Categories
8th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

The Book of Kells

Doctor Who: The Book of KellsThe TARDIS is dragged off course to the year 1006, a year in which no one on Earth should have technology capable of doing so. The Doctor and Tamsin find themselves near the Abbey of Kells, a site from which, according to history, the Book of Kells is about to be stolen. The Doctor and Tamsin immediately find signs that something is amiss: the remains of a vortisaur are found in the abbey, and murderous plots are overheard nearby. Worse yet, technology that shouldn’t exist on Earth for at a millennium is hidden away in the abbey’s secret passages. The Doctor realizes that they’re very near the point at which history records the theft of the Book of Kells, so he’s convinced that another time traveler is here to take the legendary religious artifact. While he does find another time traveler – and a familiar one at that – the true fate of the Book of Kells just isn’t that simple…

Order this CDwritten by Barnaby Edwards
directed by Barnaby Edwards
music by Martin Johnson

Cast: Paul McGann (The Doctor), Niky Wardley (Tamsin Drew), Jim Carter (Brother Bernard), Terrence Hardiman (King Sitric), Graeme Garden (Abbot Thelonious), Ryan Sampson (Brother Patrick), Nick Brimble (Olaf Eriksson)

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
8th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

Deimos

Doctor Who: DeimosThe Doctor and Tamsin arrive in a human-built museum on Deimos, the largest of Mars’ two moons, and the site of a frozen enclave of the now-extinct Ice Warrior species. Only the Ice Warriors aren’t extinct: they’ve reawakened and have begun killing some of the tourists visiting the museum and taking others as hostages. Naturally, the moment that the human administrators on Deimos notice that something is going horribly wrong, it’s easiest to place the blame on the time travelers. The Doctor takes more decisive action, leaving the hapless humans with no choice but to trust him. He allows himself to be captured by the Ice Warriors so he can attempt to negotiate with them directly, but Ice Lord Ssladek is in no mood to talk – and he and his platoon are in a mood to kill indiscriminately. The body count mounts as the Doctor tries to keep either humans or Ice Warriors from being killed, but it all comes down to evacuating every human from Deimos so a last-resort failsafe – a man-made self-destruct mechanism that will destroy the entire moon – can be activated. But then a message is received from Deimos from a human who didn’t evacuate – a human who the Doctor didn’t even know was there. A human named Lucie Miller.

Order this CDwritten by Jonathan Morris
directed by Barnaby Edwards
music by Howard Carter

Cast: Paul McGann (The Doctor), Niky Wardley (Tamsin Drew), David Warner (Professor Boston Schooner), Nicky Henson (Gregson Grenville), Susan Brown (Margaret), Tracy-Ann Oberman (Temperance Finch), Nick Wilton (Harold), Nicholas Briggs (The Ice Warriors), Jack Brown (Pilot)

Notes: Phobos is mentioned as a “hippie retreat,” so it would seem that Deimos is set broadly in the same period as the eighth Doctor’s earlier visit to the other moon of Mars, though the two stories don’t necessarily happen in the same year or decade. The Doctor mentions having been present when the Ice Warriors had to abandon Mars; this is a reference to The Judgement Of Isskar, the first story in Big Finish’s Key 2 Time trilogy. There are also references to the Ice Warriors attack on Earth’s moon and takeover of T-Mat (The Seeds Of Death) as being somewhat ancient history.

Logbook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
8th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

The Resurrection Of Mars

Doctor Who: DeimosAfter discovering Lucie Miller’s presence, the Doctor hesitates to detonate the charges that would destroy Ice-Warrior-infested Deimos – giving the Ice Warriors time to disable the charges. The human colonists and even Tamsin, the Doctor’s own companion, are shocked that he’d endanger them all on the mere possibility that Lucie is on Deimos. For her part, Lucie has no idea what’s going on, having been dumped on Deimos after a disagreement with the time-traveling Monk, another Time Lord whose interference the Doctor stopped at Kells Abbey. When the Monk pays Tamsin a visit, he begins to give her a very skewed version of his checkered history with the Doctor, changing her mind about traveling with him. To his dismay, the Doctor has to resort to a more forceful means of coercing the Ice Warriors back into their deep freeze hibernation, which only proves the Monk’s point.

Order this CDwritten by Jonathan Morris
directed by Barnaby Edwards
music by Howard Carter

Cast: Paul McGann (The Doctor), Niky Wardley (Tamsin Drew), Sheridan Smith (Lucie Miller), Nicky Henson (Gregson Grenville), Susan Brown (Margaret), Tracy-Ann Oberman (Temperance Finch), Nick Wilton (Harold), Nicholas Briggs (The Ice Warriors), Jack Brown (Pilot)

Notes: Big Finish’s web site displays an alternate cover for this story to preserve the surprise of Lucie’s return.

