Categories
8th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

Minuet In Hell

Doctor Who: Minuet In HellBrigadier Lethbridge-Stewart (Retired) arrives in the newly-formed American state of Malebolgia, where the locals have requested his advice following his participation in the secession of Scotland from the United Kingdom. But the Brigadier is a little suspicious of events in Malebolgia, and he’s not alone – he has actually been assigned to look into rumors of misuse of a mind scanning/recording/reprogramming device at a local mental hospital. Those rumors turn out to be true when the Brigadier encounters a long-haired man in unusual clothes who claims to have arrived out of nowhere only the night before, and also claims to know the Brigadier. But Lethbridge-Stewart takes the man back to the mental hospital, and doesn’t get to hear the man’s claims that he’s a Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey – and another patient at the mental hospital is making precisely the same claims. But whoever the Doctor may be, he’s in no position to stop a confluence of demonic influences from overrunning the 51st state – leaving Lethbridge-Stewart and an equally amnesiac Charley to do battle with darkness by themselves.

Order this CD written by Alan W. Lear with Gary Russell
directed by Nicholas Briggs
music by William Allen

Cast: Paul McGann (The Doctor), India Fisher (Charley), Nicholas Courtney (Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart), Robert Jezek (Brigham Elisha Dashwood), Morgan Deare (Senator Waldo Pickering), Helen Goldwyn (Becky Lee), Maureen Oakeley (Doctor Dale Pargeter), Nicholas Briggs (Gideon Crane)

Timeline: after Stones Of Venice and before Invaders From Mars

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
Doctor Who Doctor Who Unbound

Sympathy For The Devil

Doctor Who Unbound: Sympathy For The DevilOn the eve of the handover of Hong Kong from Britain to China in 1997, the TARDIS materializes near a traditional English pub. The Doctor, reeling from his ordeal at the hands of the Time Lords after his trial for interfering in the course of history, wanders into the pub to find that it’s run by the retired Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart – embittered after years of having to run UNIT’s fight against the unknown without any help. Just as the two become uneasily reacquainted, they hear a low-flying jet smash into something nearby, and yet they never see it. When they arrive at the hillside into which something has crashed, the Doctor and the Brigadier realize it’s a Chinese spy plane using some sort of stealth technology that renders it invisible, not just to radar but to the human eye. UNIT quickly arrives, under the command of the brash Colonel Brimmicombe-Wood – an old adversary of the Brigadier’s – and takes over a nearby monastery, monks and all, to use as a temporary command post. The Doctor slowly grows to realize that something more than espionage is going on here – but by the time he realizes who’s behind it, it will already be too late…and this time even the Brigadier doesn’t trust him enough to lend a hand.

Order this CDwritten by Jonathan Clements
directed by Gary Russell
music by Andy Hardwick
main theme by Ron Grainer / arranged by Lee Mansfield

Cast: David Warner (The Doctor), Nicholas Courtney (Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart), David Tennant (Colonel Brimmicombe-Wood), Sam Kisgart (Ke Le), Liz Sutherland (Ling), Trevor Littledale (The Abbot), Mark Wright (Marcus), Peter Griffiths (Captain Zerdin), Stuart Piper (Adam)

Timeline: after The War Games and in place of Spearhead From Space?

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
8th Doctor Doctor Who

Zagreus

Doctor Who: ZagreusImbued with the energy of anti-time and possessed by the power-mad Zagreus, the Doctor wrestles for self-control and terrifies Charley into hiding within the TARDIS. A familiar face appears to Charley as she hides – the Brigadier, or, more precisely, a TARDIS-projected simulation of Lethbridge-Stewart intended to help her. Its method of doing so, however, is unorthodox to put it mildly: Charley must divine the true nature of the increasingly disastrous situation from a series of metaphors, ranging from her own childhood to a visit to Gallifrey’s past to an insane amusement park where animatronic cartoon characters are slaughtering one another. The Doctor, too, hears from some familiar voices in his own past, coaxing him to regain control of his own mind. But all too late, the Doctor realizes that his body and soul are not Zagreus’ only battleground, and the real battle for the fate of the entire universe is only now being joined.

