Categories
Dalek Empire Doctor Who

The Human Factor

Dalek Empire: The Human FactorSix months after becoming the mouthpiece of the Daleks’ billions of slaves, negotiating with the Dalek Supreme and touring Dalek-subjugated worlds, Susan Mendes has become troubled. Kalendorf feels that she’s become a collaborator, but agrees to join her as she’s shuttled by the Daleks from planet to planet to give her inspirational pitches to the slave populations there. On his own, Kalendorf visits a warehouse where one group of slaves trying to mount a rebellion, and he tries to quash their effort to save their lives – and to avoid derailing a larger rally for freedom to come. When Suz learns of the rebellion, she asks the Daleks to let her negotiate with the rebels – but the rebelling slave won’t do as she asks. Suz steps aside and tells the Daleks to exterminate the rebels, and Kalendorf is appalled – she’s gone too far to the other side. In the meantime, Alby and Pellan have traced Suz’s trail and close in on her location – but the Daleks are also closing in on their ship.

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

Cast: Sarah Mowat (Susan Mendes), Gareth Thomas (Kalendorf), Joyce Gibbs (Narrator), Ian Brooker (Drudger / Gurian), David Sax (Morebi), Mark McDonnell (Alby Brook), John Wadmore (Gordon Pellan), Adrian Lloyd-James (Highness), Georgina Carter (Daughter), Nicholas Briggs (Dalek voice), Alistair Lock (Dalek voice)

Categories
6th Doctor

Project: Twilight

Doctor Who: Project: TwilightThe Doctor and Evelyn pay a visit to the banks of the Thames in southeast London, but what was originally meant to be a quiet stop becomes a deadly ordeal as they happen upon an assault in progress behind a casino called the Dusk. The proprietors of the Dusk, Reggie Mead and his evasive associate Amelia, take the victim to a surprisingly well-stocked operating room in the Dusk’s basement, and the Doctor forces his way in as well, demanding to know what’s going on. He finds himself embroiled in the plight of a group of people who were subjected to ghastly secret experiments during World War I, but he soon discovers that they’re not powerless – nor are they impervious. Amelia has designs on the future of humanity, intending to make the rest of the human race just like herself and Reggie. But someone named Nimrod is stalking Amelia, intending to end her experiment and bring the top-secret Project Twilight to a close at long last. But can the Doctor trust either Nimrod or Amelia, and will Evelyn survive Amelia’s next experiment?

Order this CDwritten by Cavan Scott & Mark Wright
directed by Gary Russell
music by Jim Mortimore

Cast: Colin Baker (The Doctor), Maggie Stables (Evelyn), Holly De Jong (Amelia), Rob Dixon (Reggie Mead), Rosie Cavaliero (Cassie), Stephen Chance (Nimrod), Rupert Booth (Doctor Abberton)

Timeline: after Bloodtide and before The Sandman

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
5th Doctor

Eye Of The Scorpion

Doctor Who: Eye Of The ScorpionAs the Doctor is trying to show Peri how to find her way around the TARDIS, something yanks the timeship violently off-course. By the time they reach the console room, however, the TARDIS has landed, depositing them in the sands of Egypt around 1400 B.C. Worse yet, as soon as they step outside the doors, they spot a young woman in a chariot being chased by the driver of another chariot. At Peri’s urging, the Doctor lends his assistance, saving the girl’s life – and earning both of the time travelers the favor of Erimem, the Pharaoh-in-waiting. But the Doctor is concerned – he can’t remember a female Pharaoh from this time period, and the other chariot’s driver was trying to kill her. Erimem asks the Doctor and Peri to accompany her to Thebes, where she plans to honor their heroics with a banquet, but only more court intrigue awaits them, including an assassination attempt thwarted by the Doctor, and the presence of an alien mind who can take humans – willing or unwilling – as hosts.

