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7th Doctor Doctor Who

The Harvest

Doctor Who: The HarvestThe Doctor and Ace have insinuated themselves into the staff of a London hospital in 2021, trying to discover what they can about a top secret project called “C Program,” which the Doctor suspects is using alien technology. The Doctor’s nasty suspicions about the origins of that technology come into sharp focus when Ace befriends a young medic nicknamed Hex in an effort to find out more about C Program, and a hulking humanoid tries to kill both of them shortly afterward. Ace lets Hex into the TARDIS, and he quickly becomes involved in the time travelers’ plans to find out what’s going on. He might even join Ace and the Doctor for more of their travels, if any of them survive the harvesting of the human race for the organs needed by an invasion force that could overrun Earth in mere weeks.

Order this CDwritten by Dan Abnett
directed by Gary Russell
music by David Darlington

Cast: Sylvester McCoy (The Doctor), Sophie Aldred (Ace), Philip Olivier (Hex), William Boyde (Subject One), Richard Derrington (Dr. Farrer), David Warwick (Garnier), Paul Lacoux (Dr. Mathias), Janie Booth (System), Mark Donovan (Polk)

Timeline: after The Rapture and before Dreamtime

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
7th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

Dreamtime

Doctor Who: DreamtimeThe TARDIS arrives on what appears to be an asteroid with a city on it, a city where the cars, the people and even the buildings have turned to stone. Some of the human colonists on the asteroid have escaped that fate – some of them steeped in Australian Aboriginal lore, and others much more determined to return the colony to normality, by brute force if necessary. The strange situation is not helped by the arrival of a Galyari ship, its crew determined to salvage something from the asteroid before they leave. When the Doctor vanishes into something called the Dreaming, and Ace is knocked out cold, Hex finds himself on his own in a situation he can barely even begin to fathom.

Order this CDwritten by Simon Forward
directed by Gary Russell
music by Steve Foxon

Cast: Sylvester McCoy (The Doctor), Sophie Aldred (Ace), Philip Olivier (Hex), Tamzin Griffin (Trade Negotiator Vresha), Jef Higgins (Coordinator Whitten), Brigid Lohrey (Dream Commando Wahn), Josephine Mackerras (Toomey), Andrew Peisley (Dream Commando Mulyan), Steffan Rhodri (Commander Korshal), John Scholes (Baiame)

Timeline: after The Harvest and before Live 34

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Review: Well…I guess it looked like a good idea on paper. For the first time in quite a while, a Doctor Who audio has left me not elated, not annoyed, but just simply nonplussed. There are some interesting ideas in Dreamtime, including references to “cultural terraforming,” and perhaps a message about preserving cultures even in the face of progress and industrialization, among other things, but somehow the cumulative effect of the four episodes were to leave me…well, a bit uninterested. Actually, a straightforward discussion on the latter issue would likely prove to be more interesting than this story’s subtle-as-a-sledgehammer attempt at topical storytelling.

DreamtimeUnless it was of Hex’s scenes, that is. Philip Olivier continues to make his new TARDIS traveler likeable, and when he’s thrust into danger that’s beyond what he can grasp, his part of the story quickly becomes the most compelling thing to follow. Ace has to deal with an uncooperative brute determined to gain control of the situation by any means necessary – hardly a situation she hasn’t been in before – while the Doctor finds himself in bizarrely unfamiliar circumstances to which he reacts with what almost seems like calm familiarity. Sophie Aldred and Sylvester McCoy turn in fine performances, and the first episode is gripping stuff, but it gets a bit muddled after that, leaving the cast to do the best they can with what the script gives them. There are even tantalizing hints that we’ll follow up on the Galyari’s relationship with the Doctor – something explored much more deeply in The Sandman – but even that doesn’t materialize.

Somewhere in Dreamtime, there are fascinating ideas and an interesting story to be told – but it could be that both of those things were crowding each other out here, and not leaving adequate room to full explore either. Sadly, the weakest Doctor Who audio release in quite some time.

Categories
7th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

Unregenerate!

