Categories
Doctor Who Doctor Who Unbound

Auld Mortality

Doctor Who Unbound: Auld MortalityOn the planet Gallifrey, oblivious to the coming inauguration of the new President of the High Council, an author known only as the Doctor spends most of his days in an illegal Possibility Generator, researching and reliving events from the history of a primitive world called Earth, upon which his books are based. As his robotic drudge Badger tends to his needs, the Doctor stays in seclusion and fends off the recurring visits of his dreaded great-grand-uncle, Ordinal-General Quences, who has long harbored an ambition of maneuvering the Doctor into the presidency to gain prestige and influence for their family. Another member of the Doctor’s family, claiming to be his great granddaughter Susan, appears, and the Doctor learns that Susan is the new President-elect, and Quences hopes to follow her into a life of prestige. Having dreamt for years of stealing a TARDIS and fleeing Gallifrey with Susan under his wing, the Doctor finally rebels against Quences by overloading the Possibility Generator and flooding the Capitol with its alternate realities. Now, at last, perhaps the Doctor can escape his staid life – or perhaps he won’t. And perhaps Susan will come with him – or perhaps she won’t.

Order this CDwritten by Marc Platt
directed by Nicholas Briggs
music by Alistair Lock
main theme by Ron Grainer, arranged by Alistair Lock

Cast: Geoffrey Bayldon (The Doctor), Carole Ann Ford (Susan), Derren Nesbitt (Ordinal-General Quences), Toby Longworth (Badger), Matthew Brenher (Hannibal), Ian Brooker (Surus), Nicholas Briggs (Gold Usher)

Timeline: before An Unearthly Child?

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
5th Doctor Doctor Who

Omega

Doctor Who: OmegaHaving learned its lessons from time-traveling history tour lines of the past, Jolly Chronolidays opts instead to recreate history for its customers. One of its tours takes travelers on a visit to the Sector of Forgotten Souls, the very spot where the pioneering Time Lord Omega detonated – and then captured in mid-explosion – the star that became the source of Gallifrey’s power. But the unique dimensional instabilities of the sector have unintended side effects – the actor who portrays Omega’s ill-fated assistant Vandikirian goes mad, convinced that the real Omega is trying to kill him, and when he turns up dead it seems he wasn’t entirely mistaken in that fear. The Doctor, who has been along for the tour, is puzzled when his investigation of the man’s death dead-ends without a suspect. He’s even more alarmed when he begins hearing the voice of Omega himself, urging him to help the fallen Time Lord escape from his dimension of anti-matter. But will he be able to help Omega when it begins to look like the Doctor himself committed the murder?

written by Nev Fountain
directed by Gary Russell
music by ERS

Cast: Peter Davison (The Doctor), Ian Collier (Omega), Caroline Munro (Sentia), Patrick Duggan (Professor Ertikus / Luvis), Hugo Myatt (Daland), Conrad Westmaas (Tarpov / Rassilon), Jim Sangster (Zagreus), Faith Kent (Maven), Anita Elias (Glinda), Gary Russell (Medibot / Vidibot / Scintillans / Mugging Machine)

Timeline: immediately after Arc Of Infinity and before Snakedance

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
Doctor Who Doctor Who Unbound

He Jests At Scars…

Doctor Who Unbound: He Jests At Scars...During his trial, the Doctor struggles with the Valeyard and becomes trapped in the Matrix as Melanie watches in horror – and the other Time Lords, including a newly elected Lord President, watch with distant interest and no desire to interfere. Mel insists on trying to rescue the Doctor, but finds no interest from the Time Lords, who plan to watch the unfurling of the Doctor’s history with detached curiosity should the Valeyard win. And indeed the Valeyard does win, but he doesn’t limit himself to the Matrix – and he doesn’t stop with killing the Doctor. The Valeyard interferes with time and destroys Gallifrey itself, and even goes back and kills the fourth Doctor en route to Logopolis. That act begins to unravel the Valeyard’s own history, however – and in trying to go back and restore his past timeline as the Doctor, he may destroy the web of time itself.

Order this CDwritten by Gary Russell
directed by Gary Russell
music by Jim Mortimore

Cast: Michael Jayston (The Valeyard), Bonnie Langford (Mel), Anthony Keetch (Vansell), Juliet Warner (Ellie Martin), Tim Preece (The President), Jane MacFarlane (Nula), Mark Donovan (Gerrof)

Timeline: during/after part 14 of The Trial Of A Time Lord

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
Doctor Who Doctor Who Unbound

Exile

Doctor Who Unbound: ExileTrapped by the Time Lords and tried for the crime of interfering in history, the Doctor is scheduled to be exiled to Earth – but he escapes into his TARDIS and leaves Gallifrey. Not that this really does him much good, as he winds up trapped on Earth anyway. A few incarnations later, the Doctor’s situation has become even more unsettling – he has not only changed bodies, but changed gender as well. Without her TARDIS, the Doctor becomes bored, listless, and – with the help of two friends she makes on a job she takes to eke out a meager existence – perhaps just a little bit alcoholic. Or perhaps a lot – the Doctor begins to see and hear her previous (male) incarnation, warning her of alien invasions and labyrinthine plots against modern-day Earth. When the Time Lords send two agents to track the Doctor down and bring her back to justice (though they don’t know that the Doctor is now a woman), the only thing standing between the Doctor and her doom is an increasing reliance on the bottle. When it comes right down to it, which oblivion will the Doctor choose?

