Categories
Classic Season 18 Doctor Who

Meglos

Doctor WhoA power crisis in the underground habitat of the planet Tigella revives an age-old debate between science and religion. Tigella’s scientists want to examine their power source, the otherworldly Dodecahedron, more closely to see if it can help to avert the impending crisis that would force the Tigellans back to their planet’s uninhabitable surface. But the planet’s religious faction, led by Lexa, refuses to allow anyone access to the Dodecahedron, which they claim is a sacred relic. Zastor, Tigella’s leader, comes up with an unorthodox compromise: call for the Doctor’s help. But just as the TARDIS responds to the call, another plan is set into motion: Meglos, the last surviving member of the cactus-like Zolpha-Thuran race, has enlisted the aid of Gaztak pirates to take over the physical form of a hapless human. Once Meglos has this ability, he uses it to impersonate the Doctor, go to neighboring Tigella, and steal the Dodecahedron for himself. To ensure that the real Doctor doesn’t interfere with his plan, he traps the TARDIS in a chronic hysteresis – a time loop – from which the Doctor and Romana have to devise an ingenious escape. But by the time the real Time Lords arrive, the damage is done – the Dodecahedron is missing, and the Doctor is arrested for the gravest crime possible on Tigella.

Order the DVDDownload this episodewritten by John Flanagan & Andrew McCulloch
directed by Terence Dudley
music by Peter Howell and Paddy Kingsland

Guest Cast: Edward Underdown (Zastor), Jacqueline Hill (Lexa), Crawford Logan (Deedrix), Colette Gleeson (Caris), Bill Fraser (Grugger), Frederick Treves (Brotadac), Simon Shaw (Tigellan Guard), Christopher Owen (Earthling)

Notes: This marks the only time that a former companion has returned to televised Doctor Who in a completely different role. Jacqueline Hill was one of the three original TARDIS travelers, Barbara Wright, in the earliest seasons of the series. Guest star Bill Fraser made himself infamous by claiming, during the publicity for Meglos, that he only took the part of General Grugger on the condition that he would get to kick K-9 onscreen. Apparently he was such a good adversary for the robot dog that he took on K-9 without the Doctor around to stop him in K-9 & Company.

Original Title: The Last Zolfa-Thuran

Broadcast from September 27 through October 18, 1980

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

Categories
Classic Season 18 Doctor Who

Full Circle

Doctor WhoThe Doctor and Romana are en route back to Gallifrey when something strange happens to the TARDIS. Though it takes time for them to realize it, the TARDIS has fallen through a kind of wormhole into the alternate universe of E-space. Instead of Gallifrey, the Doctor has arrived on Alzarius, a planet whose small humanoid population is threatened by the onset of a deadly mist. During the time of mistfall, legend has it that spiders emerge from the indigenous fruit and deadly creatures appear. A troubled kid named Adric is trapped outside during mistfall, but stumbles into the TARDIS and befriends the Doctor and Romana. The Doctor soon finds that the horrific creatures that roam Alzarius during mistfall are more closely related to the besieged humanoids than either party realizes.

Download this episodewritten by Andrew Smith
directed by Peter Grimwade
music by Paddy Kingsland

Guest Cast: Richard Willis (Varsh), Bernard Padden (Tylos), June Page (Keara), James Bree (Nefred), Alan Rowe (Garif), Leonard Maguire (Draith), George Baker (Login), Tony Calvin (Dexeter), Norman Bacon (Marsh child), Andrew Forbes (Omril), Adrian Gibbs (Rysik), Barney Lawrence, Steve Kelly, Stephen Calcutt, Keith Guest, Graham Cole, James Jackson, Steven Watson (Marshmen)

Broadcast from October 25 through November 15, 1980

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

Categories
Classic Season 18 Doctor Who

State Of Decay

Doctor WhoStill trapped in E-Space, the Doctor, Romana, K-9 and – unbeknownst to them – stowaway Adric arrive on a planet whose nomadic people live in deference to a trio of well-dressed royals – but their rulers are, in fact, vampires who worship an even more powerful vampire known as the Great One. The Doctor knows of the Great One too, recalling passages of ancient Gallifreyan history involving a pitch battle between Rassilon and the vampire race. The Doctor also realizes that the pieces are in place here to defeat the Great One once and for all, but before he can put his desperate plan into action, he may have already lost Adric to the vampires.