Doctor Who: Unregenerate!Mel is alarmed when the TARDIS materializes without the Doctor at the controls. After leaving her on Earth briefly to take care of unspecified business, he has vanished without a trace, leaving her a holographic message in the TARDIS instructing her to follow his trail to the Klyst Institute, a grim-looking mental hospital. Rather than risk trying to fly the TARDIS herself, Mel enlists the reluctant help of a rough-and-tumble cabbie who helps her as she breaks into the Institute. There, she finds the Doctor – but his mind is gone, and he speaks in almost nonsensical phrases. Mel and her new friend try to escape with the Doctor, but they find that the Institute is no longer on Earth, having transported itself to an asteroid in an instant. The Institute also seems to be bigger inside than out, and other aliens (and humans) have been captured for horrific mind-transfer experiments. Are Time Lords operating in secret on Earth? And if so, are they renegades like the Doctor…or something darker interference in human history going on with the Time Lords’ full knowledge?

Order this CDwritten by David A. McIntee
directed by John Ainsworth
music by Ian Potter

Cast: Sylvester McCoy (The Doctor), Bonnie Langford (Mel), Jennie Linden (Professor Klyst), Hugh Hemmings (Johannes Rausch), Gail Clayton (Rigan), Jamie Sandford (Louis), John Aston (Louis #2), Sean Peter Jackson (Shokhra), Toby Longworth (The Cabbie)

Timeline: between Time And The Rani and Paradise Towers

Notes: “Lindos” is mentioned here, despite being a term never heard in the original television series. It was a hormone vital to the regeneration process first mentioned in Eric Saward’s novelization of The Twin Dilemma. Jennie Linden’s last appearance in a Doctor Who story was in 1965, when she co-starred as a very different version of Barbara in the Peter Cushing film Doctor Who And The Daleks.

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

Categories
7th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

Live 34

Doctor Who: Live 34A radio broadcast unfolds live on the disant Colony 34, recounting the day’s events, including another in a string of terrorist bombings. The incumbent leader, Premier Leo Jaeger, denounces the violence, promises further crackdowns in the name of security, and openly accuses his opponents, the Freedom & Democracy Party, of being behind the attacks. The FDP’s new leader, known only as the Doctor, has a different story to tell: he criticizes the bombings, but also claims that Jaeger is trying to divert attention away from the upcoming elections that the FDP has forced through legal channels – elections that have been delayed for five years. Other news broadcasts profile the “Rebel Queen,” a young woman calling herself Ace who says she’s leading the resistance, and a bewildered paramedic named Hex who stumbles onto a secret during a live broadcast – a secret which could get Live 34 shut down by the government.

Order this CDwritten by James Parsons & Andrew Stirling-Brown
directed by Gary Russell
music by David Darlington

Cast: Sylvester McCoy (The Doctor), Sophie Aldred (Ace), Philip Olivier (Hex), Andrew Collins (Drew Shahan), William Hoyland (Premier Jaeger), Zehra Naqvi (Charlotte Singh), Duncan Wiseby (Ryan Wareing), Ann Bryson (Gina Grewal), Joy Elias-Rilwan (Lula)

Timeline: between Dreamtime and Night Thoughts

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

Categories
7th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

Night Thoughts

Doctor Who: Night ThoughtsThe TARDIS brings the Doctor, Ace and Hex to a stormy island, where Hex admits to experiencing strange visions of an incident in an operating room that he’s never personally witnessed, and Ace has a vision of her own near a body of water, and falls in. Spotting a nearby house, the Doctor decides they should seek shelter there, but the handful of people in the house are as unsettling as any of the strange things they’ve seen so far. Everyone there seems to be trying to keep some kind of a secret under wraps, but when one of them turns up dead, they’re all suspects…and so are the time travelers. It turns out that the TARDIS may not be the only time machine on the island, and that none of the residents of the house may have chosen to be here – and every layer of the secret that is revealed seems to cost another life.

Order this CDwritten by Edward Young
directed by Gary Russell
music by ERS

Cast: Sylvester McCoy (The Doctor), Sophie Aldred (Ace), Philip Olivier (Hex), Bernard Kay (Major Dickens), Joanna McCallum (The Bursar), Andrew Forbes (Dr. O’Neil), Lizzie Hopley (Sue), Ann Beach (The Deacon), Duncan Duff (Joe Hartley)

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

Categories
5th Doctor 7th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

The Veiled Leopard

Doctor Who - The Veiled LeopardIt’s Monte Carlo, 1966, and Peri and Erimem are on an assignment: the Doctor has sent them to steal the Veiled Leopard, a spectacular diamond with unusual markings at its center. But this time, the TARDIS travelers are on their own, and the Doctor isn’t there to help them deal with someone else who’s there for the same reason, to say nothing of the other shady characters populating the casino. Two of the other guests in particular stick out like a sore thumb, which is an odd coincidence, because their names are Hex and Ace – and they’ve been sent by the Doctor to make sure that nobody steals the Veiled Leopard.

