Categories
8th Doctor Doctor Who

Faith Stealer

Doctor Who: Faith StealerStill wandering through the Divergent Universe without the safety of the TARDIS, the Doctor, Charley and C’rizz suspiciously follow the Kro’ka to a place called the Multihaven. A melting pot of multiple religious beliefs, the Multihaven tolerates all of them equally, and dozens of churches have been established there. And any safe haven would be a blessing for C’rizz, plagued by memories of fulfilling his mate’s request for a mercy killing in the Kromon biosphere; the memories have taken on a new intensity of late, at times rendering him almost helpless. The Doctor and Charley leave C’rizz in the care of a peaceful sect of monks while they set out to explore the Multihaven, but while they’re gone, C’rizz’s caretakers themselves wind up on the wrong end of a hostile merger with another religion. The 23rd Church of Lucidianism is gaining new recruits at a rapid rate, even converting long-standing members of other established religions in the Multihaven. The Lucidians’ leader, Lan Carder, has more than just charisma on his side – and the Doctor suspects that the object of the Lucidians’ worship may be an alien force with a sinister agenda.

Order this CDwritten by Graham Duff
directed by Gary Russell
music by Russell Stone

Cast: Paul McGann (The Doctor), India Fisher (Charley), Conrad Westmaas (C’rizz), Stephen Perring (The Kro’Ka), Christian Rodska (Laan Carder), Tessa Shaw (The Bordinan), Jenny Coverack (Miraculite), Ifan Huw Dafydd (Bishop Parrash), Helen Kirkpatrick (Jebdal), Neil Bett (Director Garfolt), Chris Walter-Evans (The Bordinan’s Assistant), John Dorney (Bakoan), Jane Hills (L’Da)

Timeline: between The Twilight Kingdom and The Last

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
8th Doctor Doctor Who

The Last

Doctor Who: The LastOn the planet Bortresoye, a global nuclear war has laid waste to the surface and the planet’s entire population is wiped out. The Doctor, Charley and C’rizz arrive here, driven thorugh the interzone by the Kro’Ka, who delays the Time Lord briefly to haunt him with memories of fallen companions. They seek shelter in a bombed-out building, but it collapses underneath and on top of them, leaving Charley paralyzed from the neck down and the Doctor buried under the rubble. C’rizz goes to get help, but can find only a strangely circumspect being who calls himself Requiem. The Doctor and Charley are found by a survey team and brought to a well-protected underground bunker where the planet’s only survivors are barely managing to stay alive – and earthquake damage to their bunker is slowly whittling down even that population. The ruler of one of Bortresoye’s warring nations, the Lady Excelsior, terrifies her two surviving cabinet ministers with her ability to remain blissfully deluded about the outcome of the war, and her insistence on consorting with a mysterious man named Landscar.

Order this CDwritten by Gary Hopkins
directed by Gary Russell
music by David Darlington

Cast: Paul McGann (The Doctor), India Fisher (Charley), Conrad Westmaas (C’rizz), Stephen Perring (The Kro’Ka), Carolyn Jones (Excelsior), Ian Brooker (Minister Voss), Robert Hines (Minister Tralfinial), Richard Derrington (Landscar), Tom Eastwood (Requiem), Jane Hills (Nurse), John Dorney (Make-Up Assistant)

Notes: Kro’Ka tortures the Doctor with visions of two of his fallen comrades. Katarina, a slave girl who joined the first Doctor in the 1965 TV story The Myth Makers, died trying to save the Doctor and Steven in her second story, The Daleks’ Masterplan. Adric was the young mathematical genius who stowed away on the TARDIS when the fourth Doctor, Romana and K-9 visited his home planet of Alzarius in Full Circle, and, after seeing the Doctor through his regeneration, died in an attempt to avert a Cybermen strike on Earth in Earthshock. They are two of the only three companions to have died in the original television series (the third, Sara Kingdom, joined and left the series within the 12 episodes of The Daleks’ Masterplan). Roz Forrester, a companion from the New Adventures novels, also met an untimely end in the book “So Vile A Sin”, but was not mentioned here.