Download this episodewritten by Terrance Dicks
directed by Peter Moffatt
music by Paddy Kingsland

Guest Cast: William Lindsay (Zargo), Rachel Davies (Camilla), Emrys James (Aukon), Iain Rattray (Habris), Thane Bettany (Tarak), Arthur Hewlett (Kalmar), Stacy Davies (Veros), Clinton Greyn (Ivo), Rhoda Lewis (Marta), Dead Allen (Karl), Stuart Blake (Zoldaz), Stuart Fell (Roga), Alan Chuntz (Guard)

Original Title: The Wasting

Broadcast from November 22 through December 13, 1980

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

Categories
Classic Season 18 Doctor Who

Warriors’ Gate

Doctor WhoThe TARDIS is boarded in mid-flight – a virtually unthinkable event – by Biroc, a lion-like Tharil who seems to be on the run from something. He brings the TARDIS to the zero point – an intersection between E-space and N-space that could finally get the Doctor back to his home universe. This is also of interest to Rorvik, the captain of a space freighter carrying a load of Tharil slaves. Rorvik’s ship has been stranded here for some time, and his plans for escaping are growing more desperate and impractical. A mysterious and seemingly ancient gateway appears as space at the zero point begins to fall in upon itself. Romana is determined to free the Tharils from slavery, even if it means missing the chance to escape from E-space… but the Doctor learns the oppressed were once the oppressors, and there may be no justice for either party this time.

Download this episodewritten by Stephen Gallagher
directed by Paul Joyce
music by Peter Howell

Guest Cast: Clifford Rose (Rorvik), Kenneth Cope (Packard), David Weston (Biroc), Jeremy Gittins (Lazlo), Freddie Earle (Aldo), Harry Waters (Royce), David Kincaid (Lane), Vincent Pickering (Sagan), Robert Vowles (Gundan)

Broadcast from January 3 through 24, 1981

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

Categories
K-9 Sarah Jane Adventures

K-9 & Company: A Girl’s Best Friend

K-9 & CompanyAfter her Aunt Lavinia leaves for a lecture tour in America much earlier than expected, her niece, Sarah Jane Smith, takes up temporary residence in her house in the quaint village of Moreton Harwood. Sarah finds the locals to be a little bit backward, and one of Lavinia’s recent letters to the editor in the local paper decrying the belief that black magic will help the crops grow – a belief that some of the villagers apparently take quite seriously. Lavinia’s ward, Brendan, also arrives to stay at the house, and Sarah finds a note from Lavinia herself, pointing her in the direction of a large box that has been in Lavinia’s possession for years. The box, which has never been opened, contains a present for Sarah from the Doctor – her very own K-9. Brendan, who’s delighted with computers and technology, makes fast friends with the robotic dog, but that night when Sarah visits one of the neighbors, Brendan finds himself in need of one of K-9’s more unusual abilities when two men break into the house. K-9 stuns one of the men and then pursues the other, but doesn’t catch him. Sarah finds the local police oddly uninterested in the incident, and begins to wonder if there’s something to Lavinia’s witchcraft worries. When Brendan is kidnapped and the police still aren’t interested, her suspicions are even more aroused, and she’ll need K-9’s help to find out how far this small-town conspiracy goes.

Order the DVDwritten by Terence Dudley
directed by John Black
music by Peter Howell / title music by Fiachra Trench & Ian Levine

Cast: Elisabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith), John Leeson (voice of K-9), Bill Fraser (Commander Pollock), Ian Sears (Brendan Richards), Colin Jeavons (George Tracey), Sean Chapman (Peter Tracey), Mary Wimbush (Aunt Lavinia), Linda Polan (Juno Baker), Gillian Martell (Lilly Gregson), Neville Barber (Howard Baker), John Quarmby (Henry Tobias), Nigel Gregory (Sergeant Wilson), Stephen Oxley (PC Carter)