written by Iain McLaughlin & Claire Bartlett
directed by Gary Russell
music by David Darlington

Cast: Nicola Bryant (Peri), Caroline Morris (Erimem), Sophie Aldred (Ace), Philip Olivier (Hex), Lizzie Hopley (Lady Lillian Hawthorne), Alan Ruscoe (Peter Mathis), Steven Wickham (Gavin Walker), Stephen Mansfield (Jean, the Commisionaire)

Notes: Alan Ruscoe appeared in almost half of the episodes of the first season of the revived Doctor Who, playing heavily-costumed parts such as Autons, Slitheen and assorted androids; he also appeared in the first two movies of the Star Wars prequel trilogy. Steven Wickham was Lister’s blushing GELF bride in the Red Dwarf episode Emohawk: Polymorph II. If you’re trying to fit written and audio Doctor Who into the same continuity, the fifth and seventh incarnations of the Doctor met up again both before and after this story; the Missing Adventures novel “Cold Fusion” takes place further back in the fifth Doctor’s life (when he’s traveling with Tegan, Nyssa and Adric), and much later in the seventh Doctor’s (when he’s no longer traveling with Ace or Hex, but instead shares the TARDIS with Chris Cwej and Roz Forrester).

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

Categories
7th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

The Settling

Doctor Who: The SettlingThe Doctor, Ace and Hex arrive in Ireland, 1649, to the sound of thunder…only it’s not thunder. The TARDIS has brought the time travelers to Drogheda, just before Oliver Cromwell and his New Model Army raze the town to the ground, and there are almost no survivors. The Doctor befriends a pregnant widow named Mary, after sternly telling Ace and Hex not to get involved in historical events. But when the moment comes, Hex and Ace take up arms alongside the Irish. Ace is injured in battle, and Hex is captured by Cromwell’s forces. Hoping he can change history and prevent another massacre like Drogheda, Hex becomes Cromwell’s personal advisor, trying to steer him toward more humane treatment of prisoners, civilian and otherwise. Hex tries to get Cromwell to be more concerned with how history will see him. As the Doctor tries to help Mary bring a new life into the world, Hex is helpless to watch as his best efforts only ensure that Cromwell will continue carving a bloody path through history at Wexford.

Order this CDwritten by Simon Guerrier
directed by Gary Russell
music by David Darlington

Cast: Sylvester McCoy (The Doctor), Sophie Aldred (Ace), Philip Olivier (Hex), Clive Mantle (Oliver Cromwell), Roger Parrott (Doctor Goddard), Hugh Lee (Fitzgerald), Clare Cathcart (Mary), Ian Brooker (Colonel Sinnott)

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
7th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

Red

Doctor Who: RedThe Doctor follows a psychic attack on the TARDIS’ telepathic circuits to a living city called the Needle, but the moment that he and Melanie step out of the TARDIS, they realize that their problems are just beginning – they stumble onto the scene of a grisly murder. The two time travelers are separated, Melanie barely surviving being ejected from the city’s walls, and the Doctor is brought before Chief Blue and the Needle’s central computer, White Noise. White Noise’s function involves the careful control of both the Needle and its residents, via chips implanted in their brains which allow the computer to prevent violent impulses from becoming violent actions. Rescued by a resident of the undercity beneath the Needle – people whose chips have been deactivated and whose crave the exciting sensation of violence with little thought given to its consequences – Melanie finds that she’s quite a sensation, as her rescuers believe she’s capable of anything, even extreme acts of violence…and her insistence that she isn’t likely to do any such thing seems to fall on deaf ears. White Noise is rapidly losing control of the Needle’s even more docile populace, with murders continuing to occur…only now, via his chip implant, the Doctor can see, hear and feel the thoughts and actions of the killers as they go into “red condition.” But with White Noise attempting to control him, is the Doctor capable of fighting whatever evil is stalking the city at random?