Timeline: between Faith Stealer and Caerdroia

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
8th Doctor Doctor Who

Caerdroia

Doctor Who: CaerdroiaThe Doctor is asleep in the interzone between worlds, and the Kro’Ka appears to torment him – only to find that it must put up with Charley and C’rizz, who quickly become aware that the Kro’Ka seems to be powerless while the Time Lord is unconscious. Once awakened, the Doctor is subjected to a kind of mind-probing technique by the Kro’Ka, but he quickly gains the upper hand on the interzone guardian, forcing it to tell him, at least in general terms, where the TARDIS is located. The Doctor follows the trail to a place called Caerdroia, a surreal world where verdant hills populated by seemingly normal cows and rabbits lead to a circular maze. But that’s not the most surreal thing about Caerdroia – topping that list is the fact that the Doctor has emerged from the interzone in what seems like three aspects of his character: one rational, one inquisitive and easily distracted, and one dark and quick to anger. Charley and C’rizz can only tag along with the three Doctors as they look for a way out of the maze – and a way to find out who’s holding the Kro’Ka’s leash.

Order this CDwritten by Lloyd Rose
directed by Gary Russell
music by Steve Foxon

Cast: Paul McGann (The Doctor), India Fisher (Charley), Conrad Westmaas (C’rizz), Stephen Perring (The Kro’Ka), Don Warrington (Rassilon)

Doctor Who: Caerdroia - Tenth Planet alternate cover artNotes: Caerdroia is a Welsh word for a labyrinth. This audio adventure received an early release – with alternate cover art (seen here) – at a Doctor Who convention in November 2004; the limited edition alternate cover version was also sold by the internet vendor Tenth Planet.

Timeline: between The Last and The Next Life

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
8th Doctor Doctor Who

The Next Life

Doctor Who: The Next LifeA planet appears in the path of the TARDIS, moving so fast that a collision is unavoidable. Charley and C’rizz each awaken in a virtual reality of their past lives, but they each quickly figure out that the Kro’Ka is behind the illusions and are freed. When they awaken, they find not only the Kro’Ka, but Rassilon as well, who claims that he has nursed them back to health after the destruction of the TARDIS. But he shows them that the Doctor has survived as well, and he appears to have found company – a woman who has found him wandering through the jungle of the planet’s sole land mass. Charley and C’rizz both demand to be set free, but before he releases them Rassilon tries to put doubts in their minds about the Doctor – and each other. He’s at least partially successful, as the two TARDIS travelers go their own way in the jungle.

The Doctor, meanwhile, has been captured by a feisty woman who calls herself Perfection, the wife of wealthy, self-proclaimed missionary Daqar Keep. Keep is an egomaniac on a hunt for some lost relic in the same jungle, and he barely tolerates – and is barely tolerated by – one of C’rizz’s people, a leader of the Church of the Foundation known simply as Guidance. He also happens to be C’rizz’s father. The accidental death of one of Keep’s porters leads Keep to blame the Doctor, which entitles the rest of the locals in Keep’s employ to hunt the Doctor down. Perfection, who seems to tolerate her own husband even less than Guidance does, protests and finds herself added to the quarry of the hunt. The Doctor and Perfection soon find Charley, and together they find Charley in a bit of a bind. Soon the Doctor and all of his friends are reunited – but Keep, Guidance, the Kro’Ka and Rassilon soon follow. The end of the Divergents’ universe is drawing near, the TARDIS is the only way back to the universe as the Doctor and Charley know it, and not everyone will be aboard for its next trip. The beginning of the Divergents’ universe will follow, and none will survive it.

Order this CDwritten by Alan Barnes and Gary Russell
directed by Gary Russell
music by ERS

Cast: Paul McGann (The Doctor), India Fisher (Charley), Conrad Westmaas (C’rizz), Don Warrington (Rassilon), Stephen Perring (The Kro’Ka), Stephane Cornicard (Daqar Keep), Daphne Ashbrook (Perfection), Paul Darrow (Guidance), Jane Hills (L’Da), Anneke Wills (Lady Louisa Pollard), Stephen Mansfield (Simon Murchford), Jane Goddard (Mother of Jembere-Bud), Terry Molloy (Davros)