Notes: Though not strictly speaking an actual part of the Sarah Jane Adventures series, K-9 & Company establishes numerous important parts of the series backstory, and perhaps more importantly established plot points which later Doctor Who episodes (The Five Doctors, School Reunion) regarded as official. It was also the first (and, until Torchwood was greenlit, only) official Doctor Who TV spinoff. As is the case with the current slate of Doctor Who spinoffs being produced by the same team responsible for the parent series, K-9 & Company would have been produced by Doctor Who’s then-producer John Nathan-Turner, who admitted that he wasn’t fond of the dog’s deus ex machina antics in Doctor Who, but realized that the massive outcry over K-9’s departure meant that there was an audience. Nathan-Turner later admitted that the biggest failure of K-9 & Company was its opening episode’s theme of black magic and the occult; like The Sarah Jane Adventures, K-9 & Company was envisioned for the younger segment of Doctor Who’s audience, and so the pilot episode’s human sacrifice and pagan ceremonies failed to play well against the Christmas/New Year holidays. (A widespread power outage at the time of broadcast didn’t help ratings either.) Ironically, Sarah did get her own spinoff, with K-9 in the opening episode, premiering 26 years and 4 days after K-9 & Company. (For those wondering: K-9 & Company was to have been the series title, while A Girl’s Best Friend was the name of this particular episode; it’s worth noting that in their book “Doctor Who: The Eighties,” authors David J. Howe, Mark Stammers and Stephen James Walker reveal that only Nathan-Turner was envisaging a full series, something which his superiors at the BBC had not seriously discussed at the time.)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Classic Season 20 Doctor Who

The Five Doctors

Doctor WhoThe Doctor, Tegan and Turlough find themselves in no immediate danger for once, until the Doctor suffers from repeated, severe pain, claiming that his past is being altered in a way that could endanger him in the present. Somewhere on Gallifrey, long-abandoned machinery from the earliest days of the Time Lords is reactivated and its powers are brought to bear on each of the Doctor’s first four incarnations, snatching each of them from their own timeline and depositing them in Gallifrey’s infamous Death Zone, where the tomb of Time Lord founding father Rassilon stands. The fourth Doctor is trapped in the time vortex and never makes it to Gallifrey. As the various personae of the Doctor join forces, along with many companions, they find themselves fighting a variety of old adversaries – and one new antagonist – for the future of Gallifrey itself.

Order the DVDwritten by Terrance Dicks
directed by Peter Moffatt
music by Peter Howell

Guest Cast: Richard Hurndall (The First Doctor), Patrick Troughton (The Second Doctor), Jon Pertwee (The Third Doctor), Janet Fielding (Tegan), Mark Strickson (Turlough), Nicholas Courtney (Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart), Elisabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith), John Leeson (voice of K9), Carole Ann Ford (Susan), Richard Franklin (Mike Yates), Caroline John (Liz Shaw), Frazer Hines (Jamie), Wendy Padbury (Zoe), Anthony Ainley (The Master), Philip Latham (Lord President Borusa), Dinah Sheridan (Chancellor Flavia), Paul Jerricho (Castellan), Richard Mathews (Rassilon), David Savile (Colonel Crichton), Ray Float (Sergeant), Roy Skelton (Dalek voice), John Scott Martin (Dalek), Stephen Meredith (Technician), David Banks (CyberLeader), Mark Hardy (Cyber Lieutenant), William Kenton (Cyber Scout), Stuart Blake (Commander)

Appearing in footage from The Dalek Invasion Of Earth: William Hartnell (The First Doctor)

Appearing in footage from Shada: Tom Baker (The Fourth Doctor), Lalla Ward (Romana)

Broadcast November 23, 1983 (US) / November 25, 1983 (UK)

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

Categories
Classic Series Specials Doctor Who

Dimensions In Time

Doctor WhoThe Doctor and Ace find themselves in London’s East End (instead of their intended destination, the Great Wall of China). Soon they find themselves switching identities, as the Doctor flits from one incarnation to another and his companions constantly change. Behind it all is The Rani, who hopes to trap the Doctor so he can never interfere in her plans again…

written by John Nathan-Turner & David Roden
directed by Stuart McDonald
music by Keff McCulloch

Cast: Jon Pertwee (The Doctor), Tom Baker (The Doctor), Peter Davison (The Doctor), Colin Baker (The Doctor), Sylvester McCoy (The Doctor), Kate O’Mara (The Rani), Sophie Aldred (Ace), Nicola Bryant (Peri), Nicholas Courtney (The Brigadier), Carole Ann Ford (Susan), Richard Franklin (Captain Yates), Louise Jameson (Leela), Caroline John (Liz Shaw), Ross Kemp (Grant Mitchell), Bonnie Langford (Mel), John Leeson (K-9), Steve McFadden (Phil Mitchell), Philip Newman (Kiv), Mike Reid (Frank), Wendy Richard (Pauline Fowler), Elisabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith), Pam St. Clement (Pat Butcher), Nicola Stapleton (Mandy), Sarah Sutton (Nyssa), Gillian Taylforth (Kathy Beale), Deepak Verma (Sanjay), Lalla Ward (Romana II), Deborah Watling (Victoria Waterfield), Adam Woodyatt (Ian Beale)

