Search Results for: Nicholas Briggs

The Time Of The Doctor

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Doctor WhoThe Doctor is confronted with a mystery: a powerful signal is emanating from a backwater planet, defying any attempt to translate or decipher it, and luring ships from nearly every spacefaring race to that world. Having salvaged the severed head of a Cyberman to harness its processing power, the Doctor attaches a piece of Gallifreyan communications technology to the head, presumably capable of translating any language, much like the TARDIS herself, and “Handles” promptly identifies the planet from which the signal is transmitting as Gallifrey, though it bears no resemblance to the Doctor’s home planet. The Doctor and Clara are invited to board the first ship to have arrived here, the Papal Mainframe of the Church. The head of the Church, Tasha Lem, reveals the true name of the mystery planet: Trenzalore. The Papal Mainframe is protecting Trenzalore with a force field, but all hell will break loose the moment that the other ships realize that not only has someone been granted access to the planet, but that someone happens to be the Doctor. Upon first setting foot on Trenzalore, the Doctor and Clara find that others lie in wait, including Weeping Angels. They narrowly escape, and this time the Doctor insists on visiting Trenzalore on his terms, using the TARDIS instead of Tasha Lem’s teleport. The signal emanates from a large crack in the wall of a church tower on Trenzalore, shaped like the crack that the Doctor witnessed numerous times during his early travels with Amy and Rory. The signal is in the Gallifreyan language, repeating one question over and over: “Doctor who?” – the question that the Doctor has been warned must never be answered. Soon, the occupants of the many ships orbiting Trenzalore lose their patience, and try to invade the planet, only to find that the Doctor has given up his travels in space and time to defend it. Daleks, Cybermen, Sontarans, Weeping Angels and others attempt to land on Trenzalore, and are either driven back into space or destroyed.

Involuntarily returned to Earth by the TARDIS, Clara tries to resume her day-to-day life, only to be visited by Tasha Lem, piloting the Doctor’s timeship. She wants Clara to return to Trenzalore. Hundreds of years after he last saw her, the Doctor is dying of old age, able to regenerate no more. Tasha Lem wants Clara to visit him because the Doctor shouldn’t have to die alone.

But yet another force in the universe seems to believe that the Doctor shouldn’t have to die at all.

Order the DVDwritten by Steven Moffat
directed by Jamie Payne
music by Murray Gold

Cast: Matt Smith (The Doctor), Jenna-Louise Coleman (Clara), Orla Brady (Tasha Lem), James Buller (Dad), Elizabeth Rider (Linda), Sheila Reid (Gran), Doctor WhoMark Anthony Brighton (Colonel Albero), Rob Jarvis (Abramal), Tessa Peake-Jones (Marta), Jack Hollington (Barnable), Sonita Henry (Colonel Meme), Kayvan Novak (voice of Handles), Tom Gibbons (Young Man), Ken Bones (Voice), Aidan Cook (Cyberman), Nicholas Briggs (Dalek/Cyberman voices), Barnaby Edwards (Dalek 1), Nicholas Pegg (Dalek 2), Ross Mullan (Silent), Dan Starkey (Sontaran), Karen Madison (Weeping Angel), Karen Gillan (Amy Pond), Peter Capaldi (The Doctor)

Notes: Daleks, Cybermen (including a unique Cyberman made of wood, echoing the King and Queen from The Doctor, The Widow, And The Wardrobe), Sontarans and Angels are seen to attempt landing on Trenzalore; others, such as the Terileptils (seen in only one story, 1982’s The Visitation), are mentioned by name only. Silurian Ark ships (Dinosaurs On A Spaceship) are also seen besieging Trenzalore. The device the Doctor attaches to “Handles” is indeed a communications device given to the Master by the High Council of Gallifrey before venturing into the Death Zone with orders to rescue the Doctor (The Five Doctors, 1983); the significance Doctor Whoof this reference lies in what happened before the Master was given that device in The Five Doctors: he was offered “a complete new life cycle” of regenerations, something which one may infer has been granted to the Doctor by the end of this story. The Punch & Judy-style puppet show performed on Trenzalore recounts the Doctor’s misadventures with the one-eyed Monoids in The Ark (1965).