Order this CDwritten by Alan Barnes & Gary Russell
directed by Gary Russell
music by Andy Hardwick

Cast: Peter Davison (Reverend Matthew Townsend), Colin Baker (Lord Tepesh), Sylvester McCoy (Walton Winkle), Paul McGann (Zagreus), India Fisher (Charley Pollard), Lalla Ward (Romana), Louise Jameson (Leela), Don Warrington (Rassilon), Nicholas Courtney (The TARDIS / Brigadier), Anneke Wills (Lady Louisa Pollard), Stephen Perring (Receptionist), Elisabeth Sladen (Miss Lime), Conrad Westmaas (The Cat), Mark Strickson (Captain McDonnell), Sarah Sutton (Miss Foster), Nicola Bryant (Stone / Ouida), Caroline Morris (Mary Elson), Maggie Stables (Great Mother), Bonnie Langford (Cassandra / Goldilocks), Robert Jezek (Recorder), Stephen Fewell (Corporal Heron), Sophie Aldred (Captain Duck), Lisa Bowerman (Sergeant Gazelle), Miles Richardson (Cardinal Braxiatel), John Leeson (K9), Jon Pertwee (The Doctor)

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
Big Finish Spinoffs Doctor Who The Audio Dramas UNIT

The Coup

UNIT: The CoupCalled out of retirement to participate in a press conference following an apparent attack in the heart of London, Sir Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart finds that life as a member of the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce hasn’t changed a bit; a helicopter attacks the limo carrying him to deliver his speech. The driver is killed in the attack, but Lethbridge-Stewart’s steady aim helps to bring the helicopter down – where he discovers that its crew consisted of one human and one Silurian. Convinced that this incident has something to do with the planned handover of UNIT’s responsibilities within British borders to a new agency called ICIS, Lethbridge-Stewart takes drastic measures to preserve UNIT’s authority – even if it means blowing decades of covert operations involving alien invaders wide open.

written by Simon Guerrier
directed by Ian Farrington
music by David Darlington

Cast: Nicholas Courtney (The Brigadier), Siri O’Neal (Colonel Emily Chaudhry), Scott Andrews (Scott), Matthew Brenher (Silurian voices), Sara Carver (Captain Winnington), Michael Hobbs (Francis Currie)

Notes: The Coup was one of two stories included on a free CD given away with Doctor Who Magazine, along with the Bernice Summerfield/Cybermen adventure Silver Lining. Neither has been released separately or for individual sale. Lethbridge-Stewart says that he encountered the Silurians 30 years ago, though this raises the thorny continuity question of what years were depicted in the Jon Pertwee era; if one sets those TV stories in the same year that they were first broadcast, that puts The Coup in the year 2000, 30 years after 1970. However, Sarah Jane Smith, introduced at the beginning of Pertwee’s final season as the Doctor, later claimed (in Pyramids Of Mars) to have met the Doctor in the year 1980, which would place the first Pertwee season around 1975 or ’76, which would place The Coup in the present day of its release, 2005. (It’s also worth noting that the Brigadier himself said “Yes, Ma’am” to the Prime Minister on the phone in the Tom Baker story Terror Of The Zygons, which, despite being broadcast in 1976, would appear to be set during the Thatcher era, again lending credence to the UNIT stories being around 5 years ahead of their time.) It’s also possible that Lethbridge-Stewart’s memory fails him, but given that he’s still a crack shot with firearms in this story, that doesn’t seem likely. Lethbridge-Stewart was a General when he retired, a rank to which he’s risen in many of Doctor Who’s “expanded universe” media.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Big Finish Spinoffs Doctor Who The Audio Dramas UNIT

Time Heals

UNIT: Time HealsWith UNIT’s work now out in the open, Colonel Emily Chaudhry finds her duties as UNIT’s public relations officer growing more complicated by the day. The latest operation – making a very visible show of transporting discarded nuclear weapons to keep the press and public’s attention away from a smaller convoy transporting pieces of an apparent alien spacecraft – proves to be no exception when both the spacecraft convoy and its decoy convoy are attacked almost simultaneously. UNIT’s commanding officer, Colonel Brimmicombe-Wood, is kidnapped, but no one else is taken. The spacecraft is quietly spirited away by a group who wishes to use its technology to further its secret space-time experiments. But the experiments continue to go horribly wrong, resulting in commuter train crashes with massive casualties, a major disruption of the British banking system, and even a jetliner crash directly into Windsor Castle. Colonel Chaudhry and the rest of UNIT try to piece together the puzzle and find their missing CO, but when a new CO, Colonel Dalton, is assigned to take over, he seems like a poor fit: he knows nothing of UNIT’s past work, and shows no interest in learning. Worse yet, Chaudhry discovers that he may have ties to ICIS.

