Time Reef / A Perfect World
Time Reef: His TARDIS returned to him by Thomas Brewster, the Doctor is suspicious of everything, and it seems with good reason, since the TARDIS is missing vital pieces – one of which holds the timeship’s the internal dimensions in place. The Doctor backtracks to the TARDIS’ most recent destination, a “time reef” isolated in a shrinking pocket universe, where two other ships have become marooned. The missing pieces of the TARDIS are easy to find: Brewster had been selling and bartering items such as the TARDIS’ food machine to both ships’ crews. Hawklike predators from another dimension swarm around the stranded ships – including the Doctor’s now-useless TARDIS – and the Doctor isn’t sure he wants Brewster’s help to try to set things right.
A Perfect World: Brewster slyly talks the Doctor into taking him to another time and place that he visitedv during his unauthorized solo trip in the TARDIS: present-day London… only now the city, the world, and the people who inhabit it are vastly improved. Aside, of course, from the one person Brewster hoped to see again.
Time Reef written by Marc Platt
A Perfect World written by Jonathan Morris
directed by Barnaby Edwards
music by Simon RobinsonCast: Peter Davison (The Doctor), Sarah Sutton (Nyssa), John Pickard (Thomas Brewster), Nicholas Farrell (Gammades / Phil), Beth Chalmers (Vuyoki / Taz), Sean Biggerstaff (The Ruhk), Sean Connolly (Lucor / Trev), Rebecca Callard (Connie)
Timeline: between The Boy Who Time Forgot and Castle Of Fear
LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green
The Doctor, Ace and Hex arrive just in time to see famed archaeologist Howard Carter unearth one of the more interesting Egyptian tombs he would excavate prior to discovering the tomb of Tutankhamun. But what Carter finds here startles the TARDIS crew: evidence that another time traveler may be nearby, altering the course of human history. A distress call then leads the Doctor and his friends to a remote laboratory where Dr. Verryman is trying to crack a genetic code that could lead to the mental improvement of the human race – whether the human race wants it or not. The code turns out to be a mathematical virus which infects the Doctor’s mind: kill and cure could be the same thing. The TARDIS next lands in England on V-E day, where a man from 1945 has procured alien technology allowing him to control others’ minds. The device has attracted the attention of not only the Doctor, but of the Forge as well, and the consequences hit close to home for both Ace and Hex. At a top secret base in Antarctica in 2012, the time travelers arrive just after a murder that should never have happened with the base’s tight security measures…and of course, this means the Doctor and his companions are now the prime suspects.
The TARDIS brings the Doctor and his companion, retired Brigadier Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart, to the ravaged planet Skaro, devastated by centuries of war and left with only one habitable city. The Doctor and Alistair almost immediately run afoul of a Dalek-imposed curfew; they’re only saved by members of the Thal underground resistance that seeks to overthrow their Dalek rulers. The Doctor and Alistair get a crash course in local history: due to the first Doctor’s intervention during his first visit to Skaro, the Thals rose up and effectively drove the Daleks away from Skaro. The Daleks spread into space, but then abruptly returned to Skaro to enslave the Thals anew. Having helped to change Skaro’s history enough to create the present situation, the Doctor feels a responsibility to change the planet’s destiny again. Alistair relishes the chance to lead the resistance fighters in their fight against the Daleks, but in the background, the Doctor notices repeated propaganda broadcasts focusing on a being he has never heard of before: Davros, the creator of the Daleks, attempting to instill a messianic fervor into his creations. But Davros left Skaro long ago, his destination and his mission unknown, and the Doctor is able to use that mystery to turn the Dalek-Thal conflict into a Dalek civil war. When another invading force arrives – this time neither Dalek nor Thal – the Doctor realizes that his actions have played into the hands of another race that wants to rule Skaro.