The Silence, seen throughout the eleventh Doctor’s era, are part of the Church, and stand with the Doctor to defend Trenzalore; the Silents that pestered the Doctor in seasons past (The Impossible Astronaut, Day Of The Moon, The Wedding Of River Song) were part of a rogue task group led by Madame Kovarian to prevent the Doctor from ever reaching this point; obviously that group was not successful, even when they took great pains to kidnap infant Melody Pond to program her to assassinate the Doctor. The cracks, first glimpsed in The Eleventh Hour (and, in that story, attributed to Prisoner Zero), are apparently the Time Lords attempting to signal their location to the Doctor so he can retrieve Gallifrey and return it to its proper place in reality.

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

Antidote To Oblivion

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Doctor WhoThe TARDIS picks up a distress call from another TARDIS, and the Doctor and Flip follow the signal to 24th century London, a near-wasteland in which it is no longer the capitol city of the UK, but is instead part of a geographical area govened by ConCorp, a corporate entity which runs the once-great nation like a huge company. But ConCorp’s chief benefactor is Sil, a profiteering Mentor who has extended enough loans that he and his species stand to own the entire country if those loans are defaulted upon. The Doctor and Flip learn that ConCorp (at Sil’s urging) is embarking on a genocidal plan to reduce the numbers of the unemployed to whom it must pay benefits: Sil and his chief scientist, Cordelia Crozier, are about to unleash a deadly plague to wipe out most life on Earth. And they’ve duped the Doctor into coming to Earth so they can mine an antidote from his Time Lord immune system… a cure for which they’ll happily charge the plague’s survivors a princely sum.

Order this CDwritten by Philip Martin
directed by Nicholas Briggs
music by Fool Circle Productions

Cast: Colin Baker (The Doctor), Lisa Greenwood (Flip Jackson), Nabil Shaban (Sil), Dawn Murphy (Miss Cordelia), David Dobson (Pan / Lord Mav), Mary-Ann Cafferkey (Cerise), Scott Joseph (Boscoe / Voda / Knight Marshal), Mandy Weston (Kristal / Mistress Na / Velena)

Notes: Cordelia Crozier is the daughter of “young Crozier,” whose mind-transplantation process resulted in the direct intervention of the Time Lords and Peri’s removal from the timeline. The Time Lord Anzor was first mentioned in the scripts of the unmade 1986 television adventure Mission To Magnus, which established his past relationship with the Doctor. Mission To Magnus was novelized in the late ’80s and then recorded as a full-cast adventure in the Lost Stories range in 2009, so Antidote To Oblivion effectively canonizes that story. A disease known as Lasarti’s Wasting is mentioned, which may be a reference to Nyssa’s husband Lasarti (Circular Time, Cobwebs, Prisoners Of Fate).

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

The King Of Sontar

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Doctor WhoThe TARDIS brings the Doctor and Leela to the site of an unlikely sight: Sontarans fighting another Sontaran. But the target of this operation is no ordinary Sontaran. A Sontaran platoon has been sent to kill – and has failed to kill – a seven-foot-tall Sontaran renegade called Strang. Thanks to a mishap with one of the clone warriors’ cloning vats, Strang has received the concentrated DNA of multiple Sontarans, making him almost unstoppable, and he has his eyes set on wiping out Sontar and its race of “inferior” Sontarans. The Doctor believes that the Time Lords have once again deposited him at a critical moment in history to do their dirty work: to stop Strang from making the Sontarans a far more dangerous race. And just as happened on Skaro, the Doctor has grave misgivings about carrying out this assignment… but others feel differently about the matter.

Order this CDwritten by John Dorney
directed by Nicholas Briggs
music by Jamie Robertson

Cast: Tom Baker (The Doctor), Louise Jameson (Leela), Dan Starkey (Strang / Hutchins), David Collings (Rosato), John Banks (Vilhol / Mercenary), David Seddon (Irving / Garn / Tashan / Mercenary 2), Jenny Funnell (Reaver)

Notes: Technically, this is Leela’s first encounter with the Sontarans, pre-dating The Invasion Of Time.

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Revelation

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SurvivorsAn unusually potent winter flu has swept across the British population, leaving classrooms mostly empty and businesses struggling to operate. American attorney Maddie Price finds that she can no longer simply hop on a plane back to Chicago, while reporter Daniel Connor confers with his co-worker and acting editor, Helen, about how best to cover the growing crisis. A low-level government official, Redgrave, confides to Maddie that the spread of the illness is worse – becoming fatal for some – and flights to America (or, for that matter, anywhere else) won’t be resuming anytime soon). Jaded Professor Gillison finds himself giving pre-Christmas-break refresher lectures in sociology to a classroom nearly empty of students. When Helen becomes increasingly sick, Daniel tries to take her home, only to find that her husband and children are dead. Daniel finds every excuse he can to avoid telling her and decides to try to get her to a hospital, but London traffic has come to a standstill; Helen herself dies before Daniel can get her help. Maddie and Redgrave make their way to the airport control tower, now abandoned, to try to get a message out to any other survivors of the plague who may be listening. Similarly, Gillison commandeers the campus radio transmitter to attempt reaching out to others. Daniel, alone, powers up his tape recorder and begins recording events as they unfold.