Order this CDwritten by Iain McLaughlin
directed by Gary Russell
music by David Darlington

Cast: Peter Davison (The Doctor), Nicola Bryant (Peri), Caroline Morris (Erimem), Jonathan Owen (Antranak), Stephen Perring (Horemshep), Harry Myers (Yanis), Jack Galagher (Fayum), Daniel Brennan (Kishik), Mark Wright (Slave)

Timeline: after Red Dawn and before No Place Like Home

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
7th Doctor

Colditz

Doctor Who: ColditzThe TARDIS has brought the Doctor and Ace to Colditz Castle, the legendary German prison camp, at the height of World War II. The time travelers are captured almost immediately, and the Doctor is shot in the shoulder. Ace instantly attracts the interest of Kurtz, the head of the guards – more interest than she would like. She also befriends English prisoners of war who are already planning their next escape attempt, but are reluctant to let her in on the plot unless she gives them more concrete information about where she’s from. In the meantime, the Doctor – and his TARDIS, which the guards witnessed materializing the courtyard – have gotten the interest of someone who appears to be very closely connected to the upper ranks of the German war effort. When the Doctor is given a choice – hand over the keys to the TARDIS or spare Ace’s life – he gives the Nazis his time machine, setting ripples in motion which will change history forever unless he can regain control of the situation.

Order this CDwritten by Steve Lyons
directed by Gary Russell
music by Toby Richards and Emily Baker

Cast: Sylvester McCoy (The Doctor), Sophie Aldred (Ace), Tracey Childs (Klein), Nicholas Young (Flying Officer Bill Gower), Toby Longworth (Hauptmann Julius Schafer), David Tennant (Feldwebel Kurtz), Peter Rae (Timothy Wilkins)

Note: This audio story marks David Tennant‘s first Doctor Who appearance, though obviously not in the role for which he would become most famous later…

Timeline: between Dust Breeding and The Rapture

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
Dalek Empire Doctor Who

Death To The Daleks!

Dalek Empire: Death To The Daleks!When Alby Brook returns to his superiors at the Space Security Service, he’s stunned into silence when they execute Gordon Pellan on sight – and is even more stunned when he’s told that Pellan was a Dalek agent, reporting on Alby’s whereabouts. Alby has a new assignment, but not one he’s eager to take on: he is to contact Suz and find out if she knows anything the Daleks have found out about Project Infinity…and if she does, Alby is to kill her. Suz is losing support elsewhere too, as Kalendorf chafes against her willingness to help the Daleks motivate their slaves throughout the galaxy. Kalendorf wants to fan the flames of rebellion immediately, before the Daleks take over any more civilizations – and his fears are well-founded, for Earth has now surrendered to the Dalek advance. As the latest remnants of the Space Security Force rally for one last strike against the Daleks, their last frontal attack before resorting to guerilla warfare, Alby discovers that the decision of whether or not Suz is to live has been taken out of his hands.

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

Cast: Sarah Mowat (Susan Mendes), Gareth Thomas (Kalendorf), Joyce Gibbs (Narrator), Ian Brooker (Espeelius / Karik / General Elisonford), Jeremy Fielder (Stralos / Barman), David Sax (Tanlee), Mark McDonnell (Alby Brook), Teresa Gallagher (Mirana / Earth President), Nicholas Briggs (Dalek voice), Alistair Lock (Dalek voice), Steven Allen (Dalek voice)

Categories
5th Doctor

Primeval

Doctor Who: PrimevalNyssa has fallen critically ill, and the Doctor has brought her to her home world of Traken 3,000 years before her birth (and its destruction), desperate to find someone who specializes in Traken medicine. Unaccustomed to visitors, the Consuls of Traken are alarmed by the presence of the Doctor and Nyssa, but as with virtually every decision in this era of their recent history, they defer to the wisdom of the Source…only it seems to refuse to render a decision for them. The Doctor is told to leave and take Nyssa with him, dying or not. Unable to appeal to the Consuls, the Doctor takes his plea for help to Kwundaar, a telepathic being who has been trying to take over the Union of Traken for centuries. But Kwundaar’s price for saving Nyssa’s life is steep – the Doctor must give him the means to invade Traken and enslave its people. Still certain he can find a way to save Nyssa without allowing Kwundaar and his fanatical pirates to overrun Traken, the Doctor tries to play both sides against the middle, unaware that Kwundaar has forseen his actions – and has taken full advantage of them.

