Tag: Cybermen

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Classic Season 04 Doctor Who

The Tenth Planet Part 1

Doctor WhoThe TARDIS arrives at a military base on the South Pole in 1986. The base is routinely tracking a spacecraft in orbit when odd things begin to occur. The base guards discover a trio of oddly-dressed people outside, emerging from a police box, and then observatories (and the orbiting capsule) spot the approach of a planet which is identical in mass and geography to Earth. The planet, previously hidden on the other side of the sun, is speculated to be Mondas, Earth’s identical twin, though the planet’s existence was previously only the stuff of legend; the Doctor confirms this, almost as if he has been expecting its arrival. Undetected by the base personnel, a spacecraft from Mondas lands at the polar base, and its occupants stun the guards outside before advancing on the base itself…

written by Kit Pedler (credited onscreen as “Kitt Pedler”)
and Pat Dunlap and Gerry Davis (not credited onscreen)
directed by Derek Martinus
music not credited

Doctor WhoCast: William Hartnell (The Doctor), Robert Beatty (General Cutler), Dudley Jones (Dyson), David Dodimead (Barclay), Alan White (Schultz), Earl Cameron (Williams), Shane Shelton (Tito), John Brandon (American Sergeant), Anneke Wills (Polly), Michael Craze (Ben), Steve Plytas (Wigner), Christopher Matthews (Radar technician)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Classic Season 04 Doctor Who

The Tenth Planet Part 2

Doctor WhoCybernetically augmented humans – Cybermen – have emerged from the spacecraft to take control of Snowcap Base. Their world, Mondas, was thrown out of its orbit around the sun long ago, forcing its inhabitants to turn to cybernetics to preserve their species. Now, having succumbed entirely to the machinery that was only intended to extend their lives, the Cybermen face another kind of extinction. Mondas is a dying planet, and the Cybermen hope to colonize Earth for its resources – and its population – starting with initiating a transfer of Earth’s energy to Mondas.

written by Kit Pedler (credited onscreen as “Kitt Pedler”)
and Pat Dunlap and Gerry Davis (not credited onscreen)
directed by Derek Martinus
music not credited

Doctor WhoCast: William Hartnell (The Doctor), David Dodimead (Barclay), Dudley Jones (Dyson), Robert Beatty (General Cutler), Christopher Matthews (Radar technician), Reg Whitehead (Krail), Harry Brooks (Talon), Gregg Palmer (Shav), Michael Craze (Ben), Anneke Wills (Polly), Steve Plytas (Wigner), Ellen Cullen (Geneva Technician), Glenn Beck (TV Announcer), Earl Cameron (Williams), Alan White (Schultz), Roy Skelton (Cyberman voice)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Classic Season 04 Doctor Who

The Tenth Planet Part 4

Doctor WhoCutler blames everyone from the Doctor to Ben to his own personnel for the failure of his plan to render Earth toxic to the Cybermen, who have now invaded other parts of Earth and taken Polly as a hostage to ensure the Doctor’s cooperation. Time is running out for the Cybermen as Mondas continues to drain Earth’s energy, something which the Doctor warns will destroy their world as well as damaging Earth. The Doctor seems to know about the fate of Mondas and its people already…but he also seems to have a premonition of something else, a momentous change that could render him helpless in the ensuing battle with the emotionless Cybermen.

written by Kit Pedler (credited onscreen as “Kitt Pedler”)
and Pat Dunlap and Gerry Davis (not credited onscreen)
directed by Derek Martinus
music not credited

Doctor WhoCast: William Hartnell (The Doctor), Anneke Wills (Polly), Michael Craze (Ben), Robert Beatty (General Cutler), David Dodimead (Barclay), Christopher Dunham (R/T technician), Callen Angelo (Terry Cutler), Christopher Matthews (Radar technician), Dudley Jones (Dyson), Harry Brooks (Krang), Reg Whitehead (Jarl), Gregg Palmer (Gern), Steve Plytas (Wigner), Ellen Cullen (Geneva Technician), Peter Hawkins (Cyberman voice), Roy Skelton (Cyberman voice), Bruce Wells (Cyberman), John Haines (Cyberman), John Knott (Cyberman), Sheila Knight (Secretary), Patrick Troughton (The Doctor)

Notes: For the first Doctor, the entirety of the 2017 Christmas special Twice Upon A Time (a story in which he meets his fourteenth incarnation) happens in the interval between the Doctor rushing out into the Antarctic cold, and Ben and Polly catching up to him in the TARDIS.