Broadcast November 26 & 27, 1993

LogBook entry & review by Philip R. Frey

Categories
8th Doctor Doctor Who

Zagreus

Doctor Who: ZagreusImbued with the energy of anti-time and possessed by the power-mad Zagreus, the Doctor wrestles for self-control and terrifies Charley into hiding within the TARDIS. A familiar face appears to Charley as she hides – the Brigadier, or, more precisely, a TARDIS-projected simulation of Lethbridge-Stewart intended to help her. Its method of doing so, however, is unorthodox to put it mildly: Charley must divine the true nature of the increasingly disastrous situation from a series of metaphors, ranging from her own childhood to a visit to Gallifrey’s past to an insane amusement park where animatronic cartoon characters are slaughtering one another. The Doctor, too, hears from some familiar voices in his own past, coaxing him to regain control of his own mind. But all too late, the Doctor realizes that his body and soul are not Zagreus’ only battleground, and the real battle for the fate of the entire universe is only now being joined.

Order this CDwritten by Alan Barnes & Gary Russell
directed by Gary Russell
music by Andy Hardwick

Cast: Peter Davison (Reverend Matthew Townsend), Colin Baker (Lord Tepesh), Sylvester McCoy (Walton Winkle), Paul McGann (Zagreus), India Fisher (Charley Pollard), Lalla Ward (Romana), Louise Jameson (Leela), Don Warrington (Rassilon), Nicholas Courtney (The TARDIS / Brigadier), Anneke Wills (Lady Louisa Pollard), Stephen Perring (Receptionist), Elisabeth Sladen (Miss Lime), Conrad Westmaas (The Cat), Mark Strickson (Captain McDonnell), Sarah Sutton (Miss Foster), Nicola Bryant (Stone / Ouida), Caroline Morris (Mary Elson), Maggie Stables (Great Mother), Bonnie Langford (Cassandra / Goldilocks), Robert Jezek (Recorder), Stephen Fewell (Corporal Heron), Sophie Aldred (Captain Duck), Lisa Bowerman (Sergeant Gazelle), Miles Richardson (Cardinal Braxiatel), John Leeson (K9), Jon Pertwee (The Doctor)

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
8th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

Shada

Doctor WhoThe Doctor lands his TARDIS just outside the office of the President of the Time Lords, and whisks President Romana and her K-9 unit away to Earth to see to unfinished business. At St. Cedd’s College, Cambridge, an elderly Time Lord refugee going by the name of Professor Chronotis has summoned the Doctor to help him return a book, “The Ancient and Worshipful Law of Ancient Gallifrey”, to the Time Lords themsevlves. His plan to have the Doctor do this for him, this preserving his anonymity, has one major snag: Chronotis appears to have accidentally loaned the book out to one of his students, Chris Parsons. Before the Doctor can locate the book, Parsons and his friend Clare Keightly have already figured out that there’s something strange and perhaps even dangerous about the book. And something dangerous is certainly on the trail of the book – a megalomanical criminal named Skagra, using his mind-draining sphere, will stop at nothing to find Chronotis and the book. He hopes to use the book to find the well-hidden Time Lord prison planet, Shada – and once there, he hopes to drain the mind of the Time Lords’ most dangerous criminal, Salyavin, using his knowledge to take over every sentient mind in the universe.

Order this CDwritten by Douglas Adams
adapted for audio by Gary Russell
directed by Nicholas Pegg
music by Russell Stone

Cast: Paul McGann (The Doctor), Lalla Ward (Romana), John Leeson (K-9), James Fox (Professor Chronotis), Andrew Sachs (Skagra), Sean Biggerstaff (Chris Parsons), Susannah Harker (Clare Keightly), Melvyn Hayes (Wilkin), Hannah Gordon (The Ship), Barnaby Edwards (Caldera), Stuart Crossman (Constable), Nicholas Pegg (Think Tank Voice)

Timeline: after Doctor Who and before Storm Warning

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

Categories
Doctor Who Gallifrey

Weapon Of Choice

Gallifrey: Weapon Of ChoiceA powerful coalition of time-traveling races monitors access to history, stopping newly-emergent time travelers and redirecting them to the planet Gryben for “processing” – though that process often strands them there permanently. That logjam of stranded time travelers has given rise to a new movement – Free Time – seeking to force these temporal superpowers to allow free access to the timeways.

