Tag: Hex

The Doctor is missing from the TARDIS, which is particularly alarming since the TARDIS is in flight. While Hex takes what seems like the most reasonable course of action – panic – Ace tries to land the TARDIS, bringing the timeship down in England in 1989. Oddly, the TARDIS’ police box exterior has turned white, and Hex and Ace find a couple preparing their cottage for the unthinkable: the world is on the brink of nuclear war, and the government has sent out pamphlets describing how its citizens can build and stock their own fallout shelters within their homes. Ace and Hex discover that history is following a different course than the 1989 they remember, but when they try to go back to the TARDIS and leave, they discover that it has dematerialized on its own, leaving them trapped. Ace decides to “borrow” the couple’s car to drive to London to contact UNIT to help her reach the Doctor, but she’s caught red-handed… just as sirens signal the beginning of World War III. An uneasy alliance becomes a necessity, especially when Hex is blinded by the blast of the bomb, but survival becomes a luxury – one that won’t be afforded to all four of them… unless, of course, they do things differently the next time.

written by Jonathan Morris
directed by Ken Bentley
music by Wilfredo Acosta

Cast: Sylvester McCoy (The Doctor), Sophie Aldred (Ace), Philip Olivier (Hex), Ian Hogg (Albert), Elizabeth Bennett (Peggy), Peter Egan (Moloch / Announcer)

Notes: The radio announcements that recur throughout the story are based on real radio scripts and pamphlets that were prepared by the British government as part of the real “Protect & Survive” public information campaign to be deployed ahead of an imminent nuclear attack on British soil. The pamphlets mentioned were actually designed and printed, but not distributed until their existence was revealed by the newspapers, and public outcry forced disclosure of the campaign in 1980. This story shares that title with the first episode of Gerry Anderson’s Space Precinct (a space police series which played on the phrase’s similarity to “protect and serve”).

Timeline: after Lurkers At Sunlight’s Edge and before Black And White; possibly simultaneous with House Of Blue Fire

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

No sooner have Ace and Hex found refuge in the black TARDIS then they realize they’re not alone inside it: Captain Lysandra Aristedes, formerly of the Forge, seems to be in control, along with Private Sally Morgan, a soldier the Doctor once rescued from the Bluefire Project. Aristedes and Morgan claim to have been traveling with the Doctor for some time, hunting down and fighting the same kind of elder gods from which Ace and Hex have only just escaped. The black TARDIS then materializes within the white TARDIS, but neither pair of the Doctor’s companions trusts the other enough to let them take off with a working TARDIS. Aristedes allows Ace to accompany her, while Morgan is assigned to go with Hex. Each TARDIS, black and white, arrives several years apart on seventh century Earth; Ace and Aristedes meet a brash future warrior king named Beowulf, while Hex and Morgan meet Beowulf at the end of his reign (and his life). An alien arms dealer named Garundel is also on Earth in this time period, peddling wares beyond human understanding. With teams from the TARDIS at the beginning and end of his rule, King Beowulf’s life could become a tale beyond belief…

written by Matt Fitton
directed by Ken Bentley
music by Jamie Robertson

Cast: Sylvester McCoy (The Doctor), Sophie Aldred (Ace), Philip Olivier (Hex), Maggie O’Neill (Lysandra Aristedes), Amy Pemberton (Sally Morgan), Stuart Milligan (Garundel), Michael Rouse (Young Beowulf), Richard Bremmer (Old Beowulf), John Banks (Weohstan), James Hayward (Wiglaf)

Notes: The white TARDIS first appeared in The Angel Of Scutari, while the black TARDIS first appeared in Robophobia. Garundel recovers from this story and encounters the seventh Doctor much later in Starlight Robbery (2013).

Timeline: after Protect And Survive and before Gods And Monsters

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Traumatized by Hex’s selfless sacrifice of his own life, Ace is boiling over with rage and grief. She cripples the TARDIS until the Doctor agrees to treat Hex’s death as a tragedy on a human scale, complete with a memorial for the one remaining member of Hex’s family. The Doctor can barely face Hex’s grandmother with the news, and even then he isn’t able to divulge what truly happened to Hex. Ace saves a woman from what seems like a mugging, only to discover that a gang war is overrunning Hex’s home town, and that war is being fought with seemingly supernatural weapons far beyond human technology. She also discovers that the other major rival in this gang war is a man who is, at the very least, Hex’s identical twin: Hector Thomas. At Hex’s memorial, the Doctor is relieved to see Sally Morgan in attendance, and she briefs him on the unnatural warfare threatening to consume the city. As the Doctor steps into the fray, he discovers that he is once again playing games against gods…and the stakes are an old friend’s soul.

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

Cast: Sylvester McCoy (The Doctor), Sophie Aldred (Ace), Philip Olivier (Hex), Amy Pemberton (Sally Morgan), Jean Boht (Hilda Schofield), Mandi Symonds (Lily Finnegan), Jonathan Forbes (Barry Finnegan), Andrew Dickens (D.I. Derek Mortimer)

Notes: Hex died at the end of Gods And Monsters (2012) saving his friends aboard the TARDIS, though that story’s post-end-credits “coda” made it clear that Hex still existed in some (possibly spiritual) form. Private Sally Morgan was introduced in House Of Blue Fire, returning in Black And White and Gods And Monsters; she also appeared in the Companion Chronicles story Project: Nirvana. Hex’s mother, Cassie, encountered the sixth Doctor twice (Project: Twilight, Project: Lazarus).

Timeline: after Gods And Monsters and before Revenge Of The Swarm

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green