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

Cast: Arabella Weir (The Doctor), Hannah Smith (Cherrie), Jeremy James (Cheese), Toby Longworth (Time Lord #1), David Tennant (Time Lord #2), Graham Duff (Mr. Baggit), Nicholas Briggs (The previous Doctor)

Timeline: after Logopolis – the Doctor’s sacrifice in that episode is said to be a suicide, and a non-fatal suicide attempt triggers not only a regeneration, but a gender change, in Time Lords!

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

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
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

Spirit

Gallifrey: SpiritTired of the constant political backstabbing that seems to be evolving into the more literal variety, Leela tells Romana she wants to leave Gallifrey. Romana agrees, taking her to a secure retreat on the planet Davidia so they can talk over what’s bothering Leela. While they make some headway in understanding each other, the peace on Davidia is shattered by the unexpected arrival of a TARDIS. Its sole occupant is burned beyond recognition, his hands are broken, and he is missing his tongue, and worse yet, when Romana calls Braxiatel on Gallifrey to check on the ID of the TARDIS, the Cardinal learns that the vehicle is still on Gallifrey – this TARDIS comes from the Time Lords’ future. When Romana talks about forcing the man to regenerate, Leela can only see it as more evidence that she’ll never be able to understand the Time Lords. Romana also wants to try to access the man’s thoughts via the Matrix, but given the threat of Pandora, the disembodied voice which promised that Romana would become the Imperiatrix of Gallifrey, Romana is barred from using the Matrix lest Pandora spread throughout Gallifrey’s systems. The retreat may offer an alternative way of viewing the TARDIS pilot’s thoughts, though after seeing those thoughts, Romana and Leela may wish they had let him die.

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

Cast: Lalla Ward (President Romana), Louise Jameson (Leela), Lynda Bellingham (Inquisitor Prime Darkel), Miles Richardson (Cardinal Braxiatel), Sean Carlsen (Coordinator Narvin), Michael Cuckson (Commander Hallan), Heather Tracey (Melyin)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
7th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

Unregenerate!

Doctor Who: Unregenerate!Mel is alarmed when the TARDIS materializes without the Doctor at the controls. After leaving her on Earth briefly to take care of unspecified business, he has vanished without a trace, leaving her a holographic message in the TARDIS instructing her to follow his trail to the Klyst Institute, a grim-looking mental hospital. Rather than risk trying to fly the TARDIS herself, Mel enlists the reluctant help of a rough-and-tumble cabbie who helps her as she breaks into the Institute. There, she finds the Doctor – but his mind is gone, and he speaks in almost nonsensical phrases. Mel and her new friend try to escape with the Doctor, but they find that the Institute is no longer on Earth, having transported itself to an asteroid in an instant. The Institute also seems to be bigger inside than out, and other aliens (and humans) have been captured for horrific mind-transfer experiments. Are Time Lords operating in secret on Earth? And if so, are they renegades like the Doctor…or something darker interference in human history going on with the Time Lords’ full knowledge?

Order this CDwritten by David A. McIntee
directed by John Ainsworth
music by Ian Potter

Cast: Sylvester McCoy (The Doctor), Bonnie Langford (Mel), Jennie Linden (Professor Klyst), Hugh Hemmings (Johannes Rausch), Gail Clayton (Rigan), Jamie Sandford (Louis), John Aston (Louis #2), Sean Peter Jackson (Shokhra), Toby Longworth (The Cabbie)

Timeline: between Time And The Rani and Paradise Towers

Notes: “Lindos” is mentioned here, despite being a term never heard in the original television series. It was a hormone vital to the regeneration process first mentioned in Eric Saward’s novelization of The Twin Dilemma. Jennie Linden’s last appearance in a Doctor Who story was in 1965, when she co-starred as a very different version of Barbara in the Peter Cushing film Doctor Who And The Daleks.