Order this CDwritten by Iain McLaughlin & Claire Bartlett
directed by Jason Haigh-Ellery
music by David Darlington

Cast: Nicholas Courtney (The Brigadier), Siri O’Neal (Colonel Emily Chaudhry), Nicholas Deal (Colonel Robert Dalton), Robert Curbishley (Lt. Will Hoffman), Matthew Brenher (Captain Dodds), Michael Hobbs (Francis Currie), Stephen Carlile (Kelly), Alfred Hoffman (Meade)

Notes: Colonel Brimmicombe-Wood, a character originally established in the alternate universe of the Doctor Who Unbound story Sympathy For The Devil, doesn’t actually appear in this story; apparently he’s a UNIT fixture in the “normal” Doctor Who timeline as well (if, indeed, any such thing can be said to exist and can be described as normal). For the record, UNIT seems to have terrible trouble with nuclear convoys (one is hijacked by armored knights from a parallel dimension in Battlefield, the first story of Sylvester McCoy’s final season as the Doctor) and with the transportation of spacecraft (as seen in 1970’s Ambassadors Of Death).

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Big Finish Spinoffs Doctor Who The Audio Dramas UNIT

The Wasting

UNIT: The WastingIn the wake of Colonel Dalton’s death in the London incident, Colonel Chaudhry is on the mend, having only just come out of a two-week coma. Lethbridge-Stewart comes out of retirement yet again to try to inspire Chaudhry to fight back against ICIS once and for all – and to offer his help. But before they can put their plans for ICIS into action, UNIT is assigned to look into a virus that is quickly spreading around the world. Initially displaying flu-like symptoms, the disease eventually leaves its victims in a violent, zombie-like state. Lethbridge-Stewart calls in some old favors and has the virus analyzed, discovering that it’s a devastating, alien-engineered bioweapon that attacks and alters its victims at the genetic level. Persistent reporter Francis Currie comes to Chaudhry with videotape he and his cameraman have just filmed, showing armed soldiers in UNIT uniform killing victims of the plague in cold blood. But while Currie has brought this copy of the tape to UNIT, his cameraman has put it on the air – and the Army moves in to arrest UNIT, according to a carefully orchestrated ICIS plan. ICIS wants nothing less than to sieze control of the British government and institute a foreign policy steeped in xenophobia. Chaudhry and Lethbridge-Stewart find that they have friends they didn’t know they have – and enemies who have been watching from just over their shoulders all along.

Order this CDwritten by Iain McLaughlin and Claire Bartlett
directed by Nicola Bryant
music by David Darlington

Cast: Nicholas Courtney (The Brigadier), Siri O’Neal (Colonel Emily Chaudhry), David Tennant (Colonel Ross Brimmicombe-Wood), Nora Brande (Sergeant Willis), Sara Carver (Andrea Winnington), Michael Hobbs (Francis Currie), Adrian McLoughlin (George), Steffan Rhodri (Prime Minister), Alex Zorbas (Corporal McLeish)

Notes: The Brigadier cites the Silurians’ expertise in biological warfare, which he got to see for himself in Doctor Who and the Silurians (1970). The Brigadier’s reference to “an old blood-and-thunder like me” could be a reference to the fan-made 1993 video drama Wartime, which also used that term to describe him, though a little less flatteringly. Colonel Chaudhry says she’s met more than one of the Doctor’s incarnations, though it didn’t occur during this audio series. The Brigadier calls on the services of Commodore Harry Sullivan to analyze the virus; Harry traveled with the fourth Doctor and Sarah for a time and was played by the late Ian Marter, who died in 1986 on his 42nd birthday from complications from diabetes. Director Nicola Bryant was herself a former Doctor Who companion, starring as Peri from 1984 through 1986; she has also directed other Big Finish audio projects, such as the Judge Dredd series.

