor (Piotr), James Norton (Onegin), Doctor WhoCharlie Anson (Belevich), Spencer Wilding (Skaldak), Nicholas Briggs (voice of Skaldak)

Notes: This is the first Ice Warrior story on television since 1974’s Monster Of Peladon, during Jon Pertwee’s last season as the third Doctor, though at least two other TV outings were planned with the Ice Warriors, Mission To Magnus (intended for the 1986 season with the sixth Doctor) and Thin Ice (a story outlined for the 1990 seventh Doctor season that never was, which also involved relations with the Soviet Union); both unfilmed television stories were later adapted for audio by Big Finish for the Lost Stories range. Big Finish has also pitted the fifth and eighth Doctors against the Ice Warriors in audio adventures. This is the first flesh-and-blood appearance in Doctor Who for actor David Warner, who has provided voices for animated episodes (Dreamland) and numerous audio adventures, even playing an alternate-timeline version of the Doctor himself in Big Finish’s Doctor Who Unbound series.

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

Categories
Doctor Who New Series Season 07

Hide

Doctor WhoThe TARDIS brings the Doctor and Clara to Caliban House, a reportedly haunted mansion where a paranormal investigator and a potent psychic are trying to solve the mystery of a series of ghost sightings on the property. Claiming to be a government inspector, the Doctor elbows his way into the investigation, learning that the sightings stretch back to the first photographs ever taken at Caliban House. The Doctor is willing to bet that they go back even further than that, traveling backward and forward in time while always remaining in the same spot to prove his point. He discovers that the “ghost” is a time-distorted image of a young woman who may be the first human time travel test pilot. But something else is hot on her heels, and the Doctor risks his own life and his new psychic friend’s sanity to rescue the errant time traveler before she becomes its victim.

Order the DVDwritten by Neil Cross
directed by Jamie Payne
music by Murray Gold

Cast: Matt Smith (The Doctor), Jenna-Louise Coleman (Clara), Dougray Scott (Alec Palmer), Jessica Raine (Emma Grayling), Kemi-Bo Jacobs (Hila), Aidan Cook (The Crooked Man)

Notes: In theory, the Doctor’s visit to the (long since destroyed) geographical location of Caliban House on planet Earth’s last day may mean that his ninth incarnation and Rose are Doctor Whoorbiting overhead in Station One, partying down with Cassandra, the Face of Boe, and Jabe (The End Of The World, 2005) at exactly the same time. The Doctor uses a blue crystal from Metebelis 3 (The Green Death, Planet Of The Spiders) to amplify Emma’s psychic powers. The story begins on November 25th, 1974 – eleven years and two days after the premiere of Doctor Who. Jessica Raine would go on to appear as Doctor Who creator Verity Lambert in the docudrama An Adventure In Space And Time.

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

Categories
Doctor Who New Series Season 07

Journey To The Centre Of The TARDIS

Doctor WhoThe Doctor tries to show Clara some of the basics of TARDIS operation, but as she makes her first attempt to fly the timeship, it’s scooped up violently by a space salvage vessel and is severely damaged. The Doctor emerges from the wreckage aboard the salvage ship and meets the van Baalen brothers, who own the ship and plan to dismantle the TARDIS. The Doctor tries to make an even better deal with them – if they can help him find Clara, they can have the TARDIS. The van Baalens are wary of the deal, leaving the Doctor with little choice but to set the TARDIS to self-destruct. Now the brothers half 30 minutes to help the Doctor find Clara… and maybe they’ll still have time to escape with their lives. But the search is complicated by distorted humanoid figures stalking the TARDIS corridors, beings whose presence even the Doctor can’t readily explain. Finding Clara won’t be easy, since she’s already hiding from these creatures – creatures whose origins are closely tied to every living being currently inside the TARDIS.