Timeline: after Caerdroia and before Terror Firma

Original Title: Rassilon

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
8th Doctor Doctor Who

Terror Firma

Doctor Who: Terror FirmaGreeted by Davros and the Daleks after their escape from the Divergent universe, the Doctor, Charley and C’rizz are separated from each other. Davros is suffering from a split personality as he begins to lose himself in the identity of the Emperor Dalek. Charley and C’rizz flee the Daleks with members of a local resistance cell, but they too are separated from each other; Charley joins up with a woman who talks frequently about how her daughter was killed by the Daleks, while C’rizz ends up on the run from the Daleks with a young woman who could very well be that daughter. But the Doctor discovers that she could also be a former TARDIS traveler – even though he has no memory of her. And worse yet, Charley finds out that this planet, the new Dalek homeworld, is also known as Earth – and that its resistance movement is run by the Daleks themselves.

Order this CD written by Joseph Lidster
directed by Gary Russell
music by Steve Foxon

Cast: Paul McGann (The Doctor), India Fisher (Charley), Conrad Westmaas (C’rizz), Terry Molloy (Davros), Julia Deakin (Harriet Griffin), Lee Ingleby (Samson Griffin), Lizzie Hopley (Gemma Griffin), Nicholas Briggs (Dalek voices)

Timeline: after The Next Life and before Scaredy Cat

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
8th Doctor Doctor Who

Scaredy Cat

Doctor Who: Scaredy CatWhen C’rizz expresses a desire to see an unspoiled planet in its primacy, the Doctor brings the TARDIS to the twin worlds of Caludaar and Endarra. After nearly destroying themselves in a war, the people of Caludaar pledged to leave Endarra untouched – but the TARDIS detects a distinct energy reading from Endarra. The Doctor discovers that a small party from Caludaar has broken the promise, and worse yet, they’re experimenting on the native life forms of Endarra. The Doctor and his friends try to set things right, but quickly find that those performing the experiments will do anything to continue them. What the Doctor hasn’t taken into account is that Endarra itself may step in and correct the balance of good and evil.

Order this CD written by Will Shindler
directed by Nigel Fairs
music by ERS

Cast: Paul McGann (The Doctor), India Fisher (Charley Pollard), Conrad Westmaas (C’rizz), Michael Chance (Flood), Arthur Bostrom (Arken), Spencer McLaren (Bronik), Rosalind Blessed (Niah), Ellis Pike (Eldrin), Linda Bartram (Galayana)

Timeline: after Terror Firma and before Other Lives

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
8th Doctor Doctor Who

Other Lives

Doctor Who: Other LivesThe TARDIS brings the Doctor, C’rizz and Charley to Hyde Park for the Great Exhibition of 1851, but when the blue box in the Crystal Palace begins to attract too much attention, C’rizz and Charley leave it unattended so they can find the Doctor and make their escape again. What they don’t count on is the pair of French diplomats who stumble into the time machine and accidentally activate it, leaving the time travelers stranded. The Doctor finds a woman latching onto him in the mistaken belief that he is her missing explorer husband, while C’rizz falls afoul of the owner of a freakshow. Charley tries to seek the help of the Duke of Wellington, only to find that he needs her help to impersonate one of the missing French diplomats…and possible avert a war in the process! And while the time travelers each assume these new and unlikely roles, they wonder if the TARDIS will make its way back to Hyde Park in their lifetimes…

Order this CD written by Gary Hopkins
directed by Gary Russell
music by David Darlington

Cast: Paul McGann (The Doctor), India Fisher (Charley Pollard), Conrad Westmaas (C’rizz), Ron Moody (The Duke of Wellington), Michael Hobbs (Mr. Fazackerly), Mike Holloway (Jacob Crackles), Peter Howe (Maxi), Francesca Hunt (Georgina Marlow), Maitland Chandler (Rufus Dimplesqueeze)

Timeline: after Scaredy Cat and before Time Works

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
8th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

Time Works

Doctor Who: Time WorksThe TARDIS brings the Doctor, Charley and C’rizz to a world where time is frozen – and faces are frozen in fear of some unknown force. The Doctor suddenly orders his friends back to the TARDIS, but when they reach it, not only are they unable to open it, but the Doctor is nowhere to be found. Time resumes its normal course around the Time Lord, and he finds himself an hour in the past, in a society where everyone lives in fear of the Clockwork Men, who strike if anyone is idle when they should be working toward the goal of Completion. As he has no duties other than to ask questions, the Doctor soon becomes such a target, and has an unpleasant audience with the local monarch. In the clock tower at the center of this kingdom, Charley and C’rizz find time is still frozen around them – including the scene of Doctor’s own execution by beheading, mere minutes into his future…