Several delegates from the time-traveling powers, including a Time Lord and a Monan (a symbiotic race consisting of noncorporeal intelligences, and human “thralls” whose bodies they inhabit), arrive to investigate what appears to be the emergence of another sophisticated time-traveling race – but one of the delegates turns out to be a member of Free Time, and soon she has her hands on a timeonic fusion device – a weapon of temporal mass destruction banned by the coalition of time-traveling superpowers. Torvald, the Time Lord operative assigned to this delegation, is recalled to his home planet of Gallifrey.

There, President Romana of the Time Lords’ High Council assigns Torvald to go undercover to retrieve the forbidden weapon. To this end, she also assigns Leela – a mere human primitive who stayed behind on Gallifrey years ago to marry another Gallifreyan – to go with him, and to take her loyal robotic dog K9 with her. Romana, too, has a K9 unit, capable of linking with its counterpart through time and space. Leela, Torvald, and Leela’s K9 travel to Gryben to find the Free Time operative and retrieve the weapon – but while there, they discover that other members of the coalition are willing to overstep their bounds to obtain the weapon, even if it means risking war with Gallifrey. And when she tries to defuse the situation at home, Romana meets a challenge from the ambitious Coordinator Narvin – ambitious enough to set her impeachment in motion.

Order this CDwritten by Alan Barnes
directed by Gary Russell
music by David Darlington

Cast: Lalla Ward (President Romana), Louise Jameson (Leela), John Leeson (K9), Miles Richardson (Cardinal Braxiatel), Sean Carlsen (Coordinator Narvin), Andy Coleman (Commander Torvald), Lynda Bellingham (Inquisitor Darkel), Hugo Myatt (Arkadian), Helen Goldwyn (Nepenthe), Daniel Hogarth (Ba’aruk), Stephen Mansfield (Scragbite), Trevor Littledale (Outsider)

Notes: The Gallifrey audio miniseries is a fascinating mixture of elements from televised Doctor Who and professional fiction postdating the original TV series. Leela, Romana and K9 appeared in the original TV series. At the end of her tenure on TV, Romana was left stranded in a dimension called E-Space with the Doctor’s second K9 unit; in the Missing Adventures novels printed by Virgin Publishing, Romana and K9 escaped E-Space, after which she returned to Gallifrey and successfully ran for the Presidency. With that acknowledgement of the novels’ continuity in mind, it’s curious that the Gallifrey audios and their immediate antecedent, the 2003 Doctor Who audio Zagreus establish that Romana and Leela have only just met; the penultimate Virgin New Adventures novel establishes a different first meeting for Romana and Leela. Braxiatel was established in throwaway dialogue in City Of Death (1979), but was later fleshed out in Virgin’s New Adventures novels, including those which postdate Virgin’s loss of the Doctor Who print fiction license, and has also appeared in Big Finish’s Bernice Summerfield audios; Braxiatel was established in print and in audio as the owner of the Braxiatel Collection for which Bernice is a curator. Inquisitor Darkel also appeared in the TV series, presiding over The Trial Of A Time Lord, though she was known only as the Inquisitor during her television appearances.

Timeline: all of the Gallifrey audios take place sometime after the Doctor Who audio Zagreus.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Doctor Who Gallifrey

Square One

Gallifrey: Square OneA summit of the temporal superpowers is scheduled on a secluded artificial planetoid, and Coordinator Narvin is sent by President Romana to represent the Time Lords. Going with him, barely camouflaged, are Leela and K-9. But the out-of-place savage and her robotic dog aren’t there to protect Narvin; Romana has personally charged them with rooting out those responsible for an expected attempt to disrupt the conference. Leela does indeed find danger lurking, but all is not as it seems. Is someone sabotaging the summit to ensure its success?