Order the DVDwritten by Steve Thompson
directed by Mat King
music by Murray Gold

Cast: Matt Smith (The Doctor), Jenna-Louise Coleman (Clara), Ashley Walters (Gregor van Baalen), Mark Oliver (Bram van Baalen), Jahvel Hall (Tricky), Sarah Louise Madison (Time Zombie), Ruari Mears (Time Zombie), Paul Kasey (Time Zombie)

Notes: This is the first mention of the Eye of Harmony in the revived series, last mentioned in the 1996 TV movie starring Paul McGann and originated in the 1976 Tom Baker story The Deadly Assassin, where access to the Eye occurred through a heavily protected obelisk. The McGann movie introduced the concept that each TARDIS contained an “aspect” of the Eye, and this episode matches up very well with that addition to the mythos. Given that the Eye is depicted here as a floating ball of energy, in effect a miniature star, it could be inferred that the Eye was located just beneath the floor-mounted hemispherical vault doors sen in the McGann movie’s TARDIS cloister room. This is the first time that new TARDIS interior sets beyond mere corridors have been constructed for Doctor Who as an ongoing series since the Peter Davison era.

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

Categories
Doctor Who New Series Season 07

The Crimson Horror

Doctor WhoThe Doctor is summoned to the Victorian era once again by Madame Vastra and her colleagues. People are signing up to become model residents of a walled-off, gated community promising traditional values… and then, once accepted, they are never heard from again. The Doctor and Clara pose as another perfect couple hoping to become residents of Sweetville, and their application is quickly accepted. Once inside the gates, though, the time travelers learn that residency in Sweetville carries a horrifying cost, one which puts them out of the picture. Now the fate of humanity, and the Doctor, rests with the Doctor’s unlikely trio of allies.

Order the DVDwritten by Mark Gatiss
directed by Saul Metzstein
music by Murray Gold

Cast: Matt Smith (The Doctor), Jenna-Louise Coleman (Clara), Dame Diana Rigg (Mrs. Gillyflower), Rachael Stirling (Ada), Catrin Stewart (Jenny), Neve McIntosh (Madame Vastra), Dan Starkey (Strax), Eve de Leon Allen (Angie), Kassius Carey Johnson (Artie), Brendan Patricks (Edmund / Mr. Thursday), Graham Turner (Amos), Doctor WhoOlivia Vinall (Effie), Michelle Tate (Abigail), Jack Oliver Hudson (Urchin Boy)

Notes: Dame Diana Rigg is one of the most recognizable faces of British TV, having co-starred as Mrs. Peel in The Avengers with Patrick Macnee for several seasons. (Her predecessor as Steed’s sidekick, Honor Blackman, had a guest starring role in parts 9-12, a.k.a. Terror Of The Vervoids, in 1986’s The Trial Of A Time Lord.) The BAFTA, Tony, and Emmy-winning actress has also appeared in the James Bond movie On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, and more recently in Game Of Thrones. Actress Rachael Stirling is Rigg’s daughter and a well-regarded actress in her own right, having appeared in Minder, Tipping The Velvet, Hotel Babylon, and Snow White & The Doctor WhoHuntsman.

The Doctor mentions traveling with an air stewardess who wanted to return to Heathrow; this is a rare reference to Tegan Jovanka, the Australian companion of the fourth and fifth Doctors. Though the character has been revived by actress Janet Fielding for the Big Finish audio adventures, this is the first mention of Tegan in the new series. (She was also mentioned in the laundry list of former TARDIS travelers and their respective outcomes in part two of the Sarah Jane Adventures story The Death Of The Doctor (2010).