LogBook entry & review 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

Categories
Big Finish Spinoffs Doctor Who Gallifrey The Audio Dramas

Imperiatrix

Gallifrey: ImperiatrxiLeela receives news that Andred has been found murdered in the chambers of the Chancellery Guard. Leela intends to claim the Sevateem right of vengeance, but Romana needs her friend to continue serving as the acting Castellan, not a bloodthirsty killer. That’s only the latest in a series of violent incidents, including a bombing of the Time Lord Academy, targeting the alien students. Inquisitor Darkel, now openly challenging Romana’s presidency, can’t resist suggesting to the Gallifreyan public that if Romana can’t ensure that the presence of aliens at the Academy can’t be maintained without violence, then the aliens should be sent home. Romana sets Leela and K-9 on the trail of the bombers, while also assigning Coordinator Narvin of the Celestial Intervention Agency to investigate. But what Romana doesn’t know is that Narvin is working with Darkel to secure the Inquisitor’s rise to the presidency. Romana continues to consult in secret with the being known as Pandora, but continues to insist that she won’t go down the path that Pandora says in inevitable. Leela’s K-9 finds evidence of another bomb at the Academy just before it explodes; Guard Commander Hallan closes the blast doors before K-9 or many of the alien students can escape. Romana raises Gallifrey’s defensive transduction barriers and puts the planets on a war footing. Darkel calls for a public, and openly broadcasted, debate in the High Council, and Romana agrees…but she has something in mind other than than the orchestrated open debate that Darkel is planning. And naturally, Romana only has the best interests of Gallifrey and the Time Lords at heart…even if that means that the freedom to disagree with her policies is about to become a thing of the past.

Order this CDwritten by Stewart Sheargold
directed by Gary Russell
music by David Darlington

Cast: Lalla Ward (President Romana), Louise Jameson (Leela), John Leeson (K-9), Lynda Bellingham (Candidate Darkel), Sean Carlsen (Coordinator Narvin), Michael Cuckson (Commander Hallan), Robin Sebastian (Commentator Antimon), Jenny Livsey (Student Galadina), Nicholas Briggs (Gold Usher), Daniel Hogarth (Nekkistani Ambassador), Conrad Westmaas (Nekkistani Emperor)

Notes: K-9 has worn the Coronet of Rassilon before, in the 1977 TV adventure The Invasion Of Time; that story also established the transduction barriers surrounding Gallifrey.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
5th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

Circular Time

Doctor Who: Circular TimeSpring: The Doctor and Nyssa, at the behest of the Time Lords, visit a world where bipedal birds are the dominant life form – and a rogue Time Lord has installed himself as their ruler, accelerating their technological progress dramatically. The Doctor knows that causing his fellow Time Lord to regenerate would confuse the locals and break his hold, but it seems that his actions have been anticipated…

Summer: The Doctor and Nyssa are brought before Isaac Newton for heresy, and the time travelers are horrified when Newton guesses their origins with alarming accuracy. The Doctor tries to bluff his way around it, but Newton insists on a look at the Doctor’s time machine. But will the truth set the time travelers free…or alter the course of history for one of Earth’s greatest scientific minds?

Autumn: The Doctor brings the TARDIS to Earth for quite a long stay as he settles in to play a season of cricket with some old friends. For the first time, Nyssa meets someone who makes her think that staying on Earth might not be all bad…if not for the Doctor’s tendency to slip away quietly.

Winter: Long after leaving the Doctor, Nyssa is a wife and a mother, but a disturbed one. She’s recently experienced vivid dreams of her time traveling friend, and asks her husband, the inventor of a machine that facilitates interactive lucid dreaming, for help. But only when she’s able to make the dream more coherent does she realize that somewhere, in time and space, the Doctor is reaching out to his old companions from the brink of death…

Order this CDwritten by Paul Cornell & Mike Maddox
directed by John Ainsworth
music by David Darlington

Cast: Peter Davison (The Doctor), Sarah Sutton (Nyssa)

  • Spring: Jamie Sandford (Hoodeye), Toby Longworth (Redklaw), Lois Baxter (Carrion), Teresa Gallagher (Snowfire), Hugh Fraser (Zero)
  • Summer: Jeremy James (Guard), Sunny Ormonde (Molly), Trevor Littledale (Jailer), David Warner (Sir Isaac Newton)
  • Autumn: Jamie Sandford (Andrew), Toby Longworth (Jack), Jeremy James (Anton), John Benfield (Don)
  • Winter: Jeremy James (Lasarti), Sunny Ormonde (Anima)

Notes: In a rare major continuity blooper for Big Finish, in the “Spring” segment, the Doctor’s fellow Time Lord calls him a “rebel president” – even though this episode’s events precede The Five Doctors, in which the fifth Doctor was drafted into that office, by almost an entire season. Given that the TV series has quietly established that the Doctor’s lives, the lives of other Time Lords and events on Gallifrey seem to exist in their own continuum in which it’s impossible for a Time Lord to visist Gallifrey’s past or future, it seems unlikely that Zero would have had foreknowledge of the Doctor’s Presidency. In the “Summer” segment, the Doctor protests that the TARDIS is not a jade pagoda, a reference to the New Adventures novels, in which a portion of the TARDIS can indeed be split off into a jade pagoda with roughly the same dimensions as a Police Box. The Doctor also quotes the song “I Am The Doctor”, originally recorded by Jon Pertwee and Rupert Hine in the early ’70s.

Timeline: between The Game and Renaissance Of The Daleks (first three segments) and during episode 4 of Caves Of Androzani (last segment)

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green