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

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Classic Season 04 Doctor Who

The Moonbase

Doctor WhoThe TARDIS lands on the surface of the moon in the year 2070, and the Doctor provides Ben, Polly and Jamie with pressure suits so they can explore outside the TARDIS. They spot a massive lunar base in the distance, but when Jamie damages his space suit, reaching the base becomes a matter of urgency. Inside the base, the Doctor and his friends are shocked to find that Jamie won’t be alone in the sick bay – a plague is sweeping through the moonbase’s population seemingly at random, leaving those it strikes comatose. Worse yet, even the comatose patients have been disappearing without a trace, leaving the base – whose gigantic Gravitron controls the tides and governs Earth’s weather – dangerously short-staffed. The Doctor tries to find out what disease is slowly claiming the moonbase’s crew, only to find that the base has been deliberately infected by the Cybermen, who intend to take control of the base and use it as a staging area for an invasion of Earth.

written by Kit Pedler
directed by Morris Barry
music not credited

Guest Cast: Patrick Barr (Hobson), Andre Maranne (Benoit), Michael Wolf (Nils), John Rolfe (Sam), Alan Rowe (Dr. Evans, Space Control voice), Mark Heath (Ralph), Barry Ashton, Derek Calder, Arnold Chazen, Leon Maybank, Victor Pemberton, Edward Phillips, Ron Pinnell, Robin Scott, Alan Wells (Crew), John Wills, Peter Greene, Reg Whitehead, Keith Goodman, Sonnie Willis, Ronald Lee, John Clifford, Barry Noble (Cybermen), Peter Hawkins (Cyberman voice), Denis McCarthy (Controller Rinberg’s voice)

Broadcast from February 11 through March 4, 1967

Note: The master tapes of episodes 1 and 3 were destroyed by the BBC in the early 1970’s, leaving only episodes 2 and 4 in the archives. The missing episodes are still available as audio recordings, and are presented in that form both on CD and on the Lost In Time DVD set.

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

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Classic Season 05 Doctor Who

Tomb Of The Cybermen

Doctor WhoThe TARDIS brings the Doctor, Jamie and Victoria to the wasteland of the planet Telos, where they spot a human expedition on a journey to unearth the lost tombs of the Cybermen, a threat thought to be long extinct. Despite the Doctor’s vocal misgivings, Professor Parry and his fellow explorers insist on breaching the enormous doors and venturing into the apparently vacant tombs. But when automatic defense systems begin to pick off Parry’s team one by one, the expedition begins to look like a doomed one. When someone in the expedition reveals their true purpose – to reactivate and take control of the Cybermen – the entire galaxy begins to look doomed unless the Doctor can confine the Cybermen once more.

Order this story on DVDDownload this episodewritten by Kit Pedler & Gerry Davis
directed by Morris Barry
music not credited

Guest Cast: Roy Stewart (Toberman), Aubrey Richards (Professor Parry), Cyril Shaps (Viner), Clive Merrison (Callum), Shirley Cookin (Kaftan), George Rubicek (Hopper), George Pastell (Kleig), Alan Johns (Rogers), Bernard Holley (Haydon), Ray Grover (Crewman), Michael Kilgarriff (Cyber Controller), Hans De Vries (Cyberman), Tony Harwood (Cyberman), John Hogan (Cyberman), Richard Kerley (Cyberman), Ronald Lee (Cyberman), Charles Pemberton (Cyberman), Kenneth Seegr (Cyberman), Reg Whitehead (Cyberman), Peter Hawkins (Cybermen voices)

