Day: June 30, 2011

Categories
5th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

Rat Trap

Doctor WhoThe Doctor and his entourage arrive in 1983 and join an expedition into a network of man-made (but abandoned) subterranean tunnels teeming with rats, but they’re no ordinary rats: these rats show signs of intelligence, and the ability to communicate. Furthermore, they have plans for conquest, including a plan to release a plague capable of wiping out the human race. The Doctor must try to broker some sort of peace with the rats, a task made harder by the presence of Dr. Wallace, the scientist who initially experimented on the rats to augment their intelligence. Unwilling to compromise, the rats intend to destroy humanity and take over the world. Wallace, who was declared dead when his entire research project lost communication with the outside world in the 1960s, feels it’s his duty to deal with the threat, regardless of the cost, even after discovering that one member of the expedition into the tunnels is the daughter he left behind.

Order this CDwritten by Tony Lee
directed by Ken Bentley
music by Andy Hardwick

Cast: Peter Davison (The Doctor), Janet Fielding (Tegan Jovanka), Mark Strickson (Turlough), Sarah Sutton (Nyssa), John Banks (Clifford Andrews), Alison Thea-Skot (Sally Lucas), Terry Molloy (Dr. Wallace), David Seymour (Kevin), Andrew Dickens (Matthew / Major Harris), Charlie Norfolk (Caitlin Jones)

Timeline: for the Doctor, Tegan and Turlough: between Enlightenment and The King’s Demons; for Nyssa: 50 years after Terminus. This story takes place after Heroes Of Sontar and before Rat Trap.

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
7th Doctor Doctor Who Lost Stories The Audio Dramas

Animal

Doctor Who: AnimalIntrigued by the robot guardians employed by the Metatraxi and built at Margrave University, the Doctor and friends follow the trail to that university in the year 2001. Brigadier Winifred Bambera and UNIT are already on the scene, conducting an investigation that they’re more than happy to recruit the Doctor’s companions for. Undercover as new students, Ace and Raine both meet Scobie, a brilliant science student whose fight-the-power mentality stretches from an elaborate scheme to free the school’s lab animals, to contacting an alien race and inviting them to Earth to share their enlightened mentality with humanity. One thing Scobie hasn’t counted on is that these beings see Earth as a ready-made feeding ground full of docile creatures. Fortunately, UNIT and its former scientific advisor are on hand to alter that perception.

Order this CDwritten by Andrew Cartmel
directed by Ken Bentley
music by Simon Robinson

Cast: Sylvester McCoy (The Doctor), Sophie Aldred (Ace), Beth Chalmers (Raine Creevy), Angela Bruce (Brigadier Winifred Bambera), John Banks (Henrick / Metatraxi), Anthony Lewis (Scobie), Dannielle Brent (Willa), Alex Mallinson (Percy), Amy Pemberton (Juno)

Timeline: after Crime Of The Century and before Earth Aid

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
4th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

The Oseidon Adventure

Doctor Who: The Oseidon AdventureThe Master’s allies are revealed to be the Kraal Second Army (their First Army having already been defeated by the Doctor), preparing for a second invasion of Earth at the evil Time Lord’s invitation. The Doctor tells Leela to run for her life, and the Master orders Singleton to pursue her, a task relished by the man who feels that he civilized a corner of Africa. The Doctor is handed over to the Kraals, but they turn the tables on the Master, not trusting his motives. And with good reason: the Master is merely using the Kraals for his own purpose – and now the Doctor and Leela have to escape their enemies and discover what that purpose is.

Order this CDwritten by Alan Barnes
directed by Ken Bentley
music by Andy Hardwick

Cast: Tom Baker (The Doctor), Louise Jameson (Leela), Geoffrey Beevers (The Master), Michael Cochrane (Colonel Spindleton), Dan Starkey (Marshal Grimnal / Captain Clarke), John Banks (Tyngworg / Warner / UNIT R/T Operator)

Timeline: after The Talons Of Weng-Chiang; after Trail Of The White Worm and before Night Of The Stormcrow

Notes: The Doctor confirms that his most recent encounter with the Master before now was on Gallifrey (see The Deadly Assassin). The Kraals’ only televised appearance took place in 1976’s The Android Invasion, Terry Nation’s last non-Dalek script for Doctor Who, which also identified their radiation-soaked home planet as Oseidon. Guest star Dan Starkey has appeared in both Doctor Who and The Sarah Jane Adventures as various Sontarans and other diminutive aliens.

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
5th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

The Butcher Of Brisbane

Doctor WhoOnce again, the Doctor is trying to take Tegan to Brisbane, but not to leave the TARDIS; this time she wants to show off her home town to her friends. But interference in the time vortex nearly tears the TARDIS apart; the time machine is thrown off course, and Turlough and Nyssa vanish completely. The Doctor tries to follow them through time, but instead arrives in 51st century Brisbane. Tegan is horrified to see that Earth has become polluted, and the Doctor immediately suspects that the TARDIS has been thrown off-course by the time experiments conducted by Magnus Greel, a time-traveling serial killer he dealt with in his fourth incarnation. Nyssa and Turlough end up spending three years as part of the resistance trying to expose Greel’s corruption before they see the Doctor again, while Tegan and the Doctor arrive in time to see Greel at the height of his corruption and madness. They’re horrified to see that Nyssa is now posing as Greel’s fiancee (and Turlough as her personal assistant), and that Greel’s scientific advisor, an alien named Findecker, is continuing experiments with time travel that permanently disfigure the user and force him to drain life energy from others. At every turn, someone wants the Doctor to make sure Greel dies for his crimes – but the Doctor, knowing that Greel will die in another place and time, can’t keep that promise and can’t explain why.