Order this CDwritten by Stephen Cole
directed by Gary Russell
music by David Darlington

Cast: Lalla Ward (President Romana), Louise Jameson (Leela), John Leeson (K9), Miles Richardson (Cardinal Braxiatel), Sean Carlsen (Coordinator Narvin), Jane Goddard (Liaison Officer Hossak), Lucy Campbell (Baano), Daniel Hogarth (Flinkstab), Daniel Barzotti (V’rell)

Notes: The temporal superpower summit in this story refers back to the disastrous attempt at a similar meeting that was a plot point of the Doctor Who audio adventure The Apocalypse Element.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Doctor Who Gallifrey

The Inquiry

Gallifrey: The InquiryAn inquiry begins regarding the timeonic fusion weapon, President Romana’s unorthodox measures to locate and retrieve it, and her apparent inability to do so – or even, for that matter, to prove that it ever existed. But curiously, the Matrix, the repository of all Gallifreyan knowledge, seems to differ with the established record – a visual document exists of the weapon being created, and even test detonated, by the Time Lords themselves. Cardinal Braxiatel admits that research was carried out, in which he himself participated, but no test of the weapon ever occurred. When Romana digs deeper to find out why the Matrix records conflict with his account, a computer virus is unleashed which Romana’s K9 is barely able to contain – and if he fails, or his batteries run out, that virus will lay waste to Gallifrey’s computer-dependent society. And while she is trying to eavesdrop on Romana’s behalf, Leela discovers how her husband Andred died…and who killed him.

Order this CDwritten by Justin Richards
directed by Gary Russell
music by David Darlington

Cast: Lalla Ward (President Romana), Louise Jameson (Leela), John Leeson (K9), Miles Richardson (Cardinal Braxiatel), Sean Carlsen (Coordinator Narvin), Andy Coleman (Commander Torvald), Lynda Bellingham (Inquisitor Darkel), Daniel Hogarth (Glower), Trevor Littledale (Archivist), Stephen Mansfield (Glower’s Technician)

Notes: This story establishes that the test-firing of the timeonic fusion device was responsible for the destruction of the planet Minyos. Minyos – and a vague backstory about its destruction being caused by the Time Lords – was established in the fourth Doctor story Underworld, which also showed that the Time Lords made reparations to the few surviving Minyans by giving them a variant of Time Lord regeneration ability that made them effectively immortal. That same story also featured Leela, though she seems not to recall the Doctor’s encounter with the survivors of Minyos here.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Doctor Who Gallifrey

A Blind Eye

Gallifrey: A Blind EyeA most curious assortment of travelers boards a train bound from Munich to Switzerland in 1939. Romana and Leela are traveling incognito, but so is swindler and arms dealer Mephistopheles Arkadian, who Romana interrogated during the Gryben crisis. He promises to give her vital information regarding that incident if she and the Time Lords turn the other cheek for only three hours and let him have his way with history. Arkadian’s specific historical interest revolves around a young woman on the train, a Nazi sympathizer named Cecilia Pollard – the sister of Charlotte Pollard, the Doctor’s traveling companion when he was last seen before vanishing into the divergent universe. While Romana uneasily agrees to Arkadian’s terms, she can’t speak for the Time Lords’ Celestial Intervention Agency, and no sooner do Narvin and Torvald appear then things start to go disastrously wrong. Time itself jumps the tracks, creating two parallel timelines – and somehow Leela and Cecilia Pollard have become stranded in the newly created alternate history, along with a Time Lord who has his own murderous intentions. Romana and Narvin are left to wring information out of Arkadian – and hope that Leela can gain enough of an awareness of what’s happened to help them heal the timeline. But Leela is preoccupied with a problem of her own: she has found the man she believes to be responsible for her husband’s death, but at a point in his own timeline before he committed the murder. And if killing him now will prevent that from happening, Leela is prepared to do it – and history be damned.

