Categories
2008-2009 Specials Doctor Who New Series Season 04

The End Of Time – Part 2

Doctor WhoThe Master has twisted the Immortality Gate into his own weapon, projecting himself as a template onto every human on Earth: every human on Earth is now the Master. The two aliens working undercover in Naismith’s operation are unaffected, and Wilfred is unaffected as well, stuck in the Master’s isolation booth. But the only other human not possessed by the Master is Donna Noble, whose adventures with the Doctor are flooding back into her mind. Wilfred urges her to run, but soon the amount of information crowding her human brain causes her to collapse. The Master interrogates the Doctor, demanding to know the whereabouts of the TARDIS, but this grueling interrogation is soon interrupted by the two aliens, who teleport themselves, the Doctor and Wilfred to their ship in orbit.

An alien artifact arrives on Earth, a piece of the extinct world of Gallifrey, and only then does the Master realize what the drumbeat in his head is: the rhythm of a Time Lord’s hearts. The Master uses this piece of Gallifrey to establish a link, and the entire planet of Gallifrey materializes close enough to Earth that tidal forces begin tearing the smaller planet apart. The Time Lords, desperate to escape their imminent doom in the Time War, have broken free by sending their distress signal – the drumbeat – back in time. They created the Master and made him a madman, all to compel him to provide an escape route for Gallifrey. The Lord President and members of the High Council of the Time Lords arrive on Earth, where the Master demands their obedience and just as quickly discovers that the Lord President is ready to eliminate him: the Master has served his purpose where the Time Lords are concerned. The Doctor cuts Gallifrey’s link to Earth as the Master and the Time Lord President do battle; the planet of the Time Lords disappears again, taking the Master with it.

But it is only after the crisis is averted that the Doctor realizes that the prophecy of his own death has nothing to do with the Time Lords or the Master.

Order the DVDDownload this episodewritten by Russell T. Davies
directed by Euros Lyn
music by Murray Gold

Cast: David Tennant (The Doctor), John Simm (The Master), Bernard Cribbins (Wilfred Mott), Timothy Dalton (Lord President), Catherine Tate (Donna Noble), Jacqueline King (Sylvia Noble), Billie Piper (Rose Tyler), Camille Coduri (Jackie Tyler), John Barrowman (Captain Jack Harkness), Freema Agyeman (Martha Smith-Jones), Noel Clarke (Mickey Smith), Elisabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith), Jessica Hynes (Verity Newman), June Whitfield (Minnie Hooper), Claire Bloom (The Woman), Thomas Knight (Luke Smith), Russell Tovey (Midshipman Frame), David Harewood (Joshua Naismith), Tracy Ifeachor (Abigail Naismith), Lawry Lewin (Rossiter), Sinead Keenan (Addams), Joe Dixon (The Chancellor), Julie LeGrand (The Partisan), Brid Brennan (The Visionary), Karl Collins (Shaun Temple), Krystal Archer (Nerys), Lachele Carl (Trinity Wells), Paul Kasey (Ood Sigma), Ruari Mears (Elder Ood), Silas Carson (voice of Ood Sigma), Nicholas Briggs (voice of Judoon), Dan Starkey (Sontaran), Matt Smith (The Doctor)

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

Categories
Caprica

Rebirth

CapricaDaniel Graystone has a problem: despite the successful demonstration of his new robotic soldier, the Cylon, it’s only an army of one – all attempts at replicating it have failed. Graystone lets his technicians labor in the dark while he knows the true secret: the Cylon demonstration model contains a data disc with his late daughter Zoe’s avatar. Even then, though, Graystone doesn’t begin to suspect that his daughter has outmaneuvered him: the Cylon contains Zoe’s consciousness. Zoe is careful not to reveal that to her father or any of his technicians, however, though she does eventually reach out to her best friend, Lacy – and even then, she has a lot of explaining to do before Lacy can accept her. Amanda Graystone, hounded by investigators, discovers that Zoe may have had a larger role in the bombing than she realized, and goes public with this information far too soon for her husband’s tastes. And as Joseph Adama is still deep in mourning, he scarcely notices when his son William begins to fall under the influence of an uncle with a dangerous lifestyle.