This was the first Big Finish audio featuring David Tennant to be released after it was announced that he would succeed Christopher Eccleston in the role of the Doctor shortly after the revived TV series premiered. What Tennant was unable to tell any of his UNIT co-stars during recording was that he had already been cast as the next Doctor. This story, and the unrelated comics audio adaptation The Adventures of Luther Arkwright, represent Tennant’s final Big Finish appearances to date.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Companion Chronicles Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

The Blue Tooth

Doctor Who: The Blue ToothLiz Shaw looks back on her days with UNIT and the Doctor, recalling an adventure that began with the disappearance of several prominent scientists. The Doctor and the Brigadier are on the case, and Liz goes undercover to see if a suspicious dentist’s office has any connection to the disappearances. The Doctor figures out that the Cybermen are once again trying to stage a quiet takeover of the human race…and Liz herself may be the next victim of their new conversion process.

Order this CD written by Nigel Fairs
directed by Mark J. Thompson
music by Lawrence Oakley

Cast: Caroline John (Liz Shaw), Nicholas Briggs (Cyberman voices)

Timeline: after Inferno and before Terror Of The Autons

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
Companion Chronicles Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

Old Soldiers

Doctor Who: Old SoldiersThe Brigadier receives an urgent but cryptic summons from his old friend, Colonel Heinrich Konrad, of UNIT’s force in West Germany. The message brings Lethbridge-Stewart to an ancient fortification, the Kriegskind, which is now home to a secret UNIT detachment. But rather than being greeted by Konrad, Lethbridge-Stewart is met by his distinctly nervous second-in-command, Schrader, who assures him somewhat unconvincingly that nothing is amiss. The Brigadier pulls rank and is horrified to discover that his old friend is in critical condition in the base’s sick bay, claiming to be the only survivor of some unspecified incident and warning that “time is against me.” Later, Lethbridge-Stewart sees for himself what Schrader didn’t want him to see: medieval swordsmen engaging UNIT troops in a pitched battle, capable of wounding men heavily armed with modern weapons but apparently taking little damage themselves. Lethrbridge-Stewart makes an urgent call to his scientific advisor; the Doctor parachutes into the base hours later. Both men stumble across evidence that they are indeed facing yet another threat of alien origin – but this time, UNIT has brought this menace upon itself.

Order this CD written by James Swallow
directed by Nigel Fairs
music by David Darlington

Colonel Heinrich Konrad

Cast: Nicholas Courtney (Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart), Toby Longworth (Schrader / Konrad)

Timeline: after Doctor Who And The Siluarians and before The Ambassadors Of Death

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

Categories
Sarah Jane Adventures Season 2

Enemy Of The Bane – Part 1

The Sarah Jane AdventuresLuke has a vivid nightmare involving the return of Mrs. Wormwood, the alien who genetically engineered him as an archetype for a new evolutionary stage of the Bane species. Sarah dismisses it as a normal childhood nightmare, but then more disturbing news arrives: Rani’s mother has vanished from her flower shop. Sarah finds a clue at the shop that leads her to a meeting with Mrs. Wormwood in person. Outcast from the Bane, she’s searching for an alien artifact called the Tunguska Scroll, which is one of many alien artifacts contained in UNIT’s Black Archive. She claims that this item will help her stop the Bane’s advance across the galaxy – it will save Earth and many other worlds, and will help her get her revenge. Sarah reluctantly agrees to help, and goes to see Sir Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart, retired from UNIT (but still subject to being pressed into duty as an advisor or “special envoy”). Rather than alerting UNIT to the Bane’s approach – which would draw unwelcome attention to Luke’s alien nature – he helps to sneak Sarah into the Black Archive to “borrow” the Tunguska Scroll. But while Sarah is doing that, Mrs. Wormwood’s true agenda – and her real allies – are revealed.