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
8th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

Relative Dimensions

Doctor Who: Relative DimensionsDetermined to make amends for the Christmas that he ruined for her in 2009 – the Christmas that made her decide to leave the TARDIS – the Doctor offers to provide Lucie with a more relaxed Yuletide holiday, taking her to Earth’s future to celebrate with his family for a change. Susan Campbell, still helping to rebuild the Earth and raising her son Alex, is surprised to see the TARDIS show up on schedule. For his part, Alex is still coming to grips with the fact that his mother is an “alien,” and his great-grandfather travels through time and space in a police box. As Lucie dives headfirst into preparations for a perfect Christmas, Susan’s fears about Alex’s future come to the surface: she’s worried that he’ll want to travel with the Doctor instead of staying on Earth to take part in the reconstruction effort. And deep in the TARDIS, something dating back to Susan’s travels with the first Doctor is about to crash the party.

Order this CDwritten by Marc Platt
directed by Barnaby Edwards
music by Jamie Robertson

Cast: Paul McGann (The Doctor), Sheridan Smith (Lucie Miller), Carole Ann Ford (Susan Campbell), Jake McGann (Alex Campbell)

Notes: The airborne fish creature that inhabits Susan’s old room in the TARDIS was picked up – in its infant form – by a much younger Susan in the Big Finish Companion Chronicles story Quinnis, which is set even before An Unearthly Child. The Doctor apparently keeps his former comapnions’ rooms “on file” in the depths of the TARDIS, and many of them are name-checked – though interestingly, the names mentioned include only former television companions rather than any companions who have appeared only in Big Finish audios (with the exception of the recently-departed Tamsin).

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
8th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

The Four Doctors

Doctor Who: The Four DoctorsThe fifth Doctor visits a Jariden space station where that race is conducting surprisingly advanced experiments in time travel. But the Doctor isn’t the only one with a keen interest in these experiments: a fleet of Dalek ships moves in, and an invasion force boards the station, demanding access to the contents of a sealed vault. And one of the Jaridens, Colonel Ulrik, intends to help the Daleks retrieve what’s in the vault, despite the wishes of his sister, who happens to be the station’s lead scientist. Someone identifying himself only as another Time Lord contacts the Doctor and offers hints of how to resolve the situation, but not any actual help. The sixth Doctor encounters the battle-scarred Colonel Ulrik – at an earlier point in his history – during the bloody battle of Pejorica, in which the Daleks decimated the Jariden species. It seems that the Doctor is pushing Ulric and his race toward a major evolutionary turning point that could help in their struggle against Dalek oppression. The seventh Doctor pays a visit to Michael Faraday, only to find that Ulrik is here as well, followed by a small squadron of Daleks. The small battle that plays out before Faraday’s eyes is almost too much for one of human science’s greatest visionaries. And the eighth Doctor visits the Jariden space station, gently manipulating Ulrik and the fifth Doctor’s actions – and therefore those of his other previous selves – to ensure that the tide of history doesn’t turn to favor the Daleks.

written by Peter Anghelides
directed by Nicholas Briggs & Ken Bentley
music by Steve Foxon

Cast: Peter Davison (The Doctor), Colin Baker (The Doctor), Sylvester McCoy (The Doctor), Paul McGann (The Doctor), Nicholas Briggs (The Daleks), Ellie Burrow (Professor Kalinda / Lady Cowen), David Bamber (Colonel Ulrik / Whitmore), Nigel Lambert (Professor Michael Faraday / Magran), Alex Mallinson (Roboman / Jariden Device)

Notes: This single-disc story, presented in a slightly unusual format consisting of shorter-than-usual episodes, was the annual free gift to Big Finish subscribers. It was released with the December 2010 story from the main monthly Doctor Who range, The Demons Of Red Lodge. The Four Doctors marks the first time that Peter Davison, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy and Paul McGann have “appeared” together since the 2003 audio story marking Doctor Who’s 40th anniversary, Zagreus. Unlike past Big Finish subscriber specials, which were generally available for sale a year after their original “giveaway” release, Big Finish has vowed that The Four Doctors will only ever be available to its subscribers.

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
8th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

Prisoner Of The Sun

Doctor Who: Prisoner Of The SunHaving left Lucie on 22nd century Earth with Susan and Alex, the Doctor has been imprisoned in a facility where he is charged with maintaining a notoriously unreliable system preventing the local star from destroying the planets in its solar system. He is given artificial “assistants” – all of whom he quickly programs with Lucie’s voice and personality – and has made several jailbreak attempts, but is always drawn back into captivity by the responsibility of keeping billions of people safe from their own sun. Elsewhere in the universe, the Doctor’s help is needed, but how much blood will be on his hands if he pursues his own freedom?