Season 1 Regular Cast: Eric Stoltz (Daniel Graystone), Esai Morales (Joseph Adama), Paula Malcomson (Amanda Graystone), Alessandra Toressani (Zoe Graystone), Magda Apanowicz (Lacy Rand), Sasha Roiz (Sam Adama), Brian Markinson (Special Agent Jordan Durham), Polly Walker (Sister Clarice Willow), Sina Najafi (William Adama)

written by Mark Verheiden
directed by Jonas Pate
music by Bear McCreary

Guest Cast: Scott Porter (Nestor), Avan Jogia (Ben Stark), Jeanettea Antonio (Woman), Philip Granger (Tanner), Hiro Kanagawa (Cyrus Xander), Dale Wolfe (Steve Bahara)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
7th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

A Thousand Tiny Wings

Doctor WhoThe TARDIS lands in Kenya, during the native Mau Mau uprising against British colonialists, where the Doctor finds an isolated community of women awaiting either an end to the fighting or a rescue party. But among them is Elizabeth Klein, the Nazi scientist from an alternate future that the Doctor first met during his internment at Colditz Castle. Now trapped in a timeline where the Third Reich fell, Klein is living in exile among fascist sympathizers, making her own plans. When an alien influence is found to be waiting for its chance to invade, the Doctor and Klein are forced into an uneasy alliance.

Order this CDwritten by Andy Lane
directed by Lisa Bowerman
music by Richard Fox & Lauren Yason

Cast: Sylvester McCoy (The Doctor), Tracey Childs (Elizabeth Klein), Ann Bell (Mrs. Sylvia O’Donnell), Abigail McKern (Mrs. Denise Waterford), Joannah Tincey (Miss Lucy Watts), Chuk Iwuji (Joshua Sembeke), Alex Mallinson (Abraham)

Notes: Klein, played by Tracey Childs, first appeared in the 2001 audio drama Colditz, which revealed only that she was from an alternate, Nazi-dominated future Earth, and had the capability of piloting the TARDIS. Between her first and second appearances as Klein, actress Tracey Childs made an appearance in the Doctor Who TV episode The Fires Of Pompeii, as the matriarch of the only family to survive the eruption of Vesuvius. Chuk Iwuji also made an appearance on TV Doctor Who, as a Secret Service agent in The Impossible Astronaut (2011). Klein is apparently acquainted with exiled Nazi de Flores (Silver Nemesis, 1988).

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
6th Doctor Doctor Who Lost Stories

Leviathan

Doctor Who: LeviathanThe TARDIS experiences problems in flight, and lands at the earliest opportunity so the Doctor can try to effect repairs. The scanner shows that the TARDIS has landed in medieval England, complete with a mythical hunter who stalks the locals “when their time comes.” If that isn’t strange enough, evidence of energy weapons and robotics are barely hidden from view as well. The locals are instantly suspicious of the time travelers, especially when the Doctor decides to take up the cause of freeing them from the terror that stalks the land. But the Doctor and Peri are in too deep before they discover that it isn’t land, and it’s not inhabited by locals… and that the hunter is among the least of their problems.

Order this CDwritten by Brian & Paul Finch
directed by Ken Bentley
music by Simon Robinson

Cast: Colin Baker (The Doctor), Nicola Bryant (Peri), Howard Gossington (Gurth), John Banks (Herne the Hunter), Beth Chalmers (Althya), Jamie Parker (Wulfric), Derek Carlyle (Siward)

Notes: Leviathan was written by the late Brian Finch (1936-2007), who had a strong connection with Colin Baker’s career – he was a frequent writer of The Brothers, the early 1970s prime time soap which Baker joined as its chief villain halfway through the series’ run. (Baker’s stint as unscrupulous banker Paul Merroney was his claim to fame prior to Doctor Who.) Leviathan was originally submitted for season 22, not the cancelled season 23, but Finch’s son, also a writer, pitched the script to Big Finish just as they were about to wrap production on the planned Lost Stories releases, leading to the mysterious lack of announcements about which titles were forthcoming in that range.

Timeline: after Mission To Magnus and before The Hollows Of Time

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
Caprica

Reins Of A Waterfall

CapricaAmanda Graystone’s public confession that she has discovered that her late daughter was a member of a monotheist extremist group called Soldiers of the One has wide-ranging effects. Graystone Industries’ stock plummets, and Amanda herself resigns from her position as a doctor to stay out of the public eye. Daniel Graystone fails to stay out of the public eye, and as a result, the next time he runs into Joseph and Sam Adama, he barely walks away from that meeting in one piece. With the Graystones distracted, Zoe – from the vantage point of her Cylon body – creates a way for her program to re-enter the virtual world. But it would seem that more people are aware of Zoe’s avatar than she expected… and more people are making unpleasant plans for Zoe’s father than he may realize.