Get the DVDDownload this episodewritten by Phil Ford
directed by Graeme Harper
music by Sam Watts / title music by Murray Gold

Guest Cast: Mina Anwar (Gita Chandra), Ace Bhatti (Haresh Chandra), Alexander Armstrong (Mr. Smith), Samantha Bond (Mrs. Wormwood), Nicholas Courtney (Sir Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart), Anthony O’Donnell (Kaagh), Simon Chadwick (Major Cal Kilburne)

Notes: Aside from the generally-discounted-from-canon Dimensions In Time and an appearance in the 1995 fan-produced video Downtime – which also starred Elisabeth Sladen as Sarah – this marks Nicholas Courtney’s first on-screen appearance as (now retired) Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart since the opening story of classic Doctor Who’s final season, Battlefield (1989). His first appearance in the role was 40 years before this episode’s premiere in The Web Of Fear (1968)). Even after the end of the original television series, Courtney reprised the role of the Brigadier in productions like Downtime, BBC Radio’s two Jon Pertwee plays, and Big Finish audio stories such as The Spectre Of Lanyon Moor, Minuet In Hell, and even a UNIT-centered audio miniseries. Lethbridge Stewart’s visit to Peru – mentioned in the Doctor Who episode The Poison Sky – is something for which he’s only just now being debriefed by UNIT. Kaagh, last seen in The Last Sontaran, returns here, as well as Mrs. Wormwood, who was seen in the Sarah Jane Adventures pilot, Invasion Of The Bane.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Sarah Jane Adventures Season 2

Enemy Of The Bane – Part 2

The Sarah Jane AdventuresSarah, Luke, Rani, Clyde and the Brigadier – with Mrs. Wormwood in tow – hide from UNIT at the flower shop. But, as Sarah suspects, it’s all a double-cross: Mrs. Wormwood has allied with Kaagh the Sontaran, and their plans for the Tunguska Scroll have nothing to do with saving Earth. Luke agrees to go with Mrs. Wormwood to keep Sarah and the others alive, but while he is her hostage, he learns that the Scroll will summon a cybernetic organism called Horath, furthering Mrs. Wormwood’s plans for conquest and revenge. When Mrs. Wormwood tries to tempt Luke with the Scroll, he takes it and makes a run for it until Kaagh stops him. At Sarah’s home, Major Cal Kilburne of UNIT is waiting to reclaim the Scroll as well, but the Brigadier discovers that Klburne’s mission isn’t exactly part of UNIT’s charter. Still held hostage by Kaagh and Mrs. Wormwood, Luke is taken to an ancient burial site that hides a dimensional portal leading to Horath – and he has no choice but to open it for them.

Get the DVDDownload this episodewritten by Phil Ford
directed by Graeme Harper
music by Sam Watts / title music by Murray Gold

Guest Cast: Mina Anwar (Gita Chandra), Ace Bhatti (Haresh Chandra), Alexander Armstrong (Mr. Smith), Samantha Bond (Mrs. Wormwood), Nicholas Courtney (Sir Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart), Anthony O’Donnell (Kaagh), Simon Chadwick (Major Cal Kilburne)

Notes: The White Barrow site at the episode’s climax is real, though there isn’t actually a Stonehenge-style stone circle there. The end credits of both parts of Enemy Of The Bane give credit to writers Robert Holmes (creator of the Sontarans) and Henry Lincoln & Mervyn Haisman (creators of the Brigadier).

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Doctor Who Doctor Who Unbound

Masters Of War

Doctor Who Unbound: Masters Of WarThe 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.

Order this CDwritten by Eddie Robson
directed by Jason Haigh-Ellery
music by Martin Johnson

Cast: David Warner (The Doctor), Nicholas Courtney (Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart), Terry Molloy (Davros), Nicholas Briggs (The Daleks), Amy Pemberton (Nadel), Sarah Douglas (Gillen), Jeremy James (Delt), Christopher Heywood (Toloc)

Timeline: after The War Games and after Sympathy For The Devil

Notes: This adventure features the alternate third Doctor played by David Warner and an alternate Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, both of whom were introduced in the previous Doctor Who Unbound story Sympathy For The Devil. Where the previous range of Unbound stories marked the 40th anniversary of Doctor Who, the release of Masters Of War coincides with the 45th anniversary of the first broadcast episode of Doctor Who. As this story presumes that the Doctor’s life has taken a different path from the Doctor accepted as the central hero of the “main” timeline, Davros has never met the Doctor. Given the different “origin story” of Davros’ horrific injuries, this is also a different Davros than the one heard in the I, Davros audio spinoff series.

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green