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

Categories
4th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

Phantoms Of The Deep

Doctor WhoAs the Doctor, Romana and K-9 continue blazing a random trail through the universe to avoid the Black Guardian’s wrath, Romana is dismayed when the TARDIS once again lands on Earth. The Doctor, seeing that the time machine has materialized in the depths of the Marianas Trench, the deepest point on the seafloor of the Pacific Ocean, is less worried – until the TARDIS is grappled by a mid-21st century submarine on a deep sea expedition. Needless to say, the sub’s crew is astounded to discover a police box on the ocean floor, and they’re even more surprised when time travelers emerge from it. But when the sub encounters what may be a new species never before seen on Earth, the Doctor immediately senses that it is something that doesn’t come from Earth’s oceans. When the Doctor and expedition leader Patricia Sawyer pay a visit to a sunken shipwreck, they find a wide-eyed midshipman who has apparently been kept alive for a century. As they help him escape, something assumes control of K-9 and ejects Romana and another member of the sub crew into the ocean – where they miraculously survive thanks to the technology of the aliens. But who are these visitors from another world, and is their vested interest in the human race entirely benevolent?

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

Cast: Tom Baker (The Doctor), Mary Tamm (Romana), John Leeson (K-9), Alice Krige (Dr. Patricia Sawyer), John Albasiny (Chris Fleming), Charlie Norfolk (Terri McCulloch), Gwilym Lee (Jack Hodges)

Notes: Guest star Alice Krige is best known to Star Trek fans as the Borg Queen, a role she played twice (1996’s feature film Star Trek: First Contact and the 2001 Star Trek: Voyager series finale Endgame.

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
5th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

The Lady Of Mercia

Doctor WhoThe Doctor lands the TARDIS near the University of Frodsham in 1983, just in time to attend a historical conference – and, perhaps, track down some indications of primitive time travel taking place here. By posing as “Dr. Jovanka” from Wollongong (and entourage), the Doctor gets to take part. Tegan experiences a strange sensation while looking at a prized sword said to have belonged to the 10th century warrior queen Æthelfrid, and later sees the college’s history professor stealing the sword. He takes it to a campus science lab where his wife has constructed a primitive time machine, which then propels Tegan and the professor back to the 10th century; their meeting with the real Æthelfrid doesn’t exactly go well, and the time travelers are accused of sorcery. Worse yet, the time machine reactivates, send Æthelfrid’s warrior princess daughter back to 1983. The Doctor promises to take Ælfwynn back to the 10th century in the TARDIS in exchange for her not killing anyone, but even that plan goes awry, landing them behind enemy lines. When Æthelfrid offers to spare the time travelers’ lives in exchange for Tegan assuming her daughter’s identity, it seems that history is almost destined never to be the same again.

Order this CDwritten by Paul Magrs
directed by Ken Bentley
music by Steve Foxon

Cast: Peter Davison (The Doctor), Janet Fielding (Tegan), Mark Strickson (Turlough), Sarah Sutton (Nyssa), Anthony Howell (Professor John Bleak), Abigail Thaw (Dr. Philippa Stone), Rachel Atkins (Queen Æthelfrid), Catherine Grose (Princess Ælfwynn), Kieran Bew (Arthur Kettleson), Stephen Critchlow (Earl of Wessex)

Timeline: for the Doctor, Tegan and Turlough: between Enlightenment and The King’s Demons; for Nyssa: 50 years after Terminus. This story takes place after Eldrad Must Die! and before Prisoners Of Fate.

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
Doctor Who New Series Season 07

Nightmare In Silver

Doctor WhoWith Clara’s babysitting charges, Artie and Angie, having discovered her travels in time, she introduces them to the Doctor, who offers to take them aboard the TARDIS for a trip to one of the universe’s most impressive amusement parks, Hedgewick’s World of Wonders. Once there, though, the park is a bit underwhelming, occupied only by Mr. Webley and – to the Doctor’s alarm – what appears to be a severely-damaged Cyberman who plays chess against anyone willing to pay. It turns out that a small man named Porridge is controlling the Cyberman, but the Doctor is still suspicious, and with good reason: Hedgewick’s World is also the home to a tomb of the Cybermen, and they’re evolving new abilities, including downsizing Cybermats into Cybermites to aid in converting unwitting humans into Cybermen. One of the Cybermites manages to gain control of the Doctor himself, and he finds himself fighting for control of his own mind with the consciousness of the Cyber Planner. Clara joins forces with a “punishment platoon” of space soldiers sentenced to patrol the run-down amusement park, but even then she may not be able to save the Doctor – or the children she’s meant to be babysitting.