Broadcast from September 2 through 23, 1967

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

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Classic Season 05 Doctor Who

The Wheel In Space

Doctor WhoAfter leaving Victoria on Earth, the Doctor and Jamie find themselves aboard a drifting spacecraft. A fault in the TARDIS’ mercury fluid link creates a dangerous malfunction, which the Doctor resorts to drastic measures to stop, removing the timeship’s time vector generator and folding down its internal dimensions until it literally is a police box. The Doctor is knocked out as the spacecraft lurches suddenly, leaving Jamie on his own. When the ship comes dangerously close to space station W3, the station’s commander prepares to blast the ship out of the sky, over his crew’s objections. Jamie manages to signal the space station, which sends astronauts across to retrieve the two time travelers, who find themselves hard-pressed to explain their presence. The ship is millions of miles off course and shouldn’t have been anywhere near W3 at all. When a Cybermat appears, the Doctor realizes that the Cybermen can’t be far behind – and they’ve used the ship to smuggle themselves aboard the wheel. But what is the Cybermen’s real goal?

Order this story on audio CDwritten by David Whitaker
from a story by Kit Pedler
directed by Tristan de Vere Cole
music by Brian Hodgson and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop

Guest Cast: Freddie Foote (Servo-Robot), Eric Flynn (Ryan), Anne Ridler (Dr. Corwyn), Clare Jenkins (Tanya Lernov), Michael Turner (Bennett), Donald Sumpter (Enrico Casali), Kenneth Watson (Duggan), Michael Goldie (Laleham), Derrick Gilbert (Vallance), Kevork Malikyan (Rudkin), Peter Laird (Chang), James Mellor (Flannigan), Jerry Holmes, Gordon Stothard (Cybermen), Peter Hawkins, Roy Skelton (Cybermen voices)

Notes: Portions of this episode were destroyed by the BBC in the early 1970’s; the two surviving episodes appear on the Lost In Time DVD set. This episode marks the first appearance of the Doctor’s nom de plume, “John Smith”, which would be used more frequently in the Pertwee era and would reappear in everything from the 1996 TV movie through David Tennant’s tenure. Jamie coined the name in a bit of a pinch, and perhaps as a payback, the tenth Doctor instead uses the alias “James McCrimmon” during a visit to Scotland in Tooth And Claw. Zoe joins the TARDIS crew in this story, and the end of episode six the Doctor sets up a device to replay a recent adventure with the Daleks to her, which was an inspired way to lead into a rare rerun (in this case, The Evil Of The Daleks). This marked the final appearance of the Moonbase-style Cybermen; in their next appearance, in The Invasion, they would undergo a major redesign.

Broadcast from April 27 through June 1, 1968

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

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Classic Season 06 Doctor Who

The Invasion

Doctor WhoThe TARDIS reforms itself after what appears to be a cataclysmic explosion in space, only to become the target of a missile fired from the dark side of Earth’s moon…in 1968, when there still isn’t a human presence there. The timeship finally materializes in a nondescript field on Earth, but instead of a police box, it’s completely invisible. The Doctor, Zoe and Jamie set off for London on foot to seek Professor Travers’ help with the TARDIS’ visual stabilizer circuit, but soon hitch a ride on a passing truck, whose worried driver informs them that they’re in danger as long as they’re on International Electromatics property. He gets them safely out of IE’s corporate compound, but is then gunned down in cold blood by armed IE guards.

In London, the Doctor and friends discover that Professor Travers has gone to America with his Yeti findings, but his friend Professor Watkins might be able to help. But Watkins has gone missing – he’s never returned from International Electromatics – and his niece is holding down the Fort. The Doctor and Jamie return to IE’s headquarters building, where they cause just enough trouble to get a personal audience with the head of the company, Tobias Vaughn. The Doctor immediately suspects that Vaughn is up to no good, but he and Jamie don’t have time to think about it before they’re intercepted by two cars that have been following their movements. They’re taken to the mobile headquarters of a military organization called UNIT – the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce – whose British branch is headed up by their old friend Lethbridge-Stewart, now promoted to Brigadier. The Brigadier and his troops are monitoring IE closely: many brilliant, prominent scientific minds have entered, but none have left. The Doctor suspects that Tobias Vaughn wants control of more than just the world’s largest maker of electronic devices…but whose help does Vaughn have to pull off such a coup?