written by Michael Angeli
directed by Ronald D. Moore
music by Bear McCreary

Guest Cast: Patton Oswalt (Baxter Sarno), Avan Jogia (Ben Stark), Kendall Cross (), Peter Wingfield (Director Gara Singh), Luciana Carro (Pyrah), Genevieve Buechner (Tamara Adams), Teryl Rothery (Evelyn), Sina Najafi (William Adama), Hiro Kanagawa (Cyrus Xander)

Notes: A number of genre guest stars appear in this episode, from Peter Wingfield (Methos from the Highlander TV series) to Teryl Rothery (Stargate SG-1’s Dr. Fraiser) to former recurring Galactica guest star Luciana Carro, who appeared on Caprica’s parent series as hotshot pilot Louann “Kat” Katraine, who flew her last viper mission in 2006’s The Passage. It’s not known if her character, a PR expert hired to help Graystone Industries recover from a backlash of public opinion, is intended to be an ancestor of Kat’s. Patton Oswalt, a veteran of the sitcom The King Of Queens, joins the show’s recurring cast as an obnoxious late-night TV comedian.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Caprica

Gravedancing

CapricaHaving booked an appearance on a late-night talk show whose host isn’t exactly well-disposed toward Graystone Industries, Daniel Graystone is sickened by the public relations spin his advisers are telling him to put on Zoe’s death (and life). Agent Durham is searching everywhere that Zoe lived that short life in his hunt for the Soldiers of the One, including a surprise raid at her school (but not a total surprise for the other members of Zoe’s STO cell). Still stuck somewhere between grief and rage, Joseph Adama has ordered his brother Sam to make things even with Graystone: since Adama lost his daughter and his wife, Graystone should also lose his wife before the day is out, just to even the score. Sam doubts his brother’s certainty, but prepares for the hit anyway. As Daniel Graystone takes the stage in a TV studio to try to spin away the damage caused by his wife’s admission that Zoe may have been the suicide bomber, he’s unaware that his wife is waiting in the wings to make another surprise appearance – and he’s not sure if he can spin his family name or his company’s reputation out of harm’s way this time.

teleplay by Jane Espenson
story by Michael Angeli & Jane Espenson
directed by Michael Watkins
music by Bear McCreary

Guest Cast: Scott Porter (Nestor), Patton Oswalt (Baxter Sarno), Peter Wingfield (Director Gara Singh), Luciana Carro (Pyrah)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Caprica

There Is Another Sky

CapricaIn the virtual world, Tamara Adams’ avatar is lost and looking for a way home. Her search lands her in the middle of an attempt to oust a power player in a multiplayer game; at first, Tamara and those around her are terrified by her inability to die at first, but eventually she learns to use it to her advantage. In the real world, Joseph Adama realizes that he is losing his grip on his son. Joseph’s brother Sam urges him to do something he’s been avoiding: perform a Tauron funeral rite to provide closure for both himself and William. In the corporate world, facing an ouster by Graystone Industries’ board of directors, the man who founded the company prepares a shocking demonstration of his vision of the future.

written by Kath Lingenfelter
directed by Michael Nankin
music by Bear McCreary

Guest Cast: Luciana Carro (Pyrah), Karen Elizabeth Austin (Ruth), Camille Mitchell (Vesta), Sina Najafi (William Adama), Hiro Kanagawa (Cyrus Xander), Genevieve Buechner (Tamara Adams), Julius Chapple (Larry), Richard Harmon (Heracles), A.C. Peterson (Chiron), Eve Harlow (Byan), Travis Turner (Ashok), Graham Chabot (Big Kid), Thomas Saunders (Jon Parker), Ian A. Wallace (Ferryman), Patti Allan (Tauron Rites Singer), Jim Ralph (Chiron’s Bank Guard), Charles Andre (Rail Thin Man), Zolton Crane (Man)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
6th Doctor Doctor Who Lost Stories The Audio Dramas

The Hollows Of Time

Doctor Who: The Hollows Of TimeThe Doctor and Peri have a difficult time remembering their latest adventure, but bit by bit, details come back to them: they visited the quaint village of Hollowdean in the early 1980s, with the Doctor planning to visit the Reverend Foxworth, formerly a Bletchley Park artificial intelligence expert who worked with Alan Turing on early computer technology. But Foxworth hasn’t abandoned his penchant for creating new technology, and that has the Doctor worried. Also worrying is the hold that self-styled religious guru Professor Stream has over the entire village. Peri befriends a local boy named Simon, who shows her a piece of a scaly carapace – a fragment that the Doctor instantly recognizes as part of the outer shell of a Tractator, an alien species he once met who can influence gravity. Peri and Simon discover that the Tractators are being enslaves for their unique gravitational properties, but whoever has trapped them needs something that only the Doctor can provide: a working TARDIS, and the coordinates of the Gravis, the most powerful of the Tractators.