None of them know if they’ll ever hear another human voice again.

Order this CDwritten by Matt Fitton
directed by Ken Bentley
music by Nicholas Briggs

Cast: John Banks (Daniel Connor), Louise Jameson (Jackie Burchall), Sinead Keenan (Susie Edwards), Caroline Langrishe (Helen Wiseman), Adrian Lukis (James Gillison), Chase Masterson (Maddie Price), Terry Molloy (John Redgrave), Camilla Power (Fiona Bell), Phil Mulryne (Pnil Bailey), San Shella (Sayed)

Notes: Based on Terry Nation’s cult classic mid-1970s series about a plague sweeping through the human population and leaving few survivors, Big Finish’s audio series populates its cast with original characters who bump into the original TV characters as their stories unfold. The technology referenced in dialogue still dates the story to the 1970s. This first installment features none of the original TV characters.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

End Of The Line

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Doctor WhoThe Doctor and his companion, Constance Clarke, arrive at a train station that seems to be in a strange limbo. A train car full of passengers finds nothing amiss with this situation, but when it becomes obvious that something out of the ordinary is happening, their reactions range from the kind of indignation reserved for an everyday traffic delay to something far worse. The Doctor and Constance quickly discover that not everyone aboard the train is what or who they seem to be. Neither is the train station, which serves as a nexus between multiple realities. Someone aboard the train is here to break down the barriers that keep those realities separated, unless the Doctor can stop them.

written by Simon Barnard and Paul Morris
directed by Nicholas Briggs
music by Howard Carter

Cast: Colin Baker (The Doctor), Miranda Raison (Constance Clarke), Anthony Howell (Tim Hope), Chris Finney (Keith Potter), Ony Uhiara (Alice Lloyd), Hamish Clark (Norman), Maggie Service (Hilary Ratchett)

Notes: Maggie Service can be heard in nearly episode of the BBC2 sci-fi sitcom Hyperspace, as the inordinately cheerful voice of the ship’s PA system.

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

The Red House

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Doctor WhoThe Doctor, traveling in the company of Charlotte Pollard, arrives on an island populated by werewolves; there are werewolves in law enforcement and there are werewolf refugees as well. Charley is captured for the local constables and taken to meet “Doctor Pain”, while the Doctor is surrounded by the refugees and begins planning to help them free Charley and themselves. “Doctor Pain” is Dr. Paignton, a scientist seeking a way to permanently reverse the lycanthropy that has taken hold on the island, but she doesn’t believe Charley’s claims to be human. Fortunately, Paignton’s porter is a Time Lord, operating undercover, and he frees Charley from Paignton’s psychic extractor. He warns Charley that the Doctor is embarking on a course of action that could lead to genocide, and sets her free to warn him. As the werewolves take over Dr. Paignton’s facility, a last-ditch failsafe protocol is set into motion: nuclear missiles from the planet’s mainland will “neutralize” all life on the island unless the Doctor can stop them.

written by Alan Barnes
directed by Nicholas Briggs
music by Howard Carter

Cast: Colin Baker (The Doctor), India Fisher (Charlotte Pollard), Michael Jayston (The Valeyard), Ashley McGuire (Sergeant), Andree Bernard (Dr. Paignton / Constable), Rory Keenan (Ugo), Jessie Buckley (Lina), Kieran Hodgson (Arin / Dennis)

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

Stage Fright

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Doctor WhoThe Doctor brings Flip to Victorian London, where he plans to take her to Henry Gordon Jago’s theatre, only to find it closed – and Jago at the pub. Jago can afford a drink, though, because he has a new benefactor – a mysterious producer and self-appointed leading actor who has swept into London with a new show that overpowers its audience with emotion. Professor Charles Litefoot, on the other hand, is glad the Doctor is here to help him solve a string of mysterious murders, all of the victims aspiring actors. The Doctor is alarmed to see that the murder victims are dressed as his past companions, and that the theatrical extravaganza booked in Jago’s theatre consists of re-enactments of his past regenerations. When he discovers that the would-be theatre impresario is named “Mr. Yardvale”, the Doctor is sure he’s walking into a trap…of his own design.