Order this CDwritten by Alan Barnes
directed by Gary Russell
music by David Darlington

Cast: Lalla Ward (President Romana), Louise Jameson (Leela), John Leeson (K9), Miles Richardson (Cardinal Braxiatel), Sean Carlsen (Coordinator Narvin), Andy Coleman (Commander Torvald), Hugo Myatt (Arkadian), India Fisher (Cecelia Pollard), Susan Engel (Ms. Joy), David Warwick (Erich), Daniel Hogarth (Waiter)

Notes: Guest star Susan Engel has met Romana before – well, sort of. As Vivien Fay, Engel appeared alongside the first Romana, played by Mary Tamm, in the 1978 story The Stones Of Blood. The events and explanations in this story lean heavily upon the Doctor Who audio stories Storm Warning, Neverland and Zagreus. The Doctor has apparently told Leela a great deal about Earth history where Hitler is concerned, as she recognizes the name immediately; she also recounts the history of her tribe, the Sevateem, and their mortal enemies the Tesh, as established on TV in her debut story, The Face Of Evil. The Celestial Intervention Agency, a sly satirical nod toward another secretive group whose acronym is CIA, was established in The Deadly Assassin, as were many other aspects of Time Lord society mentioned throughout the Gallifrey series.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Big Finish Spinoffs Doctor Who Gallifrey The Audio Dramas

Pandora

Gallifrey: PandoraThe body of the mutilated Time Lord from Davidia is returned to Gallifrey in stasis – and in complete secrecy – for further study. Romana and Braxiatel discover that the experiment of opening Gallifrey’s doors to other temporal superpowers may have unintended consequences; one of Braxiatel’s alien students is caught trying to poison Gallifrey’s water supply in the name of the Free Time movement. Complicating matters even more is the fact that he’s caught by Andred, who is still on the run after having broken out of his imprisonment. The question of whether or not Romana will appoint Braxiatel to be the new Chancellor of the High Council is at the heart of Inquisitor Darkel’s latest political power grab, as she plays all sides against the middle and finds her most willing (if unwitting) ally in the naive Castellan Wynter. By preying on his fear that his inexperience will cut his reign short, Darkel convinces him to unleash the Pandora creature, which K-9 had managed to corner in a data partition in the Matrix. But in so doing, Wynter discovers in the most horrible way that the mutilated body from Davidia is himself – but even his attempts to deny Pandora a body and mind to inhabit will prove unsuccessful, as she seeks a victim who now sits in an even higher office.

Order this CDwritten by Justin Richards
directed by Gary Russell
music by David Darlington

Cast: Lalla Ward (President Romana), Louise Jameson (Leela), John Leeson (K-9), Lynda Bellingham (Inquisitor Prime Darkel), Miles Richardson (Cardinal Braxiatel), Sean Carlsen (Coordinator Narvin), Andy Coleman (Commander Torvald), Ian Hallard (Castellan Wynter), Michael Cuckson (Commander Hallan), Barbara Longman (Pandora), Nicholas Briggs (Gold Usher), Lucy Beresford (Student Gillestes), John Ainsworth (Time Lord), Nigel Fairs (Time Lord), Toby Robinson (Time Lord)

Notes: The position of Chancellor hasn’t been held since the days of Chancellor Flavia, who appeared in the The Five Doctors. The position was apparently eliminated after the latter adventure, presumably in whatever change of power unseated the Doctor from the presidency in his absence.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Big Finish Spinoffs Doctor Who Gallifrey The Audio Dramas

Insurgency

Gallifrey: InsurgencyIn the Time Lord Academy, unrest grows as more non-Gallifreyan students are expelled following an attempt by a student with Free Time ties to poison the Time Lords’ water supply. The situation is made worse by Braxiatel’s disappearance from Gallifrey, and many of the students feel they’re being singled out because of their race without any regard to academic performance or actual evidence that they have terrorist ties. In the Academy archives, Romana uses K-9 to consult with what’s left of the entity known as Pandora; with its past and present aspects having found a host in the exiled Braxiatel, what remains of Pandora can only advise Romana vaguely on future matters. Pandora continues to predict that Romana will institute a totalitarian government on Gallifrey, installing herself as the Time Lords’ Imperiatrix during a bloody civil war. And when Inquisitor Darkel, with the cooperation of CIA Coordinator Narvin, makes a brazen grab for the presidency, it begins to look like Pandora’s predictions are inevitable.

Order this CDwritten by Steve Lyons
directed by Gary Russell
music by David Darlington

Cast: Lalla Ward (President Romana), Louise Jameson (Leela), John Leeson (K-9), Lynda Bellingham (Inquisitor Prime Darkel), Sean Carlsen (Coordinator Narvin), Andy Coleman (Commander Torvald), Steven Wickham (Acting Chancellor Valyes), Stuart Piper (Student Neeloc), Gary Bakewell (Student Taylor), Jenny Livsey (Student Galadina), John Dorney (Student B’arech)

LogBook entry by Earl Green