Order this CDwritten by Eddie Robson
directed by Jason Haigh-Ellery
music by Howard Carter

Cast: Paul McGann (The Doctor), Sheridan Smith (Lucie Miller), Antony Costa (Hagan), Jeany Spark (Jelena), Richenda Carey (Gliss), Pandora Colin (Fash), Beth Chalmers (Shill / Computer)

Notes: The Doctor has been imprisoned for years on end in other audio adventures (Return Of The Daleks) and in print (“Seeing I”, which also saw the eighth Doctor locked up)

Timeline: at least six years after Relative Dimensions, and immediately before Lucie Miller

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
8th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

Lucie Miller

Doctor Who: Lucie MillerLeft on 22nd century Earth to spend time with Susan and Alex, Lucie Miller is almost settling into a normal life of traveling around the world with Alex when the plague hits. A deadly disease wipes out entire countries around the world, though Alex and Susan are immune. Lucie contracts the illness and almost dies; the payoff for surviving is losing the use of her legs, and going blind in one eye. Just when things can’t get any worse, a Dalek invasion force arrives to retake Earth: the true source of the plague, the Daleks intend to finish the job that their first invasion of Earth never did. Alex becomes a leader in the resistance movement against the Daleks and plans a bold strike at the heart of the Daleks’ plan to remove Earth from the solar system. But after all this time, no one expects the Doctor to appear – and certainly no one expects him to appear aboard one of the Daleks’ own ships.

Order this CDwritten by Nicholas Briggs
directed by Nicholas Briggs
music by Andy Hardwick

Cast: Paul McGann (The Doctor), Sheridan Smith (Lucie Miller), Carole Ann Ford (Susan Campbell), Jake McGann (Alex Campbell), Niky Wardley (Tamsin Drew), Graeme Garden (The Monk), John Banks (Seb Andrews), Nicholas Briggs (Daleks)

Timeline: between Prisoner Of The Sun and To The Death

Notes: The TARDIS key has been seen to glow with the return of the Doctor’s timeship (Father’s Day, 2005). The Doctor notes that he eliminated the Dalek Time Controller “two lifetimes ago” (the 2009 audio story Patient Zero), so he’s understandably surprised to see it reappear here. The Doctor and Lucie nickname their communications device an “interociter,” referring to the psychedelically colorful triangular viewscreen used to contact the aliens in the movie This Island Earth (195?, though perhaps better known to modern audiences as the movie lampooned in 1997’s Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie.

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
8th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

To The Death

Doctor Who: To The DeathThe Doctor miraculously survives the destruction of the Dalek ship on which he’s being held prisoner, but his brief time among the Daleks leaves him riddled with guilt: the Dalek Time Controller, who he thought he had destroyed in the distant future, has traveled back in time to lead the Daleks’ second invasion of Earth. The Doctor learns that the Dalek Time Controller was sucked into the time vortex and had an eternity to observe history and concoct a plan to wipe out all non-Dalek life using a combination of potent viruses, spreading disease through the universe by using Earth as a mobile plague planet. The Doctor plans to take a nuclear bomb that the Monk has stashed away forward in time to correct his error and prevent this chain of events from happening, but Lucie insists on using the nuke in the present to wipe out the Dalek invasion force. For once, the Doctor is in no position to save the world, but he will witness the death of many dear friends and family members as they battle the Daleks without him.

Order this CDwritten by Nicholas Briggs
directed by Nicholas Briggs
music by Andy Hardwick

Cast: Paul McGann (The Doctor), Sheridan Smith (Lucie Miller), Niky Wardley (Tamsin Drew), Graeme Garden (The Monk), Carole Ann Ford (Susan Campbell), Jake McGann (Alex Campbell), Nicholas Briggs (The Daleks)

Timeline: between Lucie Miller and The Great War

Notes: This release wraps up the separate range of eighth Doctor audio stories that had been published by Big Finish since 2006, though the adventure would continue in a box set release also outside the main range, Dark Eyes, in 2012. The Doctor, then in his sixth incarnation (and traveling with the eighth Doctor’s former companion, Charley Pollard), encountered the Dalek Time Controller at Amethyst Station in Patient Zero. A sole Dalek plummeting through time (and driven insane as a result) would also prove to be a problem in the 2008 season finale The Stolen Earth / Journey’s End; Nicholas Briggs uses a similar voice treatment for both the Dalek Time Controller and Dalek Caan, which may indicate – without breaking Big Finish’s contractual obligation to avoid direct reference to the new series – that the two are intended to be the same character.