written by Matt Fitton
directed by Nicholas Briggs
music by Howard Carter

Cast: Colin Baker (The Doctor), Lisa Greenwood (Flip), Christopher Benjamin (Henry Jago), Trevor Baxter (George Litefoot), Lisa Bowerman (Ellie Higson), Michael Jayston (The Valeyard), Andree Bernard (Susie/Sylvie), Lizzie Roper (Bella)

Notes: Star Wars is a part of the entertainment landscape in the Doctor Who universe; Flip uses the “Dark Side of the Force” analogy for the explanation of the Valeyard relative to the Doctor, though when she says she loved Jar Jar, even the Doctor finds its difficult to let her off the hook. (Poor Jar Jar.) Jago & Litefoot, stars of their own Big Finish audio spinoff series, are well acquainted with the Doctor in both his fourth and sixth incarnations; they first met the sixth Doctor in Voyage To Venus, continued traveling with him in Voyage To The New World, and encountered him again in the all-star audio saga The Worlds Of Doctor Who.

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

The Last Adventure: The Brink Of Death

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Doctor WhoIn the blink of an eye, the familiar, curly-haired, colorfully-clothed form of the Doctor’s sixth incarnation vanishes, replaced by the gaunt face of the Valeyard. The TARDIS travels onward, and Mel notices nothing.

The Doctor finds himself trapped in the Matrix, the repository of all Time Lord knowledge, as a fading echo of his own consciousness – the fate of all Time Lords when they meet their final death. A young Time Lady, Genesta, has found him in the Matrix and is able to reinstate his corporeal form, but he has very little time until even that is erased. The Valeyard has found a way to do what he hoped to do at the Doctor’s trial: to eliminate the Doctor and his future incarnations, and take the Doctor’s place. The Doctor can prevent this from happening with the time he has left, but only at the cost of bringing about events that will cause his next regeneration.

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

Cast: Colin Baker (The Doctor), Bonnie Langford (Melanie Bush), Michael Jayston (The Valeyard), Liz White (Genesta), Robbie Stevens (Coordinator Storin / Nathemus 1), Susan Earnshaw (Lorelas / Nathemus 2), Sylvester McCoy (The Doctor)

Notes: Past Big Finish adventures have shown the Valeyard to have a near-obsession with rewriting the Doctor’s past, including (also in The Last Adventure box set) Stage Fright and the Doctor Who Unbound story He Jests At Scars… Though billed as the sixth Doctor’s regeneration story for Big Finish’s purposes, there had already been two regeneration stories for the sixth Doctor in print, the BBC Books novel Spiral Scratch, and the posthumously-finished charity novel Time’s Champion, co-written by the late Craig Hinton. All three tell, naturally, completely different stories, and in any case, while this plants an endpoint for the sixth Doctor in the audio world, it’s certainly not an end to Colin Baker playing the Doctor for Big Finish.

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Prisoners Of The Lake

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Doctor WhoUNIT is called in to an underwater archaeological site, where a team of scientists and other experts are investigating surprisingly advanced ancient ruins on a lake bed. But the ruins aren’t why Captain Mike Yates is there; he’s there to look into a number of missing artifacts from those ruins. The director of the project is surprisingly uncooperative, while Mike finds a more receptive ear among the scientists and dive teams. While he’s there, Mike witnesses the discovery of technology among the ruins, a find which he reports immediately to UNIT – and to the Doctor. The Doctor and Jo arrive promptly, and begin taking an active part in the investigation of the “ruins”, which the Doctor theorizes is a crashed spacecraft. The vehicle is guarded by statue-like robots capable of exerting deadly force. The scientists working on the project are now more determined than ever to get past these defenses to discover what’s inside the ship. The Doctor warns that perhaps the robotic guardians aren’t there to fend off scavengers from Earth, but may be there to protect Earth from what’s aboard their ship…

written by Justin Richards
directed by Nicholas Briggs
music by Jamie Robertson

Cast: Tim Treloar (The Doctor / Narrator), Katy Manning (Jo Grant), Richard Franklin (Mike Yates), Carolyn Seymour (Freda Mattingly), Robbie Stevens (Johnny Repford / Director Pennard / Statue / Prosecutor), John Banks (Chief Dastron / Lt. Macintyre / UNIT Operative / Archaeologist)