Order this story on DVDwritten by Derrick Sherwin
from a story by Kit Pedler
directed by Douglas Camfield
music by Don Harper

Guest Cast: Nicholas Courtney (Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart), John Levene (Corporal Benton), Murray Evans (Lorry Driver), Walter Randall (Patrolman), Sally Faulkner (Isobel Watkins), Geoffrey Chesire (Tracy), Kevin Stoney (Tobias Vaughn), Peter Halliday (Packer), Edward Burnham (Professor Watkins), Ian Fairburn (Gregory), James Thornhill (Sergeant Walters), Robert Sidaway (Captain Turner), Sheila Dunn (Operator), Edward Dentith (Rutlidge), Peter Thompson (Workman), Dominic Allan (Policeman), Stacy Davies (Perkins), Clifford Earl (Branswell), Norman Hartley (Peters), Pat Gorman, Ralph Carrigan, Charles Finch, Richard King, John Spradbury, Peter Thornton (Cybermen), Peter Halliday (Cyber Director voice)

Notes: Parts one and four of this eight-part story (the only story of that length in the show’s history) were lost in a purge of black & white BBC shows after the BBC switched to color. (Ironically, part one of 1974’s Invasion Of The Dinosaurs, a Jon Pertwee story, was simply titled Invasion to avoid giving away that story’s adversaries, and it was mistaken for part of this story and junked, rendering an otherwise intact color story incomplete. A B&W copy of part one of that story was recovered later.) In 1993, BBC Video released The Invasion in incomplete form with Nicholas Courtney narrating encapsulated versions of the missing episodes, while a 2006 DVD release took the unprecedented step of completely reconstructing the missing segments with cartoon-style animation.

Broadcast from November 2 through December 21, 1968

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

Categories
Classic Season 06 Doctor Who

The War Games

Doctor WhoThe TARDIS brings the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe to a World War I battlefield, but upon closer examination they find that the battlegrounds have been recreated on an alien planet. For the next several episodes, the Doctor and company wander through various different simulated wars in Earth history, finally discovering the alien War Lords at the heart of a plot to create an all-powerful army from the most powerful ranks of Earth history’s greatest military forces. Left with the task of stopping the War Lords, as well as returning all of the abducted Earth soldiers to their native times and places, the Doctor reluctantly summons the help of his own people, the Time Lords – and in so doing draws their attention to him as well. After dealing with the War Lords, the Time Lords put the Doctor on trial, the verdict of which will cost him another of his precious lives.

Order this story on DVDwritten by Malcolm Hulke & Terrance Dicks
directed by David Maloney
music by Dudley Simpson

Guest Cast: Jane Sherwin (Lady Buckingham), David Savile (Carstairs), John Livesly, Bernard Davies (German Soldiers), Terence Bayler (Barrington), Brian Forster (Willis), Noel Coleman (General Smythe), Hubert Rees (Captain Ransom), Esmond Webb (Burns), Richard Steele (Gorton), Peter Stanton (Chauffeur), Pat Gorman (Policeman), Tony McEwan (Redcoat), David Valla (Crane), Gregg Palmer (Lucke), David Garfield (Von Weich), Edward Brayshaw (War Chief), Philip Madoc (War Lord), James Bree (Security Chief), Bill Hutchinson (Thompson), Terry Adams (Riley), Leslie Schofield (Leroy), Vernon Dobtcheff (Scientist), Rudolph Walker (Harper), John Atterbury, Charles Pemberton (Aliens), Michael Lynch (Spencer), Graham Weston (Russell), David Troughton (Moor), Peter Craze (Du Pont), Michael Napier-Brown (Villar), Stephen Hubay (Petrov), Bernard Horsfall, Trevor Martin, Clyde Pollitt (Time Lords), Clare Jenkins (Tanya), Freddie Wilson (Quark), John Levene (Yeti), Tony Harwood (Ice Warrior), Roy Pearce (Cyberman), Robert Jewell (Dalek)