Order the DVDwritten by Neil Gaiman
directed by Stephen Woolfenden
music by Murray Gold

Doctor WhoCast: Matt Smith (The Doctor), Jenna-Louise Coleman (Clara), Eve de Leon Allen (Angie), Kassius Carey Johnson (Artie), Jason Watkins (Webley), Warwick Davis (Porridge), Tamzin Outhwaite (Captain), Eloise Joseph (Beauty), Will Merrick (Brains), Calvin Dean (Ha-Ha), Zahra Ahmadi (Missy), Aidan Cook (Cyebrman), Nicholas Briggs (voice of the Cybermen)

Notes: Tombs of the Cybermen have been seen in previous episodes, such as Tomb Of The Cybermen (1967) and Attack Of The Cybermen (1985). The Cyber Planner was last encountered in 1968’s The Invasion. Doctor WhoGuest star Warwick Davis (incorrectly credited on-screen as “Warwick Davies”), making his first Doctor Who appearance, is usually associated with the Star Wars franchise, having played such characters as Wicket the Ewok in 1983’s Return Of The Jedi (and two TV movie follow-ups), and a podrace spectator in The Phantom Menace, among other roles. He was also the star of another George Lucas production, the 1988 film Willow.

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

Categories
Doctor Who New Series Season 07

The Name Of The Doctor

Doctor WhoThen: The Doctor, in his first incarnation, prepares to steal a TARDIS and escape Gallifrey with his grandddaughter, Susan. In the TARDIS repair docks of Gallifrey, he is greeted not by security, but by a young woman whose face and name he will not know until his eleventh incarnation. She advises him to steal a different TARDIS than the one he was planning to take.

Now: The Doctor’s friends hold a cross between a teleconference and a seance, discussing an item of immediate concern: a man who claims to know the Doctor’s true name, his greatest secret. But the gathering itself is a trap: one by one, Jenny, Strax, and Madame Vastra are abducted and taken to Trenzalore, a planet where the Doctor has been predicted to fall. Clara relays this to the Doctor, and after a moment of hesitation, he leads the charge to free his allies. On Trenzalore, he is greeted by the unlikely sight of a giant TARDIS – his TARDIS, abandoned since his future death, its exterior dimensions catching up with its interior dimensions. As soon as the Doctor and Clara enter this future iteration of the TARDIS, it’s quite obvious that it’s a trap. At the heart of the TARDIS, the former console room, the Great Intelligence lurks with a small army of whisper men. The Intelligence wants to undo the Doctor’s history once and for all, by stepping into the Time Lord’s already-paradoxical time stream and thwarting every victory in the Doctor’s history. Against the Doctor’s wishes and his express warning about the danger involved, Clara leaps into the Doctor’s time stream in her own bid to defeat the Great Intelligence at every turn. In doing this, she is splintered into many incarnations of her own, meeting all of the Doctor’s faces and assisting all of them at some point in their adventures: this is why the Doctor has met more than one Clara, and why she has always seemed to go out of her way – even sacrificing her life – to save him. The Doctor jumps into his own time stream to retrieve her once the damage to his history is reversed, finding her alone with someone she doesn’t recognize as one of the Doctor’s many faces.

But the Doctor recognizes this face. It is the face which does not call itself the Doctor. It is the face of the man who fought the final battle of the Last Great Time War.