LogBook entry and review by Earl Green

Vanguard

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UNIT: The WastingKate Stewart of UNIT is invited to a public relations demonstration of a revolutionary low-cost 3-D printer marketed by Devlin FutureTech, which can print fully working electronics as well as simpler items. Devlin has had free printers donated to nearly every government office in the world, and promises to put 3-D printing in the hands of the entire human race. Kate is impressed, but is fairly certain that it’s of little interest to UNIT; she also finds herself hounded by a reporter who seems unusually well-informed about UNIT’s activities (and commanding officers) in the past. Back at UNIT HQ in the Tower of London, Osgood tracks an incoming swarm of objects heading toward Earth, and with Colonel Shindi and Captain Carter, sets out to find any objects that survive the Earth’s atmosphere and hit the ground. Many of the objects arrive intact around the world, and Osgood recognizes them instantly from UNIT’s records: a Nestene energy sphere, signaling a new Auton invasion.

written by Matt Fitton
directed by Ken Bentley
music by Howard Carter

Cast: Jemma Redgrave (Kate Stewart), Ingrid Oliver (Osgood), Warren Brown (Lieutenant Sam Bishop), Ramon Tikaram (Colonel Shindi), James Joyce (Captain Josh Carter), Steve John Shepherd (Simon Devlin), Karina Fernandez (Jenna Gold), Tracy Wiles (Jacqui McGee), Derek Carlyle (Tim Stevens) and Nicholas Briggs (Nestene Consciousness)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Earthfall

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UNIT: The WastingOsgood is sent to the Gobi Desert to work with a UNIT operative, Lt. Sam Bishop, in locating a Nestene sphere of particular interest, a control sphere coordinating the movement of others around it. What they discover is that Autons are already on the scene, led by Devlin’s executive assistant, and the sphere itself is missing. Sam is injured in a firefight and Osgood is taken hostage by the Autons. Sam finds himself in the care of a Bedouin tribe, also in possession of the Nestene control sphere, and sets out to lure the Autons back to him so he can rescue Osgood. Kate pays Devlin, the head of Devlin FutureTech, a personal visit, trying to find out about Devlin’s recent unprecedented investment into the petrochemical and plastic industries, and his company’s overnight transformation from an IT company into the world’s leading maker of 3-D printers. When he reveals that he recovered from a debilitating disease by having his skull replaced with a plastic one, it seems to confirm Kate’s supicions that Devlin is in league with the Autons.

written by Andrew Smith
directed by Ken Bentley
music by Howard Carter

Cast: Jemma Redgrave (Kate Stewart), Ingrid Oliver (Osgood), Warren Brown (Lieutenant Sam Bishop), Ramon Tikaram (Colonel Shindi), James Joyce (Captain Josh Carter), Steve John Shepherd (Simon Devlin), Karina Fernandez (Jenna Gold), Tracy Wiles (Jacqui McGee), Derek Carlyle (Tim Stevens) and Nicholas Briggs (Nestene Consciousness)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

The Innocent

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Doctor WhoCardinal Olistra of the Time Lords receives word that the Doctor has died in the latest battle of the Time War, taking the place of two Time Lord soldiers sent to deploy the Daleks’ own Time Destructor in the path of their advance against Gallifrey. The Doctor felt more qualified – and likely to survive – than the young Time Lords whose place he takes. Indeed, he does survive, escaping (just barely) in his TARDIS, which lands on the planet Cesca, a world seemingly untouched by the Time War. But it’s still a planet at war: the native Cescans are under siege by their enemies, the Tarlians. The Doctor acts quickly to fend off a Tarlian attack, but when he is offered a reward, he asks to be left alone in peace. His request is almost granted; the only person who doesn’t honor it is the girl who first found him when his TARDIS landed there. Fascinated by his tales of travel through time, she wants to join him when he leaves, but the Doctor insists that he doesn’t take on companions anymore. The Doctor also insists that he is a monster, and she doesn’t believe him. But the Time Lords want him back on Gallifrey, fighting for their side – and they are not above doing away with the Doctor’s would-be companion for their own purposes.

written by Nicholas Briggs
directed by Nicholas Briggs
music by Howard Carter

Cast: John Hurt (The War Doctor), Jacqueline Pearce (Cardinal Ollistra), Lucy Briggs-Owen (The Nursemaid), Carolyn Seymour (The Slave). Beth Chalmers (Veklin), Alex Wyndham (Seratrix), Kieran Hodgson (Bennus), Barnaby Edwards (Arverton), Mark McDonnell (Traanus), John Banks (Garv), Nicholas Briggs (Daleks)

Notes: The Dalek Time Destructor was last deployed, to devastating effect, on the planet Kembel in part 12 of The Daleks’ Masterplan (1966); on that occasion, it was activated by the first Doctor’s companion, Sara Kingdom, who paid for it with her life.