Lucie has resumed her boring, pre-time-travel life in Blackpool; after all, there’s no way anyone the Doctor could’ve survived his battle with Morbius on Karn. But the Headhunter seems to disagree, strongly enough that she appears at Lucie’s door and shoots her. The Headhunter also has the TARDIS in her possession, and with Lucie aboard, sets the timeship on a course for the planet Orbis – a world where she says the Doctor is very much alive. Lucie finds the Doctor living among the Celtans, a jellyfish-like-race which exists in an uneasy truce with the warlike Molluscari…and she also finds that the Doctor has spent six centuries here and has completely forgotten her. Despite this, Lucie tries to help him save the Celtans from a new Molluscari attack. And in the background, the Headhunter is playing all sides against the middle, regardless of how many lives will be lost as a result.
A strange gathering takes place in a sanitorium in the Swiss Alps in 1926. Among the strangest patients there is a man known only as the Doctor, who seems not to have the slightest idea who he is – and anytime he seems to stray anywhere near finding out the truth, there always seems to be something handy to prevent him from remembering too much: chloroform here, a powerful electric shock there. Other patients go through the motions of playing an endless series of games, and being subjected to similar memory-erasing tactics by the shadowy couple calling the shots from the sanitorium’s attic. These two mysterious people are named Ace and Hex, and they’re keeping the patients – and their Doctor – imprisoned for a reason: to rid the universe of a malevolent presence. But it turns out that the Doctor, even without his memory, doesn’t take kindly to being imprisoned.
The Doctor and Lucie are undercover, having arrived on a drought-stricken future Earth where former music star Alex Marlowe is using his wealth and influence to lead a radical environmentalist movement that has increasingly become associated with violent protests and acts. Lucie has wormed her way into Marlowe’s organization, while the Doctor poses as a member of the World Ecology Bureau for a surprise inspection. What the Doctor discovers at Marlowe’s facility is horrifying: Krynoid seed pods have been acquired and genetically re-engineered. Marlowe is aware of the Krynoid’s killer instincts to consume all nearby life, and hopes that the Doctor will help him continue his experiments to create, among other things, a rainforest that can “fight back.” To ensure the Doctor’s cooperation, Marlowe decides that Lucie should be the next human to “volunteer” to be infected by one of his genetically altered Krynoid seed pods. Unfortunately for Earth, however, Marlowe’s attempts to change the Krynoids becomes a battle against nature that he can’t win.
On the planet Bliss, an isolated human research base is besieged by both the local insect life and by an approaching attack force of Daleks. The TARDIS arrives outside the base, and the Doctor, Ace and Hex demand shelter from the deadly insect swarm. Once inside, the time travelers find that the base’s crew is demoralized and on edge. Something is drawing the Daleks’ attention to this otherwise unremarkable outpost – and the Doctor discovers that it could be something even more horrifyingly destructive than the Daleks themselves. Will he actually join forces with his dreaded enemies to keep it contained?
The Doctor and Lucie arrive in Germany in 1827, just in time to find the wreckage of a coach, its passengers wounded or dead and its horses literally torn to pieces. One of the passengers is dazed, but not actually hurt; this man is introduced as Baron Teufel, obviously a lucky survivor of whatever happened. Naturally, the local constabulary believes that the Doctor and Lucie are the most likely suspects, though the Baron blames the incident on the legendary beast of Orlok, a piece of local folklore. As the Doctor tries to get to the bottom of the attack, which clearly shows signs of a power beyond current human technology, Lucie teams up with a particularly bright philosophy student and does some investigating of her own. The Doctor finds a lab loaded with technology beyond the 19th century, and discovers the Baron is behind it… and the Baron also somehow knows that the Doctor is a Time Lord.
The Doctor and Lucie find themselves in immediate danger when the TARDIS lands aboard a human warship in the distant future; not only does the bedraggled crew find the newcomers supicious, but the ship is under attack by Wirrn. Having encountered them before, the Doctor is able to lend a hand, but it’s too late: the ship is critically damaged, and the time travelers have to don space suits to abandon ship – and hope that the TARDIS will make its way to the planet below with the wreckage of the ship. On the planet, a thriving Wirrn colony awaits its new prey, but the Doctor suspects that there’s more to this conflict than meets the eye. Left on her own with a wounded admiral and a paranoid, trigger-happy soldier, Lucie is about to discover if she’s learned enough from the Doctor to keep herself alive.