Order this CDwritten by Stewart Sheargold
directed by Gary Russell
music by ERS

Cast: Sylvester McCoy (The Doctor), Bonnie Langford (Mel), Denise Hoey (Nuane), Sean Oliver (Chief Blue), Peter Rae (Draun), Kellie Ryan (Celia Fortunaté), Sandi Toksvig (Vi Yulquen), John Stahl (Whitenoise), Steven Wickham (Uviol)

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
7th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

No Man’s Land

Doctor Who: No Man's LandThe TARDIS deposits the Doctor, Ace and Hex in harm’s way on the front lines of World War I. After a close call with a German shell, they wind up in a makeshift military hospital, and as soon as the Doctor is fully recovered, he’s startled to find that there are orders awaiting him: they ask the British commanding officer to accord the Doctor and his associates full access to the hospital in order to investigate a murder that has yet to happen. Completely mystified, the Doctor begins investigating, but not before Hex warns him of one disturbing possibility: the future murder victim could be one of the time travelers. Hex discovers first-hand that horrifying experiments in mind control are taking place at this hospital, far ahead of their time, and crude – but effective. The Doctor and Ace find themselves on the receiving end of a none-too-subtle warning about poking around where they’re not welcome. They find an ally in a man who’s being kept off the front lines for fear that his pacifistic views will send him running into the arms of the enemy, but with the rest of the soldiers turned against him, he can’t offer the Doctor much help. When the murder finally takes place, however, it seems that the base commander has his own ideas as to who should face the music for the killing, whether his suspicions are founded in truth or not. But who knew about the murder ahead of time?

Order this CDwritten by Martin Day
directed by John Ainsworth
music by Simon Robinson

Cast: Sylvester McCoy (The Doctor), Sophie Aldred (Ace), Philip Olivier (Hex), Michael Cochrane (Lt. Col. Brook), Rob Dixon (Sgt. Wood), Rupert Wickham (Captain Dudgeon), Oliver Mellor (Private Taylor), Ian Hayles (Lance Corporal Burridge), Michael Adams (Private Dixon)

Timeline: between The Settling and Nocturne

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Review: A dark historical story with nary an alien influence anywhere, perhaps the only weakness of No Man’s Land is that – if you’re listening to the seventh Doctor audio adventures in their intended order – it follows on from another dark historical story with nary an alien influence anywhere (The Settling). The reality is that there were a few months between the two releases, but even the characters comment on the slight similarity – Ace warns Hex against causing another debacle like the one he precipitated in The Settling.

Categories
7th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

Nocturne

Doctor Who: NocturneThe Doctor brings Ace and Hex to Glast City on the planet Nocturne, home of the Artists’ Enclave, a community of poets, musicians, writers and other creative types, which happens to be one of the Doctor’s favorite places in the universe. But death seems to arrive on the Doctor’s heels: one of the community’s prominent artists is murdered and his home is set ablaze. Hex arrives to try to help, but he’s found by the authorities and arrested on suspicion of murder. The Doctor arrives to vouch for him, but that only brings the Time Lord – and his history of unauthorized visits to Nocturne – to the attention of the city’s security forces. He discovers that someone has been conducting experiments in bioharmonics, the science of living sound, and may have summoned a dark force to Nocture. But by the time there are more deaths for the security forces to investigate, they’ve already decided that the Doctor is their prime suspect.

Order this CDwritten by Dan Abnett
directed by John Ainsworth
music by Steve Foxon

Cast: Sylvester McCoy (The Doctor), Sophie Aldred (Ace), Philip Olivier (Hex), Trevor Bannister (Korbin Thessinger), Paul David-Gough (Will Alloran), Eric Potts (Lothar Ragpole), Ann Rye (Lilian Dillane), Helen Kay (Cate Reeney)

Notes: Nocturne was the final Doctor Who audio to use the centered-logo cover template established in the earliest Big Finish releases. The following release, Renaissance Of The Daleks, began using a new cover template inspired by the covers of Virgin Publishing’s Doctor Who Missing Adventures novels, although that cover design had already appeared on the first Companion Chronicles CD releases.

Timeline: between No Man’s Land and The Dark Husband

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Review: The Doctor, Hex and Ace finally get back to the future, so to speak, and it’s a welcome departure after a string of trips into Earth history. Since the earliest days of Big Finish’s Doctor Who license, all the way back to Whispers Of Terror, there’s been a conscious effort to do stories that would work well in audio form but not necessarily on television, and the various stories that have tried to accomplish that have either been very good or very bad, but very seldom “eh, that’s okay.” Nocturne is one of the better attempts.