Broadcast from April 19 through June 21, 1969

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

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Classic Season 12 Doctor Who

Revenge Of The Cybermen

Doctor WhoThe Cybermen are out to pulverize the planetoid Voga, a small body rich in gold. As we learn here for the first time, gold is one of the only substances capable of shutting down the Cybermen, and Voga’s wealth of the precious metal was key to the defeat of the Cybermen in the “Cyber Wars” (evidently, the Cybermen are acquainted with Usenet flame-fests too). The Cybermen’s plan to destroy Voga hinges on the elimination of a manned satellite that stands sentinel near the planetoid – a satellite that will later become the Nerva space station that will preserve the human race. But the Cybermen don’t count on the arrival of the Doctor, Sarah and Harry – or on the willpower and ability of the Vogans to defend their homeworld.

Download this episodewritten by Gerry Davis
directed by Michael E. Briant
music by Carey Blyton

Guest Cast: Alec Wallis (Warner), Ronald Leigh-Hunt (Stevenson), Jeremy Wilkin (Kellman), William Marlowe (Lester), David Collings (Vorus/Wilkins), Michael Wisher (Magrik/Colville/Vogan voice), Christopher Robbie (Cyberleader), Melville Jones (Cyberman), Kevin Stoney (Tyrum), Brian Grellis (Sheprah)

Broadcast from April 19 through May 10, 1975

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

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Classic Season 19 Doctor Who

Earthshock

Doctor WhoA 26th century geological expedition is ambushed underground, leaving only a single survivor. When she crawls her way back to the surface camp, she reports the massacre. A squadron of security troops arrives to investigate, but they also consider her a suspect. However, when the troops return to the subterranean caves to look for the evidence, they first find a pair of killer androids…and then they find four people claiming to be time travelers, who instantly become the prime suspects. But these travelers – the Doctor and his unharmonious trio of companions – are more of a threat to the plans of the Cybermen (once again wearing new suits of high-tech armor). It seems that, fearing an upcoming conference of interplanetary superpowers that could spell the end to the Cybermen’s war effort, the silver ones plan to slam a huge space freighter into the Earth, obliterating a large portion of the planet’s surface. But when Adric manages to thwart the Cybermen’s plans by accidentlly sending the freighter back in time (but still on the same trajectory), he’s either helping to prevent the human race from coming into existence…or ensuring that event.

Order the DVDDownload this episodewritten by Eric Saward
directed by Peter Grimwade
music by Malcolm Clarke

Guest Cast: Beryl Reid (Briggs), James Warwick (Scott), Clare Clifford (Kyle), June Bland (Berger), David Banks (CyberLeader), Mark Hardy (Cyber Lieutenant), Steve Morley (Walters), Suzi Arden (Snyder), Ann Holloway (Mitchell), Anne Clements (Trooper Bane), Mark Straker (Trooper Carter), Alec Sabin (Ringway), Mark Fletcher (Crewmember Vance), Christopher Whittingham (Crewmember Carson), Carolyn Mary Simmonds, Barney Lawrence (Androids), Jeff Wayne, Steve Ismay, Peter Gates-Fleming, David Bache, Graham Cole, Norman Bradley, Michael Gordon Brown (Cybermen)

Broadcast from March 8 through 16, 1982

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

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Classic Season 20 Doctor Who

The Five Doctors

Doctor WhoThe Doctor, Tegan and Turlough find themselves in no immediate danger for once, until the Doctor suffers from repeated, severe pain, claiming that his past is being altered in a way that could endanger him in the present. Somewhere on Gallifrey, long-abandoned machinery from the earliest days of the Time Lords is reactivated and its powers are brought to bear on each of the Doctor’s first four incarnations, snatching each of them from their own timeline and depositing them in Gallifrey’s infamous Death Zone, where the tomb of Time Lord founding father Rassilon stands. The fourth Doctor is trapped in the time vortex and never makes it to Gallifrey. As the various personae of the Doctor join forces, along with many companions, they find themselves fighting a variety of old adversaries – and one new antagonist – for the future of Gallifrey itself.