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
8th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

The Silver Turk

Doctor WhoThe Doctor brings Mary Shelley to the great exhibition at Vienna in 1873, where he learns that the legendary chess-playing Mechanical Turk is still operating. When he and Mary go to see it, however, the Doctor is appalled to discover that the Turk is actually a severely damaged Mondasian Cyberman. Its “inventor”, a man who performed a repair job that makes Mondasian spare part surgery look elegant by comparison, meets any challenge to the “Turk”‘s legitimacy with extreme hostility, and naturally he and the Doctor quickly find themselves at odds with each other. The Doctor also correctly deduces that a second Cyberman is present on Earth, and Mary finds that a rival inventor has that Cyberman in his possession. If even one of the injured Cybermen can recharge enough to regain full strength, the future of all life on Earth is in jeopardy… so naturally, the Cyberman is lucky enough to speak to a writer of fanciful stories whose imagination can conjure up such ideas as reviving a dead man with lightning.

Order this CD written by Marc Platt
directed by Barnaby Edwards
music by Jamie Robertson

Cast: Paul McGann (The Doctor), Julie Cox (Mary Shelley), Gareth Armstrong (Dr. Johan Drossel), Christian Brassington (Alfred Stahlbaum), David Schneider (Ernst Bratfisch), Gwilym Lee (Count Rolf Wittenmeier), Claire Wyatt (Countess Mitzi Wittenmeier), Nicholas Briggs (Cybermen)

Notes: The Cybermen in The Silver Turk are apparently the first Mondasians to discover Earth since Cyber-conversion changed life on Mondas forever. However, the Doctor stops them from transmitting their findings back to Mondas, presumably delaying their discovery and any potential invasion plans until 1986 (The Tenth Planet). This is only the second time that Mondasian Cybermen have featured in a Big Finish Doctor Who story; the first was in Spare Parts, also written by Marc Platt.

Timeline: after Mary’s Story (part 4 of Company Of Friends) and before Storm Warning

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
8th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

The Witch From The Well

Doctor WhoThe TARDIS brings the Doctor and Mary to an English village where it is said that a witch haunts the unwary. Skeptical of this story, the Doctor investigates and discovers that an alien being has inhabited the body of an elderly woman – the one now regarded as a witch – and holds the village in her thrall. And if that’s not bad enough, the presence of the “witch” has given rise to religious zealotry that is as much of a threat to the people of the village (and the time travelers) as the alien being. The Doctor and Mary have to deal with threats from beyond Earth and with more Earthbound superstition.

Order this CD written by Rick Briggs
directed by Barnaby Edwards
music by Steve Foxon

Cast: Paul McGann (The Doctor), Julie Cox (Mary Shelley), Simon Rouse (Master John Kincaid), Andrew Havill (Aleister Portillon / Squire Claude Portillon), Serena Evans (Agnes Bates), Lisa Kay (Beatrix), Alix Wilton Regan (Finicia), Kevin Trainor (Lucern / Cornet Swallow)

Timeline: after The Silver Turk and before Army Of Death and Storm Warning

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
8th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

Army Of Death

Doctor WhoThe Doctor takes Mary to the serene planet Draxine, discovering that the planet’s pleasant reputation doesn’t apply to its entire history. The dead walk Draxine again, and one of the planet’s fabled major cities has fallen to the might of the armed skeletons. The Doctor and Mary encounter two escaped prisoners, only to be pursued by both the skeletons and flying security robots, one of which captures the Doctor and whisks him away to be interrogated by the planet’s president. The Doctor learns that the dead are walking the surface of Draxine and have recently taken over the planet’s other most populous city, which lies in ruins in the aftermath of what is said to be a thermonuclear explosion. Mary, cooperating with her captors, continues toward that city, which is also a place the Doctor wants to explore. But this place is the city of the dead, and at the heart of that city is the horrifying living secret of what happened there.

Order this CD written by Jason Arnopp
directed by Barnaby Edwards
music by Fool Circle Productions

Cast: Paul McGann (The Doctor), Julie Cox (Mary Shelley), David Harewood (President Vallan), Carolyn Pickles (Lady Meera), Eva Pope (Nia Brusk), Mitch Benn (Commander Raynar / Karnex), Joanna Christie (Sherla / Baden / Tox), Trevor Cooper (Captain Maddox / Stennan / Sentries)

Notes: The Doctor mentions that he was once falsely accused of a presidential assassination; the incident in question involved the leader of the Time Lords, as chronicled in the Tom Baker TV story The Deadly Assassin (1976). The Doctor also reminisces about having had a “flying car with a great number plate” (obviously his third incarnation’s Whomobile, though it was never referred to that on screen).

Timeline: after The Witch From The Well and before Storm Warning

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