Order this CDwritten by Lance Parkin
directed by Gary Russell
music by Russell Stone

Cast: Peter Davison (The Doctor), Sarah Sutton (Nyssa), Stephen Greif (Kwundaar), Susan Penhaligon (Shayla), Ian Hallard (Sabian), Billy Miller (Captain Narthex), Romy Tennant (Lt. Anona), Marc Woolgar (Hyrca), Rita Davies (Janneus), Alistair Lock (Foster Etrayk)

Timeline: after The Mutant Phase and before Spare Parts

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
Dalek Empire Doctor Who

Project Infinity

Dalek Empire: Project InfinityThe war against the Daleks rages on, but Alby Brook doesn’t give a damn – he’s deep in mourning for the woman he loved, and deeply drunk. But when he and Kalendorf discover that Suz left her knowledge of the Daleks’ plans behind for them, there’s new hope for the human resistance. But what Kalendorf and Alby don’t realize until it’s too late is that the Daleks have planted their servants deep within the ranks of the resistance, relaying vital tactical information back to their masters. One captured Dalek servant provides the freedom fighters with a way to listen in on the Dalek communications network, and the terrifying truth of Project Infinity comes to light. A desperate race ensues between the resistance forces and the mighty fleets of the Daleks, and the prize is universal peace…or universal domination.

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

Cast: Gareth Thomas (Kalendorf), Teresa Gallagher (Mirana), Mark McDonnell (Alby Brook), Joyce Gibbs (The Seer), Sarah Mowat (The Angel of Mercy), Simon Bridge (Dr. Johnstone), Ian Brooker (Espeelius), Jeremy James (Herrick), David Sax (Tanlee), Nicholas Briggs (Dalek voice), Alistair Lock (Dalek voice), Steven Allen (Dalek voice), Robert Lock (Dalek voice)

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
6th Doctor

The One Doctor

Doctor Who: The One DoctorThe Doctor reluctantly answers a distress call from the planet Generios (in the Generios system, which is nestled away quietly in the constellation of Generios). When he arrives, though, he finds he’s surplus to requirements – the people of Generios are celebrating their victory over the evil Skelloids, a victory they say was engineered by that legendary time traveler known as the Doctor! Mel chalks it up to one of the Doctor’s other incarnations, but the Doctor isn’t so sure. When he runs into the man the people of Generios have hailed as a hero, the Doctor is even more certain that this man isn’t one of his future selves – this “Doctor” travels around the universe in what is essentially a transmat disguised as a Porta-Loo, and generally being far too chummy with his buxom sidekick Sally Anne. But when a new alien menace threatens to destroy Generios – this time decidedly more real than the fake Doctor’s equally fake holographically-projected Skelloid invasion – the planet must look to the Doctor (the real Doctor) for help.

Order this CDwritten by Gareth Roberts and Clayton Hickman
directed by Gary Russell
music by Alistair Lock

Cast: Colin Baker (The Doctor), Bonnie Langford (Melanie), Christopher Biggins (Banto Zame), Claire Buckfield (Sally-Ann Stubbins), Stephen Fewell (Councillor Potikol / Assembler 2), Nicholas Pegg (Citizen Sokkery / Mentos), Jane Goddard (The Questioner), Adam Buxton (Assembler 1), Matt Lucas (Jelloid), Mark Wright (Guard)

Timeline: after The Trial Of A Time Lord and before The Juggernauts

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
6th Doctor

The Ratings War

The Ratings WarAs the climactic episode of a reality TV show makes its live debut, the Doctor storms into the office of the network’s president to lodge a series of complaints about programming. But the Doctor soon discovers that the network is in the hands of the vicious Beep the Meep, a cute but bloodthirsty creature who plans to bring the people of Earth under his mind control by embedding subliminal instructions into his new children’s program. Even though the Doctor has already taken steps to prevent the domination of the viewing audience, he has failed to destroy the control mechanism that will allow Beep to take control…

written by Steve Lyons
directed by Gary Russell
music by David Darlington

Cast: Colin Baker (The Doctor), Toby Longworth (Beep The Meep), Robert Jezek (Roger Lowell), Alistair Lock (Robbie McHale), Jane Goddard (Lucy)

Notes: The traditional Doctor Who opening theme is not heard at the beginning of the episode, and the story closes – rather unusually with the “Delaware Version” of the theme that the BBC Radiophonic Workshop prepared for the TV show’s 1972 season, even though it was ultimately not used. Beep the Meep originally faced off against the fourth Doctor in the 1980 Doctor Who Weekly comic strip “Doctor Who and the Star Beast”, written by Pat Mills and John Wagner, with art by Dave Gibbons; that strip is included in the graphic novel reprint “Doctor Who: The Iron Legion”. Another CD included free with Doctor Who Magazine, The Ratings War was later released as a free podcast in 2011.