Order this CDwritten by Christopher H. Bidmead
directed by John Ainsworth
music by Nigel Fairs

Cast: Colin Baker (The Doctor), Nicola Bryant (Peri), David Garfield (Professor Stream), Trevor Littledale (Reverend Foxwell), Susan Sheridan (Mrs. Streeter), Hywel John (Steel Specs), Victoria Finney (Jane)

Notes: The Hollows Of Time was originally submitted by former Doctor Who script editor Christopher H. Bidmead; in addition to writing Logopolis and Castrovalva, he also wrote Frontios, the fifth Doctor story that introduced the Tractators and the Gravis. The Doctor accesses an “old computer” in part two, which is somehow capable of emitting modern Windows event sounds.

Timeline: after Leviathan and before Paradise Five

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
7th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

Survival Of The Fittest

Doctor WhoKlein’s Story: The Doctor is curious as to how Klein went from the future to Colditz Castle, the first time he encountered her. He learns of an alternate Doctor’s grisly fate, and the very precise guidance of a young man named Johann Schmidt in helping Klein learn how to control the fallen Doctor’s TARDIS. And Klein learns, to her alarm, that the Doctor has been pulling the strings of her life all along.

Survival Of The Fittest: The Doctor and Klein arrive on a planet whose native insect population, the Vrill, has been decimated by chemical weapons. The time travelers split up, with Klein following the trail of clues back to the mercenary humans who prey upon this planet’s populace, while the Doctor discovers that even chasing the humans away may not stave off the insects’ doom due to the tightly-regimented nature of their society. But in sparring with the genocidal humans, who claim to be eradicating pests in advance to make much-needed space for a human colony, Klein has a revelation about the nature of many of the perils that the Doctor faces… and decides to take the TARDIS for herself.

Order this CDSurvival Of The Fittest written by Jonathan Clements
Klein’s Story written by John Ainsworth and Lee Mansfield
directed by John Ainsworth
music by Simon Robinson

Survival Of The Fittest Cast: Sylvester McCoy (The Doctor), Tracey Childs (Elizabeth Klein), Adrian Bower (Steffen), Hannah Smith (Rose), Evie Dawnay (Lilly), Mark Donovan (Jackson), Alex Mallinson (The Carrion)

Klein’s Story Cast: Sylvester McCoy (The Doctor), Tracey Childs (Elizabeth Klein), Rupert Wickham (Faber), Paul McGann (Johann Schmidt)

Notes: Klein’s Story is a single-part story which tries to reconcile various loose ends left dangling in Klein’s first audio appearance, Colditz (2001). In Survival Of The Fittest, the Vrill race communicates by smell, which may be a sly reference to the decidedly outside-of-accepted-canon charity spoof The Curse Of Fatal Death (1999), in which an alternate ninth Doctor played by Rowan Atkinson had to communicate via the “carefully modulated breaking of wind”. There’s no indication that this story involves any such summoning of the posterior winds. This was the finish Big Finish release to pair a three-part story with a single-part secondary story, and the only occasion upon which the single-part story presented before the “main feature” in the CD track order.

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
Caprica

Know Thy Enemy

CapricaDaniel Graystone’s star is rising again; after selling his board of directors on the notion of the Cylon as a tireless servant in every household in the Twelve Colonies, he is once again unstoppable. But one man can still bring him up short: his chief competitor, from whom Sam Adama stole the vital component that makes the Cylon prototype work. With a single accusation of corporate espionage, and murder, Graystone finds himself on the defensive again. In Caprica City, terrorist bombings continue, attributed to the monotheistic Soldiers of the One group, and Sister Clarice grows more desperate to find Zoe’s virtual world avatar – desperate enough and bold enough to try to talk her way into the Graystones’ inner sanctum. Clarice’s efforts are also drawing her to the very dangerous attention of an STO militant named Barnabas.

teleplay by Patrick Masset & John Zinman
teleplay by Patrick Masset & John Zinman & Mathew Roberts
directed by Michael Nankin
music by Bear McCreary