Categories
7th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

Valhalla

Doctor Who: ValhallaThe Doctor arrives in the city of Valhalla, on Callisto, one of Jupiter’s major moons, in the widely-human-colonized future. But despite the marvels of technology that Valhalla represents, something is amiss: the Doctor and the city’s administrator alone know that an alien invasion is imminent. As the city descends into panic and chaos, the Doctor enlists reluctant help from a few of the locals, but even his modest attempts to slow down the invasion draw the attention of the queen of the termite-like hoardes. They’ve arrived from another world, apparently having done a deal to buy Valhalla and its entire population – as livestock. But if the Doctor has anything to say about it, the deal is off.

Order this CDwritten by Marc Platt
directed by John Ainsworth
music by Simon Robinson

Cast: Sylvester McCoy (The Doctor), Michelle Gomez (Jevvan), Phillip Jackson (Laxton), Susannah York (Our Mother / Registry / Tannoy), Fraser James (Gerium), Donna Berlin (Tin-Marie), Duncan Wisbey (Clerk / Sergeant / Pilot / New Tannoy), Dominic Frisby (Groom / Drome Guard / Resolute Pilot / Worker 1 / Marketeer), Jack Galagher (Worker 2)

Timeline: between Master and Frozen Time

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
7th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

Frozen Time

Doctor Who: Frozen TimeAn expedition to Antarctica in 2012 uncovers an unexpected find: an old fashioned British police box, buried under millions of years worth of permafrost. On the heels of that surprising find comes another discovery: a man frozen more or less intact, probably for millions of years…but wearing machine-woven clothes (or at leas the rotting remnants of them). Even more amazingly, the man awakens when he is thawed out, though with little idea of who he is or what he was doing in the ice. The expedition’s financier, Lord Barset?, surprises the scientists on the expedition by wondering aloud if the man is a reptile. Before long, more figures are found in the ice, large and reptilian. The mystery man’s memory gradually returns, enough that he knows that the scaly figures frozen in the ice are very dangerous, and he himself is known as the Doctor. Despite the Doctor’s warnings, Barset orders the huge creatures thawed out. They too reawaken, but the moment they’re back on their feet, they begin a reign of terror, killing almost the entire expedition. The Doctor’s memory continues to return slowly, the result of a self-induced coma to survive being frozen alive, and he recalls that these creatures are called Ice Warriors – and that the enclave of them that has been discovered represents the most warlike of the lot: exiled war criminals put into deep-freeze on prehistoric Earth. Even though they’re millions of years old, modern man won’t be an obstacle when the Ice Warriors renew their craving for conquest. Only the Doctor can stop them…if he can remember how.

Order this CDwritten by Nicholas Briggs
directed by Barnaby Edwards
music by Steve Foxon

Cast: Sylvester McCoy (The Doctor), Anthony Calf (Lord Barset), Maryam d’Abo (Genevieve), Tony Millan (Professor McIntyre), Gwynn Beech (Harman), Gregg Newton (Ben), Nicholas Briggs (Arakssor)

Timeline: between Valhalla and The Death Collectors

Notes: Frozen Time is based on Endurance, another of the 1980s Audio Visuals adventures starring Nicholas Briggs (who wrote both versions of the story) as the Doctor. Some character names are shared between the two versions of the story, but Endurance concerned itself with Silurian renegades frozen in Antarctica, and dialogue in Frozen Time tries to lead the listener in that direction as well. The 1929 expedition led by Lord Barset’s grandfather may well have encountered Silurians, but they’re nowhere to be found in the Big Finish version of the story; pre-release internet speculation frequently pegged Frozen Time as a Silurian story as well. This story and Valhalla both feature the seventh Doctor flying solo; this came about because of Sylvester McCoy’s tight schedule, since his Big Finish recording days had to be scheduled around his stage appearances in King Lear.

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
7th Doctor Big Finish Spinoffs Dalek Empire Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

Return Of The Daleks

Doctor Who: Return Of The DaleksThe TARDIS arrives at the height of an alien world’s occupation by the Dalek Empire. Susan Mendes is there as well, serving as the Daleks’ “Angel of Mercy,” urging local populations on subjugated worlds to cooperate in order to live (and perhaps fight another day). But the locals here know all about the Daleks – this is far from their first encounter with them. Even with the Doctor and the rebellious Kalendorf working side-by-side, it may not be enough to stop the Daleks’ audacious schemes as they enslave the planet’s citizens and begin a desperate dig beneath the surface for an objective they refuse to name. The locals also have a history with the Doctor, as it was he – in a different incarnation – who helped them begin the fight against the Daleks…when their world was known as Spiridon.

