Category: Destiny Of The Doctor

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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

Categories
Destiny Of The Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

Shadow Of Death

Doctor WhoAs the Doctor shows off his latest innovation to Jamie and Zoe – a rudimentary gauge added to the console to show the year in which the time machine has landed – just as the TARDIS is dragged off course violently. It makes an emergency landing on a planetoid in orbit around a pulsar whose gravitational effects on local spacetime pulled the TARDIS here. An ancient city lies nearby, with a human expedition puzzling over what is found there – and something is slowly stalking that expedition. The Doctor recognizes it as an entity capable of manipulating time, and braces himself to sacrifice years of his own life to save his friends.

Order this CDwritten by Simon Guerrier
directed by John Ainsworth
music by Simon Hunt

Cast: Frazer Hines (Jamie / The Doctor), Evie Dawnay (Sophie)

Notes: The second Doctor receives a note from the eleventh Doctor via psychic paper; apparently the Doctor hasn’t encountered psychic paper before now. The Doctor is pleased with his future self’s taste in bow ties. Jamie boarded the TARDIS at the age of 22 (The Highlanders), but has lost track of how much time he’s spent aboard the TARDIS other than “two or three years.”

Timeline: after The Invasion and before The Krotons

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green