Order this CD written by Steve Lyons
directed by Edward Salt
music by ERS

Cast: Paul McGann (The Doctor), India Fisher (Charley), Conrad Westmaas (C’rizz), Ronald Pickup (King Kestorian), racey Childs (The Figurehead), Beth Vyse (Vannet), Adrian Schiller (Prince Zanith), Philip Edgerley (Collis), Merryn Owen (Revnon)

Timeline: after Other Lives and before Something Inside

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
8th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

Something Inside

Doctor Who: Something InsideThe Doctor, Charley and C’rizz find themselves trapped in a maze-like prison whose occupants call it the Cube. The Doctor and the TARDIS are snatched away, leaving Charley and C’rizz to hide in the darkness with a trio of desperate prisoners. Once recruited to by psychically augmented to help their world win a war, the “prisoners” have now been banished to a Cube, as their recruiters can’t find a way to deactivate or control their psychic powers. Something called the brain worm stalks the Cube, killing its victims after burning out their minds. The prisoners insist that the Doctor vanished because he was the brain worm’s last victim. Charley refuses to believe it – and then C’rizz disappears, leaving her at the mercy of her fellow prisoners. The Doctor, however, isn’t in the clutches of the brain worm. He’s held prisoner, tortured and interrogated to Rawden, the man who operates the Cube and keeps the prisoners captive. And Rawden is just as worried about the brain worm as his prisoners are…

Order this CD written by Trevor Baxendale
directed by Nicholas Briggs
music by Joseph Fox

Cast: Paul McGann (The Doctor), India Fisher (Charley), Conrad Westmaas (C’rizz), Steven Elder (Rawden), Ian Brooker (Mr. Twyst), Liz Crowther (Tessa), John Killoran (Gordon Latch), Louise Collins (Jane)

Timeline: after Time Works and before Memory Lane

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

Categories
8th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

Memory Lane

Doctor Who: Memory LaneThe TARDIS lands in the middle of a suburban living room, but the woman whose home has just been invaded by a time machine seems unperturbed by the sudden appearance of a Police Box, or the three people who walk out of it. The Doctor tries to take things in his stride, until he notices that the television snooker tournament is being interrupted repeatedly by the same series of scenes taking place aboard a spaceship with two astronauts. Even more incongruous is the fact that the woman who lives in this house has a grandson who she insists is 10 years old, but her “grandson” is quite clearly one of the two astronauts seen on TV. C’rizz runs afoul of a woman who would appear to be the other surviving astronaut, and the Doctor is alarmed to find that the street this house is on has no beginning and no end – and worse yet, the TARDIS is being stolen on the back of the ice cream truck. But how can the ice cream truck escape from this street if no one else can, and why is one of the astronauts acting like a child, building Lego models of his abandoned spacecraft?

Order this CD written by Eddie Robson
directed by Gary Russell
music by David Darlington

Cast: Paul McGann (The Doctor), India Fisher (Charley Pollard), Conrad Westmaas (C’rizz), Nina Baden-Sempter (Mrs Braudy), Sara Carver (Kim Kronotska), Finlay Glen (Mawvik), Neil Reidman (Tom Braudy), Charlie Ross (Lest), Neville Watchurst (Argot), Anneke Wills (Lady Louisa Pollard)

Notes: The Doctor’s sudden urge for a Sky Ray Ice Lolly (and the accompanying trading cards) is an in-joke for long-term Doctor Who fans; that brand of frozen confectionery was famous for its Doctor Who promotion in the 1960s and ’70s, which offered free Doctor Who trading cards. An example of a TV advertisement for this promotion can be found on the video of the 1993 documentary More Than 30 Years In The TARDIS.