written by Nicholas Briggs
directed by John Ainsworth
music by Nicholas Briggs

Cast: Sylvester McCoy (The Doctor), Gareth Thomas (Kalendorf), Sarah Mowat (Susan Mendes), Christine Brennan (Skerrill), Hylton Collins (Mendac), Jack Galagher (Aytrax), Nicholas Briggs (The Daleks)

Notes: This story combines elements of Doctor Who with the Big Finish audio spinoff series Dalek Empire (namely, the characters of Susan Mendes and Kalendorf), and is a direct sequel to the Pertwee-era TV adventure Planet Of The Daleks.

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

Categories
7th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

The Dark Husband

Doctor Who: The Dark HusbandAfter a particularly harrowing adventure, the Doctor promises to take Ace and Hex somewhere where they can all relax, and by virtue of having both a spa and a beer tent, the Festival of the Twin Moons of Tuin wins the toss. But of course, the Doctor hasn’t shared everything he knows about Tuin: the societies of its twin moons, despite being very closely related biologically, are locked in a seemingly endless war, from which the Festival is the only break in hostilities. Furthermore, the Doctor takes it upon himself to bring that war to an end, having read some local lore. He declares himself the suitor to an unknown bride, the marriage of whom will bring peace to Tuin at last. But instead of being one step ahead of the game, this time the Doctor’s information is woefully incomplete, as he has no idea who he’ll be marrying. And even when the bride is revealed, the Doctor discovers that the peace their wedding vows will bring will not be the peace of a war ended, but the peace of a dead world.

Order this CDwritten by David Quantick
directed by Nicholas Briggs
music by Steve Foxon

Cast: Sylvester McCoy (The Doctor), Sophie Aldred (Ace), Philip Olivier (Hex), Danny Webb (Ori), Andy B Newb (Irit), Benny Dawb (Tuin), Katarina Olsson (Bard), Sean Connolly (Bard)

Timeline: between Nocturne and Forty-Five

LogBook entry and TheatEar entry by Earl Green

Review: A bizarrely dark metaphysical comedy, The Dark Husband is a bit misleading at several points in the story, but it certainly keeps you on your toes. It’s not like anything that’s been done in Doctor Who before, audio or television, though some longtime fans might find some similarities to the logic trap posed in the classic series phrase “Who who loses shall win, and he who wins shall lose” – it’s that kind of crafty misdirection.

Categories
7th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

The Death Collectors / Spider’s Shadow

Doctor Who: The Death CollectorsThe Death Collectors: The TARDIS materializes in an airlock connecting a human research skystation with a Dar Trader ship, orbiting the quarantined planet Antikon. The planet is off-limits for good reason: a disease called Antikon’s Decay, which consumes all life with which it comes into contact, runs rampant there, and even explorers in full space suits aren’t safe. The Dar Traders, a species capable of reviving the dead just long enough to record their final memories, are there at the request of Professor Mors Alexandryn to assist in his search for a cure to the Decay. Given that Alexandryn has just sent a member of his expedition to his death – quite possibly deliberately – so he can track the growth of the Decay, he’s very wary of any outside observers such as the Doctor. The Doctor, who has a passing familiarity with the havoc that Antikon’s Decay has caused in the past, offers to lend his help, but the sacrifices he will have to make to save the expedition may include another of his precious lives.

Spider’s Shadow: The Doctor arrives on a planet where a quaint tradition is being observed on the eve of battle with an overwhelming enemy force. Has he found the right time and place – a planet worthy of unleashing Antikon’s Decay anew?

Order this CDwritten by Stewart Sheargold
directed by Ken Bentley
music by David Darlington

The Death Collectors Cast: Sylvester McCoy (The Doctor), Alastair Cording (Professor Mors Alexandryn), Katherine Parkinson (Danika Meanwhile), Derek Carlyle (Smith Ridley / Dar Traders), Katarina Olsson (Nancy), Kevin McNally (Henry), Rebecca Bottone (Opera singer)

Spider’s Shadow Cast: Sylvester McCoy (The Doctor), Katarina Olsson (Martial Princess Keldafria Alison), Carol Fitzpatrick (Martial Princess Keldafria Louisa), Alastair Cording (Guard), Derek Carlyle (Colonel)

Timeline: between Frozen Time and Kingdom Of Silver

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green