Guest Cast: Scott Porter (Nestor), Patton Oswalt (Baxter Sarno), John Pyper-Ferguson (Tomas Vergis), James Marsters (Barnabas Greely), Sina Najafi (William Adama), Teryl Rothery (Evelyn)

Notes: Guest star James Marsters is still best known as the actor behind Spike from Buffy: The Vampire Slayer (and later spinoff series Angel), and more recently he made a series of guest appearances on the Doctor Who spinoff series Torchwood, and as a voice artist on Clone Wars. John Pyper-Ferguson has made a number of genre appearances, ranging from Star Trek: The Next Generation to recurring roles on Jeremiah and the remakes of Night Stalker and, naturally, Battlestar Galactica.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Caprica

The Imperfections Of Memory

CapricaVergis continues pursuing his purchase of the Caprica City Buccaneers from Daniel Graystone, and continues using their continued run-ins to taunt Graystone about the theft of the Vergis processor at the heart of Zoe’s Cylon body. While Daniel eases back into his routine of high-stakes verbal fencing with his competitor, his wife Amanda is falling apart, making her even more susceptible to the manipulation of school headmistress Sister Clarice, who’s trying to learn more about Zoe’s avatar. What nobody seems to know, however, is why Amanda is seeing visions of her dead brother. Joseph Adama decides to take a walk on the virtual side, straight into New Cap City, but his inability to understand the game’s virtual world puts him in danger and gets his guide’s avatar killed. And in the lab, Daniel Graystone thinks he’s had a revelation about the real mind behind his one working Cylon model.

written by Matthew B. Roberts
directed by Wayne Rose
music by Bear McCreary

Guest Cast: John Pyper-Ferguson (Tomas Vergis), Scott Porter (Nestor), Alex Arsenault (Philomon), Leah Gibson (Emmanuelle), Liam Sproule (Gatwick), Feguins Toussaint (Graystone’s Bodyguard), Jesse Haddock (Darius)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Caprica

Ghosts In The Machine

CapricaIn a moment of revelation, Daniel Graystone begins addressing the Cylon as “Zoe,” but it offers no response until he starts a more aggressive probe of the machine’s central processor. In New Cap City, Joseph Adama is also continuing his quest to find the avatar of his own dead daughter, and has found a more capable guide – but also a more demanding one. Even with her greater expertise in playing the game, she has her hands full as Adama becomes more obsessed with finding Tamara… but Tamara has already begun to acquire quite a reputation in the virtual world. But both men find themselves dealing with the possibility that their daughters no longer want to be a part of their world.

written by Michael Taylor
directed by Wayne Rose
music by Bear McCreary

Guest Cast: John Pyper-Ferguson (Tomas Vergis), Scott Porter (Nestor), Alex Arsenault (Philomon), Leah Gibson (Emmanuelle), Dmitry Chepovetsky (Cerberus), Phil Granger (Tanner), Jesse Haddock (Darius)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Caprica

End Of Line

CapricaFacing a looming deadline to produce an army of 100,000 Cylon warrior robots for the government of Caprica, Daniel Graystone decides to cut his losses and focus on business, selling his pyramid team to rival Tomas Vergis. But pressure is increasing on Graystone to deliver that army on schedule – or ahead of it, as a high-ranking official from Caprica’s defense ministry tips her hand that it’s not a very well-kept secret that the processor at the heart of the one existing Cylon prototype was stolen from Vergis’ labs. The price for the ministry turning a blind eye to that fact will be delivery in a week instead of a month. Faced with this new deadline, Graystone decides to reformat and copy the Cylon chip, even if it erases the lase vestiges of Zoe. Zoe tries to get Lacy Rand to accelerate the timetable for getting her Cylon body off Caprica, but the price for securing that favor from Barnabas is a high one for Lacy: she’ll have to kill someone to get what she wants. Having evaded her destiny as the first in a new breed of soldiers for so long, Zoe now decides she’ll have to kill to survive. In the virtual world that is New Cap City, Tamara Adams realizes that she’ll have to appear to die to save her father, and death is starting to look like a pretty good option for escaping the hell that is Amanda Graystone’s life as well.

written by Michael Taylor
directed by Roxann Dawson
music by Bear McCreary

Guest Cast: Scott Porter (Nestor), John Pyper-Ferguson (Tomas Vergis), James Marsters (Barnabas Greeley), Alex Arsenault (Philomon), Leah Gibson (Emmanuelle), Jill Teed (Col. Sasha Patel), Hiro Kanagawa (Cyrus Xander), Genevieve Buechner (Tamara Adama)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
2000s Series Season 1 V

Welcome To The War

Survivors (1970s series)The destruction of the V’s warehouse full of the R6 drug has not come without a cost. One V security guard survives who saw Erica, Father Landry and Ryan, and he pays Landry a visit, stabbing him in the church and leaving him for dead. The guard’s next stop is Erica’s home, but she thwarts his attack and kills him in the process. Ryan suspects that the guard was not acting under orders, but was instead trying to round up and kill those involved in the warehouse bombing to save face before reporting back to Anna (who would almost certainly have executed him for failing to guard the R6). Erica’s son Kyle is nowhere to be found, having gone to the V mothership at the invitation of Anna and Lisa.