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
8th Doctor

Invaders From Mars

Invaders From MarsThe Doctor and Charley arrive in Manhattan just before Halloween, 1938. One of the first things Charley encounters upon her first visit to New York City is the body of a recently murdered private detective. When a woman arrives at the gumshoe’s office to hire him, the Doctor impersonates him and agrees to take on the case of her missing uncle (to Charley’s alarm). But things aren’t as they seem – Charley is kidnapped by mobsters, and even the Doctor’s new client isn’t who she seems. As Orson Welles and the Mercury Theater Players prepare to broadcast their infamous panic-inducing radio adaptation of “The War Of The Worlds”, a very real alien invasion is taking place – and the Doctor hopes to use one to fight the other.

Order this CDwritten by Mark Gatiss
directed by Mark Gatiss
music by Alistair Lock

Cast: Paul McGann (The Doctor), India Fisher (Charley), Ian Hallard (Mouse), Mark Benton (Ellis), Jonathan Rigby (John Houseman), David Benson (Orson Welles), Paul Putner (Bix Biro), Simon Pegg (Don Chaney), Jessica Stevenson (Glory Bee), John Arthur (Cosmo Devine)

Timeline: after Minuet In Hell and before The Chimes Of Midnight

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
8th Doctor

The Chimes Of Midnight

The Chimes Of MidnightThe TARDIS lands in the well-stocked larder of what appears to be an Edwardian-era house. As Charley and the Doctor explore the house, they find numerous recent signs of life, but little or no evidence of the occupants. Gradually, Charley hears the voices of the people living in the house – and, for a moment, sees and speaks to one of them. Nothing the time travelers do or move stays permanent. When they’re suddenly able to communicate with the house’s occupants, the clock strikes and one of those occupants turns up horribly murdered. Far from being considered suspects, the Doctor and Charley are instantly “recognized” as London’s greatest amateur sleuths by the servants and staff. Another murder happens when the clock strikes eleven – and the victim of the previous slaying seems to have been erased from the memories of everyone except the Doctor and Charley. And so continues a horrifying, never ending cycle of life and death, a paradoxical cycle which can only end with the death of one of the house’s visitors.

Order this CDwritten by Robert Shearman
directed by Barnaby Edwards
music by Russell Stone

Cast: Paul McGann (The Doctor), India Fisher (Charley), Louise Rolfe (Edith), Lennox Greaves (Mr. Shaughnessy), Sue Wallace (Mrs. Baddeley), Robert Curbishley (Frederick), Juliet Warner (Mary)

Timeline: after Invaders From Mars and before Seasons Of Fear

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
5th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

Excelis Dawns

Doctor WhoOn a momentary sidestep after dropping Gravis off harmlessly on an isolated planetoid where it can no longer harm the people of Frontios, the Doctor arrives on Artaris, a primitive world where he meets a gruff warlord named Grayvorn. Grayvorn is en route to a convent whose nuns are entrusting him on a quest for an unidentified Relic. But the Doctor is horrified to learn that the nuns have taken on a new visitor: the irrepressible Time Lady known as Iris Wildthyme, the Doctor’s sometimes old flame and sometimes nuisiance. To make matters even worse, the convent’s Mother Superior has entrusted the only known map leading to the Relic to Iris, and insists that the troublesome time traveler accompany Grayvorn on that quest, with another nun, Sister Jolene, in tow. The Doctor, smelling trouble, tags along, and finds himself more than once keeping Grayvorn and Iris from each other’s throats. The Doctor is also suspicious of Sister Jolene’s motives for coming on the trip – and indeed, those of the Mother Superior who is behind the quest. Is the search for the Relic a deadly trap, or a true holy quest which may require terrible sacrifices of those who undertake it?