Order the DVDwritten by Terrance Dicks
directed by Peter Moffatt
music by Peter Howell

Guest Cast: Richard Hurndall (The First Doctor), Patrick Troughton (The Second Doctor), Jon Pertwee (The Third Doctor), Janet Fielding (Tegan), Mark Strickson (Turlough), Nicholas Courtney (Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart), Elisabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith), John Leeson (voice of K9), Carole Ann Ford (Susan), Richard Franklin (Mike Yates), Caroline John (Liz Shaw), Frazer Hines (Jamie), Wendy Padbury (Zoe), Anthony Ainley (The Master), Philip Latham (Lord President Borusa), Dinah Sheridan (Chancellor Flavia), Paul Jerricho (Castellan), Richard Mathews (Rassilon), David Savile (Colonel Crichton), Ray Float (Sergeant), Roy Skelton (Dalek voice), John Scott Martin (Dalek), Stephen Meredith (Technician), David Banks (CyberLeader), Mark Hardy (Cyber Lieutenant), William Kenton (Cyber Scout), Stuart Blake (Commander)

Appearing in footage from The Dalek Invasion Of Earth: William Hartnell (The First Doctor)

Appearing in footage from Shada: Tom Baker (The Fourth Doctor), Lalla Ward (Romana)

Broadcast November 23, 1983 (US) / November 25, 1983 (UK)

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

Categories
Classic Season 22 Doctor Who

Attack Of The Cybermen

Doctor WhoThe Doctor wanders right into a Cyberman scheme to alter their own history. When he first encountered them, the Doctor engineered the destruction of the Cybermen’s home planet in order to save Earth. Now, the Cybermen – operating from their base on Telos – plan to divert the course of Halley’s Comet circa 1985, so Earth won’t be there to interfere in Cyber-history. Left behind after the attempted Dalek invasion, Lytton is up to no good on Earth, but his attempt to curry favor with the Cybermen in exchange for a ticket off of Earth turns into a deal with the devil that he can’t survive. And on Telos itself, a pair of renegade slave laborers tries to steal a Cyberman timeship, and the original inhabitants of Telos, who cannot survive in anything but sub-zero temperatures, enlist help in their own fight against the Cybermen.

Order the DVDwritten by Paula Moore
directed by Matthew Robinson
music by Malcolm Clarke

Cast: Colin Baker (The Doctor), Nicola Bryant (Peri), Maurice Colbourne (Lytton), Brian Glover (Griffiths), Terry Molloy (Russell), James Beckett (Payne), Jonathan David (Stratton), Michael Attwell (Bates), Sarah Berger (Rost), Esther Freud (Threst), Faith Brown (Flast), Sarah Greene (Varne), Stephen Churchett (Bill), Stephen Wale (David), Michael Kilgarriff (CyberController), David Banks (CyberLeader), Brian Orrell (Cyber Lieutenant), John Ainley, Roger Pope, Thomas Lucy, Ian Marshall-Fisher, Pat Gorman (Cybermen)

Broadcast from January 5 through 12, 1985

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

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Classic Season 25 Doctor Who

Silver Nemesis

Doctor WhoThe Doctor is horrified when Nemesis, a statue carved from a living metal from the world of the Time Lords, arrives on Earth in 1988, falling from an orbit into which the Doctor launched it 350 years ago. At the same time, a creepy neo-Nazi group led by De Flores (Anton Diffring) plans to take control of the Nemesis, as does Lady Peinforte, a 17th century would-be sorceress which concocts a potion for time travel. he spearhead of a Cyberman invasion fleet also arrives, also looking for the statue. Its destructive power will be granted to whoever returns the Nemesis’ bow and arrow, and it seems unlikely that the Doctor himself would have any use for that kind of power – unless, as Lady Peinforte claims, the Doctor has his own dark agenda.