Order this CDwritten by Marc Platt
directed by Ken Bentley
music by Fool Circle Productions

Cast: Peter Davison (The Doctor), Janet Fielding (Tegan Jovanka), Mark Strickson (Turlough), Sarah Sutton (Nyssa), Angus Wright (Magnus Greel), Rupert Frazer (Dr. Sa Yy Findecker), Felicity Duncan (Ingrid Bjarnsdottir), Daniel Weyman (Ragan Crezzen), Daisy Ashford (Sasha Dialfa), John Banks (Eugene Duplessis / Chops)

Notes: The Doctor claims to be a Time Agent (The Talons Of Weng-Chiang, The Empty Child) to conceal his true identity. Findecker was established in – of all things – a Brief Encounters short story by Warren Ellis in a 1991 issue of Doctor Who Magazine; that story did not mention Findecker’s species or origins, only his surname, leaving Butcher Of Brisbane writer Marc Platt plenty of room to create a character. At the end of the story, Greel uses his time cabinet to escape (with Mr. Sin in tow), and his next stop is foggy Victorian London, where he will once again meet the Doctor (this time in his fourth incarnation, who has yet to experience this adventure), this time working with the formidable team of Jago & Litefoot, in The Talons Of Weng-Chiang.

Timeline: for the Doctor, Tegan and Turlough: between Enlightenment and The King’s Demons; for Nyssa: 50 years after Terminus. This story takes place after The Jupiter Conjunction and before Eldrad Must Die!.

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
Audio Series Star Cops

One Of Our Cops Is Missing

Star CopsNathan Spring, commander of the International Space Police Force (known more informally as the Star Cops), is dragged into a new case by his old Earthbound colleague, Brian Lincoln. One of Lincoln’s best undercover cops has infiltrated a presumed drug operation being run by the Collier brothers – and has now gone completely silent, breaking off all contact. The case involves Spring because all signs point toward the Colliers trying to launch the illegal narcotics trade into space, which is a dangerous enough place even with a clear head. Meanwhile, Colin Devis investigates a series of suspicious spacesuit malfunctions on a space station operated by the government of India, but initially blows them off as routine malfunctions…until he himself nearly becomes the next victim. When Spring and Lincoln perform a surprise spot inspection of cargo about to be launched by the company the Colliers are using as a front, they’re run off the road and held hostage. Lincoln is horrified when he is interrogated at gunpoint by Paul Bailey…the undercover agent who broke contact.

written by Andrew Smith
directed by Helen Goldwyn
music by Howard Carter

Cast: David Calder (Nathan Spring), Trevor Cooper (Colin Devis), Linda Newton (Pal Kenzy), Philip Olivier (Paul Bailey), Rakhee Thakrar (Priya Basu), George Asprey (Alby Royle / Steven Moore), Delroy Atkinson (Charles Hardin). Ewan Bailey (Martin Collyer), Nimmy March (Shayla Moss), Andy Secombe (Brian Lincoln)

Notes: This is the first story in a four-story box set continuing the much-lauded but short-lived 1987 BBC2 sci-fi series Star Cops. Original cast members David Calder, Linda Newton, and Trevor Cooper reprise their roles from the original series, as does guest star Andrew Secombe, who played Lincoln in the TV series pilot. (Original TV series regular Erick Ray Evans died in 1999.) The original series’ life was cut short due to an ongoing feud between series creator Chris Boucher and producer Evgeny Gridneff; neither of them is involved with the Big Finish audio series. Also absent is the much-derided original theme song written and sung by Justin Hayward, replaced by an original (and entirely instrumental) composition for the audio series.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Audio Series Star Cops

Tranquility And Other Illusions

Star CopsSpring’s assistance in dealing with the media is not so much requested by new Moonbase administrator Shayla Mass as it is demanded, leaving Priya Basu – the newly promoted Chief Superintendent of the Star Cops – to head up a murder investigation at the moon’s Outpost 19 construction site on her own. A somewhat sketchy property developer, trying to lure small-time investors aboard his scheme to build a hotel near the landing site of Apollo 11, has turned up dead in the Sea of Tranquility, shot in the face with a rivet gun from Outpost 19; the woman who was with him (who is the most likely suspect) has vanished without a trace. Priya sets Devis and Paul to the task of interviewing the construction workers stationed at Outpost 19, primarily to prevent Devis from making an ass of himself in front of Outpost 19’s administrator again. But this “busy work” actually turns up actionable clues, and Devis realizes only too late that a personal connection to the case is about to put his life in jeopardy. And much to Priya’s annoyance, Spring can’t stay away from the investigation…though what he’s really trying to stay away from is the press.

written by Ian Potter
directed by Helen Goldwyn
music by Howard Carter

Cast: David Calder (Nathan Spring), Trevor Cooper (Colin Devis), Linda Newton (Pal Kenzy), Philip Olivier (Paul Bailey), Rakhee Thakrar (Priya Basu), Zora Bishop (Armina Hamid), Nimmy March (Shayla Moss), Tim Scragg (Ashton / Hughes), Mandi Symonds (Caroline)

LogBook entry by Earl Green