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

Cast: Matt Smith (The Doctor), Jenna-Louise Coleman (Clara), Alex Kingston (River Song), Richard E. Grant (Dr. Simeon), Neve McIntosh (Vastra), Catrin Stewart (Jenny), Dan Starkey (Strax), Eve de Leon Allen (Angie), Kassius Carey Johnson (Artie), Nasi Voutsas (Andro), David Avery (Fabian), Michael Jenn (Clarence), Rab Affleck (Archie), Samuel Irvine (Messenger Boy), Sophie Downham (young Clara), Paul Kasey (Whisper Man), John Hurt (The Doctor), William Hartnell (The Doctor)

Notes: Via colorized B&W footage from the original series Doctor Who(and stand-ins), William Hartnell has a speaking part in an episode of Doctor Who for the first time since the prologue of 1983’s The Five Doctors. The Five Doctors is also the source of film clips of Patrick Troughton and Jon Pertwee. Tom Baker appears in a clip from 1977’s The Invasion Of Time, while Peter Davison appears in footage from 1983’s Arc Of Infinity. A brief clip of Sylvester McCoy from Dragonfire (1987) is also seen; Colin Baker, Paul McGann and Christopher Eccleston are represented by stand-ins wearing their costumes rather than by film or video clips.

Doctor WhoThe Great Intelligence mentions some of the Doctor’s “other names”, including “the Oncoming Storm” (the Daleks’ name for the Doctor, first revealed in the novelization of 1988’s Remembrance Of The Daleks in its original Dalek translation, Ka Faraq Gatri) and the Valeyard from The Trial Of A Time Lord, an enigmatic “future aspect” of the Doctor which was, in his only appearance in 1986, said to fall somewhere “between the Doctor’s 12th and final regeneration”.

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

Categories
4th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

The Dalek Contract

Doctor WhoStill concerned about the migration of the Laan, the Doctor tries to follow their trail, and finds himself in the Proxima system; too late, he learns that the TARDIS has not followed the Laan, but has instead tracked down Cuthbert’s Conglomerate headquarters, where Cuthbert is pressing forward with the same illegal experiments that ensnared the Laan before. But this time, Cuthbert is meeting with local resistance on Proxima Major, and he has done a deal with his business associates, the Daleks, to quell that uprising. Romana and K-9 are captured with some of the resistenace fighters, and once the Daleks realize they have companions of the Doctor in their custody, they’re less concerned with being Cuthbert’s subcontractors than with capturing their deadliest foe.

Order this CDwritten by Nicholas Briggs
directed by Nicholas Briggs
music by Alistair Lock

Cast: Tom Baker (The Doctor), Mary Tamm (Romana), John Leeson (K-9 / Tollivun), David Warner (Cuthbert), Toby Hadoke (Mr. Dorrick), Dominic Mafham (Chidak), Nicholas Briggs (The Daleks), Jane Slavin (Halka), John Dorney (Sterris)

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
5th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

Prisoners Of Fate

Doctor WhoThe TARDIS brings the Doctor, Tegan, Nyssa and Turlough to Valderon, a penal colony governed by a society that punishes potential criminals on the basis of crimes predicted by a “chronoscope”. As the Doctor becomes uneasy about this system of justice, Tegan is pulled aside by a medical researcher who reveals his identity: he is Adric, Nyssa’s son, and his mother has been missing for over a decade since her disappearance (and presumed death) at the Helheim research station. The disease whose cure she was searching for on Helheim still rages on, unabated – and thanks to her youthful appearance, Nyssa’s son is worried that he is seeing her before she started her family, thereby creating a paradox. Tegan reveals some (but not all) of this information to the Doctor, but before he can bundle his companions back into the TARDIS to leave, Tegan and Turlough are arrested and tried because the justice computer had calculated a high probability that they will kill a guard.

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

Cast: Peter Davison (The Doctor), Janet Fielding (Tegan), Mark Strickson (Turlough), Sarah Sutton (Nyssa), Sarah Dougles (Sibor), Alistair Mackenzie (Galen), Anjella Mackintosh (Mahandra), Jez Fielder (Kartis)

Notes: The names of Nyssa’s husband and children were revealed in Circular Time (2007); Nyssa asked Tegan not to reveal her family to the Doctor in Cobwebs, the story that also saw her leave Helheim and rejoin the TARDIS crew. Nyssa’s youthful appearance was restored at the end of The Emerald Tiger.