Order the DVDwritten by Kevin Clarke
directed by Chris Clough
music by Kevin Clarke

Cast: Sylvester McCoy (The Doctor), Sophie Aldred (Ace), Fiona Walker (Lady Peinforte), Gerard Murphy (Richard), Anton Diffring (De Flores), Metin Yenal (Karl), Leslie French (Mathematician), Martyn Read (Security Man), David Banks (CyberLeader), Mark Hardy (Cyber Lieutenant), Chris Cherin (First Skinhead), Symond Lawes (Second Skinhead), Dolores Gray (American Tourist), Courtney Pine, Adrian Reid, Ernest Mothie, Frank Tontoh (Jazz Quartet), Brian Orrell, Danny Boyd, Scott Mitchell, Bill Malin, Tony Carlton, Paul Barrass (Cybermen), Dave Ould, John Ould (Walkmen), Mary Reynolds (Her Majesty the Queen), Vere Lorrimer (Tour Guide)

Broadcast from November 23 through December 7, 1988

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

Categories
8th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

The Sword Of Orion

Doctor Who: The Sword Of OrionIn the wake of the events surrounding the crash of the R-101, the Doctor and Charley take in a stray time vortex-dwelling creature, which Charley names “Ramsay.” But when Ramsay falls ill, the Doctor steers the TARDIS toward the Garazone system, where he hopes to find a cure. But the Doctor’s stopover at Garazone launches him into an even more perilous adventure. The scrap ship Vanguard is preparing to depart under the command of a mysterious new captain, and the Doctor and Charley are forced to stow away when the TARDIS is mistakenly loaded into the Vanguard’s cargo bay. Matters are made worse when the Vanguard makes a bee-line for a hulking derelict spacecraft. The Doctor and Charley watch helplessly as the crew try to board the enormous ship, and then one by one begin falling victim to that ship’s population of Cybermen, who have received a signal to reactive. But a danger greater than Cybermen may be lurking among the Vanguard’s crew – a danger which threatens the future of the entire human race.

Order this CD written by Nicholas Briggs
directed by Nicholas Briggs
music by Nicholas Briggs

Cast: Paul McGann (The Doctor), India Fisher (Charley), Michelle Livingstone (Deeva), Bruce Montague (Grash), Helen Goldwyn (Chev), Ian Marr (Ike), Hylton Collins (Vol), Toby Longworth (Kelsey)

Timeline: after Storm Warning and before Stones Of Venice

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
5th Doctor Doctor Who

Spare Parts

Doctor Who: Spare PartsThe Doctor and Nyssa visit a planet which seems to be almost exactly like Earth, but the sky is nowhere to be seen – the cities are all underground. The people have already taken plastic surgery one step further as well – they’ve added artificial organs and limbs, not just altered their skin, and even the indigenous animals are being subjected to the augmentation surgeries. It all adds up to confirm the Doctor’s worst fear: the TARDIS has landed on Mondas, at the moment in history poised precariously between the extinction of the Mondasians and the birth of the Cybermen. And if he and Nyssa stay there too long, they may be captured and converted themselves.

Order this CDwritten by Marc Platt
directed by Gary Russell
music by Russell Stone

Cast: Peter Davison (The Doctor), Sarah Sutton (Nyssa), Sally Knyvette (Doctorman Allan), Pamela Binns (Sisterman Constant), Derren Nesbitt (Thomas Dodd), Paul Copley (Dad), Kathryn Guck (Yvonne Hartley), Jim Hartley (Frank Hartley), Nicholas Briggs (Cyberleader Zheng)

Timeline: between Primeval and Creatures Of Beauty

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green