Timeline: after Something Inside and before Absolution

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
8th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

Absolution

Doctor Who: AbsolutionAs the TARDIS is in mid-flight, Charley watches as C’rizz goes through his personal effects from the Divergent Universe, including an odd glowing vessel, which Charley insists on peering into – and something is released, at about the same time the time machine comes grinding to a halt. C’rizz and Charley rush to the console room, just in time to help the Doctor bring the TARDIS in for a rough landing – after which the ship seems to split apart, with C’rizz disappearing into the void. C’rizz finds himself in the company of a man called Aboresh, who begins to unlock abilities that he didn’t realize he had. The Doctor and Charley, in the meantime, find themselves among a superstitious people, though there seem to be hints of more advanced knowledge among some of the people there. Walled up in a compound surrounded by an energy barrier, this small society defies a creature called the Borarus, which constantly tries to break into the compound. The barrier stops it, but Aboresh – who lives on the outside with those cast out from the compound – now has a powerful new weapon at his disposal: C’rizz. As C’rizz’ powers increase exponentially, he may now be the greatest threat to the Doctor and Charley’s survival.

Order this CD written by Scott Alan Woodard
directed by Barnaby Edwards
music by Simon Robinson

Cast: Paul McGann (The Doctor), India Fisher (Charley Pollard), Conrad Westmaas (C’rizz), Robert Glenister (Aboresh), Christopher Villiers (Cacothis), Natalie Mendoza (Lolanthia), Tony Barton (Straith), Geoff Breton (Phelgreth)

Timeline: after Memory Lane and before The Girl Who Never Was

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
8th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

The Girl Who Never Was

Doctor Who: The Girl Who Never WasDevastated after C’rizz makes his exit from the TARDIS crew, and outraged over the Doctor’s apparent lack of emotion about it, Charley decides she’s had enough time travel and wants to return home – even though history records her death aboard the doomed airship R-101. The Doctor tries to surprise her by taking her to her intended destination, Singapore in 1930, but the TARDIS is drawn off course in time, depositing the Doctor and Charley in Singapore in 2008. Now more disgruntled than ever, Charley tries to leave as the Doctor tends to the TARDIS controls to see what caused the time change, instead running into a man named Byron who not only seems to know who she is, but has a gun drawn on her the whole time. The Doctor arrives to foil whatever it is that Byron’s planning, and talks Charley into one last adventure – a trip back in time to the 1940s, and the source of the temporal event that redirected the TARDIS. The trail leads them to a docked sea freighter, but even there something is making a mess of the flow of time. Charley is stuck in the 1940s with a man who looks and sounds exactly like Byron – not a day older or younger – while the Doctor winds up back in 2008, only to find that Byron has staked a claim to this ship. An elderly woman accompanies Byron, and though he initially introduces her as his mother, the Doctor learns that her name is Charlotte Pollard, age 85, and she doesn’t remember anything about traveling in time – and she certainly doesn’t remember the alien invasion force stored in the ship’s hold…at least not until they stand before her, and then she remembers a single word: Cybermen.

Order this CD written by Alan Barnes
directed by Barnaby Edwards
music by ERS

Cast: Paul McGann (The Doctor), India Fisher (Charley Pollard), Danny Webb (Byron), Anna Massey (Miss Pollard), Amanda Root (Madeleine Fairweather), David Yip (Curly), Robert Duncan (Borthwick), Natalie Mendoza (Receptionist), Tim Sutton (Colville), Jake McGann (Young Man), Nicholas Briggs (Soldier)

Timeline: after Absolution and before Blood Of The Daleks Part 1 (for the Doctor), after Absolution and before The Condemned (for Charley)

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
6th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

The Condemned

Doctor Who: The CondemnedStranded after the crash of the Cybership she helped to sabotage, Charley is cut off from the Doctor, and sets about building a crude crystal radio set to signal S.O.S. into the ether. She’s relieved when the TARDIS appears, but when she steps through the doors, she’s left speechless when she meets its occupant – the sixth Doctor, not the eighth. She’s very evasive about her origins and how she got to the future, which immediately raises the Doctor’s suspicions. The TARDIS next lands in Ackley House, an apartment block in Manchester in 2008 – in the apartment of a man who appears to have been murdered. Charley goes to find help, but never makes it back to the Doctor; instead, he’s found by the police and charged with murder. Charley has been abducted by a woman who lives in one of the other flats, and is held captive there until she manages to break free. When the body of the murder victim vanishes, the Doctor is off the hook, but he’s found a receptive ear in D.I. Menzies and continues to enlist her help in an investigation that involves aliens, money, and – despite appearances to the contrary – murder. Along the way, however, the Doctor begins to suspect that the girl he rescued from the future isn’t who she claims to be.