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

Departure and Arrival

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The PrisonerAn agent of the British Foreign Office unexpectedly submits his resignation, setting off a panic among his superiors, who discovered that he is planning to flee the country and go to the Bahamas. Armed agents break into his home and abduct him, and when he awakens, he is in the Village, a gaily-colored, self-contained community whose residents seem to know nothing beyond its boundaries. No one seems to know who he is, and no one knows his name. A man identifying himself as Number Two introduces himself, and welcomes the newly-christened “Number Six” to his surveillance and control center, the Green Dome. The tools at his disposal for watching every moment of every life within the Village unfold is mind-boggling, with cameras, mobile phones, ubiquitous and even portable screens, and a kind of interconnected network tying it all together at Number Two’s fingertips. Number Two makes it clear that no one leaves the Village – and Number Six suspects that the penalty for doing so would be fatal. A former intelligence colleague of Number Six, Cobb, is also on the island, and mounts a valiant escape attempt, but he is captured by a deadly security device called Rover and taken to the Village’s hospital; not long afterward, Cobb is reported to have committed suicide, though Number Six immediately suspects something far more sinister. A chance meeting with a woman named Number Nine leads to another escape plan, but is Nine truly an ally and a fellow victim of the Village…or is she a trap?

written by Nicholas Briggs
directed by Nicholas Briggs
music by Jamie Robertson

Cast: Mark Elstob (Number Six), John Standing (Number Two), Celia Imrie (Number Two), Sara Powell (Number Nine), Helen Goldwyn (Village Voice), Sarah Mowat (ZERO-SIX-TWO), Jim Barclay (Control/Old Captain/Cobb), Barnaby Edwards (Number 34/Danvers/Butler)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Your Beautiful Village

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The PrisonerNumber Six awakens to find his quarters in the Village – and indeed the entire Village itself – plunged into darkness. Phones and loudspeakers also seem to be on the fritz, and his attempts to contact Number Nine to check on her well-being are beset by blasts of radio frequency interference, dropped calls, and occasionally an almost unfathomable silence. Occasionally Number Two breaks through and claims that the entire Village is experiencing these problems and they need Number Six’s help. Refusing to give up, Number Six leaves his quarters in pitch blackness and tries to reach Number Nine, but is unable to do so. In addition to the darkness, Number Six finds that his memory of the Village’s layout isn’t as accurate as he thought. Number Two naturally wants to help Number Six reach his goal…and to help Number Six appreciate the beauty of the Village.

written by Nicholas Briggs
directed by Nicholas Briggs
music by Jamie Robertson

Cast: Mark Elstob (Number Six), Michael Cochrane (Number Two), Sara Powell (Number Nine), Helen Goldwyn (Village Voice), Sarah Mowat (ZERO-SIX-TWO)

Notes: Unlike the other three stories in the first Prisoner audio box set, Your Beautiful Village is a story original to Big Finish and not based on a previously filmed episode of the television series. The story deals with sensory deprivation torture, a subject that has been explored in such works as George Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty-Four”.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Technophobia

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Doctor WhoThe Doctor and Donna visit London’s Museum of Modern Technology in 2016, where they find not only the latest in cutting-edge tech, but the staff slowly losing their minds and cowering fearfully from anything electronic or electrical in nature. Aliens stalk the Museum, claiming the minds and lives of anyone who find them there. The time travelers flee into the Underground train system, stumbling across the aliens’ base of operations. These aliens, the Cognoscenti, invade by first devolving the minds of their invasion targets en masse, reducing them to a non-technological civilization incapable of mounting a resistance against a sophisticated enemy. But the Cognoscenti didn’t know the Doctor would be here – and after exposure to their mind-draining weapon, even the Doctor doesn’t know how to save the day.

written by Matt Fitton
directed by Nicholas Briggs
music by Howard Carter

Cast: David Tennant (The Doctor), Catherine Tate (Donna), Niky Wardley (Bex), Rachael Stirling (Jill Meadows), Chook Sibtain (Brian), Rory Keenan (Kevin), Jot Davies (Lukas)

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green