Timeline: for the Doctor, Tegan and Turlough: between Enlightenment and The King’s Demons; for Nyssa: 50 years after Terminus. This story takes place after The Lady Of Mercia.

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
7th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

Persuasion

Doctor WhoUNIT scientific advisor Elizabeth Klein is discussing work performance issues with her recently-hired assistant, Will Arrowsmith, when the dreaded “Umbrella Man” is sighted nearby. Klein orders Will to stay put while she tries to follow the Doctor to ask him why he’s there; Will, naturally, follows them both right into the TARDIS, which then proceeds to take off. It lands in postwar Germany, where something decidedly strange is happening. A couple speaking entirely in couplets seems to have the nearby village in their thrall, while a man named Schalk, the developer of a prototype mind-control device called the Persuasion Machine, hides out among the locals hoping to escape the notice of anyone who would wish him to build such a device for them; sure enough, a spacecraft does turn up looking for him, as does the Doctor, who is aware of Schalk’s past as a wanted war criminal. The Persuasion machine could conceivably end free will throughout the universe, and more than one party would do nearly anything to claim either the machine or its inventor. The Doctor must be prepared to be even more ruthless, and this, he reveals, is why he has brought Klein with him.

Order this CDwritten by Jonathan Barnes
directed by Ken Bentley
music by Andy Hardwick

Cast: Sylvester McCoy (The Doctor), Tracey Childs (Elizabeth Klein), Christian Edwards (Will Arrowsmith), David Sibley (Kurt Schalk), Jonathan Forbes (Lukas Hinterberger), Paul Chahidi (Shepherd / Bondsman Tango-Veldt), Miranda Raison (Shepherdess / Acquisitor Prime), Gemma Whelan (Casta / The Sylph / Khlecht)

Timeline: after UNIT: Dominion and before Starlight Robbery; the Doctor seems to be aware that he will regenerate soon, so probably not long before the 1996 TV movie for the Doctor.

Notes: Apparently Klein has finally convinced UNIT to hire an assistant for her (UNIT: Dominion). Persuasion‘s opening scenes with Klein and Will are said to take place in 1990.

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
4th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

The Final Phase

Doctor WhoTo save Romana and K-9, the Doctor gives in to the Dalek Supreme’s demand that he hand himself over… but naturally, this is part of the Doctor’s plan, and the Dalek saucer sent to collect him winds up under his complete control. Romana and K-9 get a glimpse of Cuthbert’s top-secret R&D project at last: a tear in the fabric of space-time, which Cuthbert has harnessed and turned into a dimensional gateway to explore (and, more likely, exploit) “the glories of the past.” Romana quickly realizes that this is the only reason why the Daleks are cooperating with Cuthbert: they intend to commandeer the gateway for their own purposes. The Daleks converge on Cuthbert’s space station to claim the gateway for themselves, forcing Cuthbert’s private army to join up with the Proximan rebels to fight off their common enemy. The Doctor arrives to make “adjustments” to Cuthbert’s dimensional gateway, over the corrupt businessman’s protests, but the choices on the table are wiping out the Dalek threat… or annihilation for the entire universe, Daleks and all.

Order this CDwritten by Nicholas Briggs
directed by Nicholas Briggs
music by Alistair Lock

Cast: Tom Baker (The Doctor), Mary Tamm (Romana), John Leeson (K-9), David Warner (Cuthbert), Toby Hadoke (Mr. Dorrick), Dominic Mafham (Chidak), Nicholas Briggs (The Daleks), Jane Slavin (Halka), John Dorney (Security Man / Warrior)

Notes: This was Mary Tamm’s final performance as Romana before her death in 2011.