Knowledge of the warehouse bombing quickly goes public, and Erica is left in the uncomfortable position of taking part in the FBI’s side of the investigation. When V investigators claim to have found human fingerprints, Erica braces herself to be exposed as a member of the resistance, but is surprised when the trail of evidence leads to someone who had no connection to the explosion: wanted mercenary Kyle Hobbes. Erica has no idea why the aliens want to blame Hobbes for the crime, but she does have to admit that this man – who she has tried to hunt down many times during her law enforcement career – could become very useful if the resistance could recruit him.

written by Scott Rosenbaum
directed by Yves Simoneau
music by Marco Beltrami

Guest Cast: Nicholas Lea (Joe Evans), David Richmond-Peck (Georgie), Charles Mesure (Kyle Hobbes), Christopher Shyer (Marcus), Roark Critchlow (Paul Kendrick), Mark Hildreth (Joshua), Scott Hylands (Father Travis), Rekha Sharma (Sarita Malik), Lexa Doig (Dr. Leah Pearlman)

Notes: It’s yet another Canadian Science Fiction All-Star Week on V; guest star Nicholas Lea (seen in Kyle’s “memory chamber” flashbacks) is best known to SF fans in the high-profile recurring role of FBI Agent Alex Krycek in The X-Files; Lea also worked on Gene Roddenberry’s Andromeda, which starred Lexa Doig as the Andromeda’s human avatar. British-born actor Charles Mesure appeared numerous times as the Archangel Michael on sister series Xena: Warrior Princess and Hercules: The Legendary Journeys; his V character, mercenary Kyle Hobbes, is roughly analogous to mercenary Ham Tyler (Michael Ironside) from the original V series.

Categories
7th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

The Architects Of History

Doctor WhoThe TARDIS is now in Klein’s hands, and she has rewritten history as she pleases. Whenever threats arise to challenge her “Fourth Reich”, she simply goes further back in time and prevents those threats from existing. The web of time is stretched to its breaking point. In a cell in Klein’s headquarters, a Time Lord called the Doctor is kept in chains, because he remembers events that Klein wiped from history, from meeting her in in Kenya during the Mau Mau uprising to taking her to an alien world to thwart genocide. To anger Klein is to risk being erased from time itself; even though she’s not the nominal Fuhrer of the Fourth Reich, few dare to cross her. But when a Selachian attack force arrives with its own time travel technology, the Doctor instantly becomes a suspect – and, it turns out, he helped to plan the Selachian invasion in advance. Or maybe he did that in another timeline. In any case, Klein and her “Bureau of Temporal Affairs” have met their match, and her own place in history is subject to revision.

Order this CDwritten by Steve Lyons
directed by John Ainsworth
music by Jamie Robertson

Cast: Sylvester McCoy (The Doctor), Tracey Childs (Elizabeth Klein), Lenora Crichlow (Rachel Cooper), Ian Hayles (Sam Kirke), Jamie Parker (Major Richter), Lloyd McGuire (Generalleutnant Tendexter), Chris Porter (Selachian Leader), Rachel Laurence (Feldwebel/Computer Voice), David Dobson (Pilot/Selachian)

Notes: The Doctor’s TARDIS is disguised from the Selachians, and everyone else, by means of a perception filter, a decidedly new-series Who of terminology (The Sound Of Drums, Torchwood: Everything Changes). The other Doctor’s TARDIS is reduced to the dimensions of a mere police box in a scene that instantly recalls the ninth Doctor’s discovery of the gutted TARDIS in Father’s Day. The end of this story, which sees Klein in a new role as UNIT’s new scientific advisor, sets up the sprawling chain of events of UNIT: Dominion. The Selachians were introduced in the BBC Books Past Doctor Adventures novel The Final Sanction, written by Steve Lyons, who scripted this story as well as Klein’s introduction in Colditz.

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green