Order this CDwritten by Paul Magrs
directed by Gary Russell
music by David Darlington

Cast: Peter Davison (The Doctor), Anthony Stewart Head (Lord Grayvorn), Katy Manning (Iris Wildthyme), Posy Miller (Sister Jolene), Patricia Leventon (Mother Superior), Billy Miller (Zombie King)

Timeline: during part 4 of Frontios

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
8th Doctor

Seasons Of Fear

Seasons Of FearAfter numerous misadventures, the TARDIS finally brings Charley to Singapore in 1930, right on time to make her appointment with a young man who she had originally stowed away aboard the R-101 to meet. While she is away, the Doctor meets a man named Sebastian Grayle – a man both blessed and cursed with immoirtality, a man who knows that the Doctor is a Time Lord, and a man who claims to have killed him some with the help of his masters at some point in the Doctor’s future. When Charlie returns, the Doctor once against whisks her away, urgently setting out to find out how Grayle came to be immortal, and who he serves who might want the Doctor dead. They travel back in time to the third century A.D. and meet Grayle in his original form: a naive priest who has made a tenuous pact with an alien power beyond his understanding. If the Doctor cannot stop Grayle from gaining immortality, his new nemesis will grow in power and cunning through the centuries until, at least, he does have the means to defeat a Time Lord.

Order this CDwritten by Paul Cornell and Caroline Symcox
directed by Gary Russell
music by Jane Elphinstone

Cast: Paul McGann (The Doctor), India Fisher (Charley), Stephen Perring (Sebastian Grayle), Stephen Fewell (Marcus), Robert Curbishley (Lucillius / Grayle’s Masters’ voices), Lennox Greaves (Edward), Sue Wallace (Edith), Stephen Fewell (Richard Martin), Justine Mitchell (Lucy Martin), Don Warrington (The Auditor)

Timeline: after The Chimes Of Midnight and before Embrace The Darkness

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
8th Doctor

Embrace The Darkness

Embrace The DarknessA science station on the distant world of Cimmeria IV is plunged into darkness. Its three-person crew can’t see, but they can feel – and what they feel, at the hands of whatever has attacked the station, is intense pain. The Doctor arrives by chance, having always wondered how the sun of the Cimmerian system went dark at some point in the future, but when he and Charley pay a visit, things go horribly wrong, including Charley encountering the science station’s crew…who have been relieved of their eyes. The same fate then befalls Charley when she’s separated from the Doctor – and the Time Lord is getting no help from ROSM, an artificial intelligence whose inflexible thinking may not only doom an entire species inhabiting Cimmeria IV, but may also force the time travelers to be present for the death of the sun.

Order this CDwritten by Nicholas Briggs
directed by Nicholas Briggs
music by Nicholas BriggsJim Mortimore

Cast: Paul McGann (The Doctor), India Fisher (Charley), Nicola Boyce (Orllensa), Lee Moone (Ferras), Mark McDonnell (Haliard), Ian Brooker (ROSM / Solarian / Cimmerian), Nicholas Briggs (Cimmerian Voice)

Timeline: after Seasons Of Fear and before The Time Of The Daleks

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
6th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

Excelis Rising

Doctor Who:The TARDIS materializes on Artaris, exactly one millennium after the Doctor’s previous visit. But it has landed in the wrong place at the wrong time: a robbery is underway in the prestigious museum in the city of Excelis, and the sudden appearance of a blue police box and its colorfully-dressed occupant is just one more mystery for the investigators to solve. The Doctor learns that the Relic itself – which, in his fifth incarnation, he had helped to find – was the target of the robbery, and is astonished to see a familiar face arrive to take charge of the investigation. The man the Doctor knew as Lord Grayvorn is known to the citizens of Excelis as Reeve Maupassant, but he’s definitely the same man – he recognizes the TARDIS, and somehow even recognizes the Doctor, and he is apparently still suffering side-effects of coming into direct contact with the Relic. When the museum curator and one of the break-in suspects are killed in a grisly manner, Maupassant eagerly declares the Doctor to be the culprit. But can the Doctor prove his innocence, much less prove that a thousand-year-old warlord is trying to steal the Relic for himself?

Order this CDwritten by David A. McIntee
directed by Edward Salt
music by David Darlington

Cast: Colin Baker (The Doctor), Anthony Stewart Head (Reeve Maupassant), Charles Kay (The Curator), Rupert Laight (Solomon), Toby Walton (Thief), Nicky Goldie (Inquisitor Danby), James Lailey (Minister Pryce), Patricia Leventon (The Mother Superior)

Timeline: between The Trial Of A Time Lord and Time And The Rani

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green