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
7th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

Starlight Robbery

Doctor WhoThe Doctor, Klein and Will discover that Schalk’s Persuasion Machine design – and possibly even Schalk himself – are up for grabs in an auction of rare weapons of mass destruction. Such a sale of salacious merchandise has already drawn the attention of such unsavory suitors as the Sontarans and other assorted warmongers. Hosting the auction is the equally unsavory Garundel, unaware that his own underling, Ms. Ziv, is planning a double-cross of her own. The Doctor adopts a curiously hands-off approach to this TARDIS trip, assigning Klein and Will to stage a heist of their own to steal the Persuasion machine and Schalk himself. But things quickly go wrong, leaving the Doctor with little choice but to take a more direct hand in events, and risking the lives of his companions.

Order this CDwritten by Matt Fitton
directed by Ken Bentley
music by Howard Carter

Cast: Sylvester McCoy (The Doctor), Tracey Childs (Elizabeth Klein), Christian Edwards (Will Arrowsmith), Stuart Milligan (Garundel), Dan Starkey (Marshal Stenn / Major Vlaar / Sergeant Gredd / Asallis), Jo Woodcock (Ziv), Lizzie Roper (Krakenmother Benarra)

Notes: Actor Dan Starkey is the voice of the Sontarans for both Big Finish and the BBC, having played the eleventh Doctor’s well-meaning-but-still-Sontaran ally Strax in television Doctor Who, and having appeared as other Sontarans since the creatures’ return to modern Who in The Sontaran Stratagem (2008). Starkey also plays the magical imp Randal Moon in Russell T. Davies’ CBBC series Wizards Vs. Aliens. Stuart Milligan, who appeared in previous Big Finish audio stories The Reaping and Lurkers At Sunlight’s Edge, also appeared in televised Doctor Who as President Richard Nixon in The Impossible Astronaut and Day Of The Moon; he first played Garundel in 2012’s audio story Black And White.

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
5th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

Fanfare For The Common Men

Doctor Who: Fanfare For The Common MenThe Doctor tries to take Nyssa to 1963 to show her the heyday of Beatlemania, only to find that another band, the Common Men, has taken the Beatles’ place in history. Worse yet, as the Doctor and Nyssa stand in the screaming crowd awaiting the Common Men’s arrival, they see someone in the crowd with a gun. The Doctor warns the band while Nyssa tries to disarm the shooter, only to find that he has a weapon that’s definitely not from 1963, definitely not from Earth, and he also has a time transporter which he uses to escape, taking Nyssa with him. Trying to find out what’s going on, the Doctor befriends the band and a fan named Rita, with whom he witnesses several incidents of the band’s fans taking their devotion to dangerous levels. Nyssa, in the meantime, also finds herself in the company of the Common Men, at a different point in their career. As she awaits rescue via TARDIS, she also meets Lenny Kruger, a man determined to manage the Common Men’s careers. It turns out that he’s an alien (but then, so are the boys in the band), and he hopes to harness the power of their popularity for something beyond mere show business. The Doctor, determined to restore the Fab Four to their rightful place in history, is an obstacle to Kruger’s plans, one which Kruger wants to remove by any means necessary.

Order this CDwritten by Eddie Robson
directed by Barnaby Edwards
music by Howard Carter

Cast: Peter Davison (The Doctor), Sarah Sutton (Nyssa), Mitch Benn (Mark Carville), Andrew Knott (James O’Meara), David Dobson (Korky Goldsmith), Ryan Sampson (Lenny Kruger), Alison Thea-Skot (Rita/Sadie), Jonty Stephens (Paravatar)

Notes: The Common Men – at least, the Common Men as history should recall them – were mentioned in the very first episode of Doctor Who, An Unearthly Child, and in the course of restoring history, the Doctor very specifically puts them on course to be the one-hit wonders mentioned by Ian Chesterton in that episode. The Doctor recalls that Susan used to listen to one of their records in the TARDIS and that his first incarnation “didn’t like it.” The Doctor mentions the Ferutu, time-sensitive beings encountered by the fifth Doctor and his early lineup of companions in the Missing Adventures novel Cold Fusion, published in 1996.

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green