Order this CDwritten by Eddie Robson
directed by Nicholas Briggs
music by David Darlington

Cast: Colin Baker (The Doctor), India Fisher (Charlotte Pollard), Anna Hope (D.I. Patricia Menzies), Will Ash (Sam), Sara De Freitas (Maxine), Lennox Greaves (Dr. Aldrich), James George (Slater), Diana Morrison (Antonia Bailey / Jane), Sephen Aintree (D.C.I. Turnbull / Goon / Police Officer / Guy in Gym), Steve Hansell (P.C. Blackstock / Police Officer / Guy in Gym)

Timeline: for the sixth Doctor, it is unknown if this takes place before or after his travels with Evelyn; for Charley, this story takes place immediately after The Girl Who Never Was

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
6th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

The Doomwood Curse

Doctor Who: The CondemnedThe Doctor’s travels through time are interrupted by an unwelcome guest – not Charley, his strange new traveling companion who seems to know more than she’s saying (and claims to have amnesia), but rather a small ‘bot which arrives to tell the Doctor that a library book he checked out is long overdue. The book in question, a rather paint-by-numbers 18th century romance which makes a romantic hero out of notorious highwayman Dick Turpin, captures Charley’s imagination, but now she’ll have to help the Doctor return it before she can finish it. At the library, the Doctor and Charley discover a group of Grell arguing over the merits (or lack thereof) of fiction. Unable to grasp anything but the truth, the Grell have little tolerance for fiction, and it looks as though they’re about to put literary masterpieces into a bonfire. Charley interrupts their plans, but the book she was trying to return to the library is charred almost beyond recognition. The TARDIS next destination is the 18th century itself, but when events begin to unfold that parallel the plot of the damaged book, the Doctor grows suspicious. The plot developments spiral out of control, and Charley lterally loses herself in the story, becoming first the heroine of the piece, and then Dick Turpin’s deadly sidekick. Can the Doctor bring this land of fiction back to reality before Charley has a fatal date with destiny?

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

Cast: Colin Baker (The Doctor), India Fisher (Charlotte Pollard), Nicky Henson (Dick Turpin), Jonathan Firth (John), Hayley Atwell (Eleanor), Trevor Cooper (Sir Ralph), Geraldine Newman (Lady Sybil), Daisy Douglas (Susan), Suzie Chard (Molly)

Timeline: after The Condemned and before Brotherhood Of The Daleks

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
6th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

Brotherhood Of The Daleks

Doctor Who: Brotherhood Of The DaleksThe Doctor is convinced that the TARDIS has returned him to Spiridon, the jungle planet where he’s done battle with the Daleks on more than one occasion. But despite the presence of the planet’s disctinctively deadly foliage, and a desperate band of outnumbered Thals who claim to be fighting a larger force of Daleks, something doesn’t add up – and finally the Doctor discovers that it isn’t Spiridon at all. Worse yet, in this artificial environment, even the beleaguered Thals are not who they appear to be…but who’s behind the deception? Daleks? Thals? Or someone else? Whoever it turns out to be, chances are that they won’t allow the Doctor to escape alive with whatever secrets he learns.

Order this CDwritten by Alan Barnes
directed by Nicholas Briggs
music by Steve Foxon

Cast: Colin Baker (The Doctor), India Fisher (Charlotte Pollard), Michael Cochrane (Murgat), Harriet Kershaw (Tamarus), Derek Carlyle (Valion), Jo Casatleton (Nyaiad), Alison Thea-Skot (Jesic), Steve Hansell (Septal), Nicholas Briggs (The Daleks)

Notes: The Doctor visited Spiridon during his third incarnation in Planet Of The Daleks (1973), though in Big Finish’s universe, the seventh Doctor underwent a more extensive ordeal there at the mercy of the Daleks in Return Of The Daleks (2006). The Daleks mention having met Charley before, a reference to the eighth Doctor story The Time Of The Daleks (2002). The hallucinogenic plants were encountered by the Doctor in his fifth incarnation in the audio story The Mind’s Eye (2007).

Timeline: after The Doomwood Curse and before Return Of The Krotons

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green