Home Again, Home Again (audio story)

Home Again, Home Again
Doctor:	First Doctor
Companion(s):	Susan, Ian, Barbara
Main setting:	Coal Hill School, June 1963
Key crew
Publisher:	Big Finish Productions
Writer:	Felicia Barker
Read by:	Stephen Critchlow
Release details
Release number:	43
Release date:	30 June 2020
Format:	Audiobook
Subscriber Short Trips
← Previous	Not Forgotten
Next →	The Beast of Muir

Home Again, Home Again was the forty-third Subscriber Short Trips audio story. Written by Felicia Barker and read by Stephen Critchlow, it featured the First Doctor, Susan Foreman, Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright, and was available to subscribers of Big Finish's main Doctor Who range whose subscription included The Lovecraft Invasion.

Publisher's summary

to be added

Plot

The Doctor finally succeeds in returning Ian and Barbara to Coal Hill in 1963. Unfortunately, having grown fond of the pair, he is reluctant to let them leave his company. An argument erupts, during which the Doctor drives the two teachers and Susan away, leaving him alone in the TARDIS.

It does not go smoothly for Ian and Barbara, however, as, after meeting with Horace Bradshaw, they discover they have returned to June 1963, a number of months before they left their native time period. They consider finding a place to lay low until they can pick up their old lives again, but it proves tricky. Before long, they are swept back into business at Coal Hill School, where their younger selves are wandering about.

It quickly becomes harder and harder for the pair to know which version of themselves is which, and they grow fearful of the consequences of running into themselves. They return to the Doctor once more. The Doctor, having reflected on his earlier behaviour, explains that he has one way to make certain that Ian and Barbara, as well as himself and Susan, can all go home.

Susan, meanwhile, is accosted by Sid Morris, a bully from her time at the school. Searching for her, Ian and Barbara apprehend him, having just met with his mother to discuss his behaviour. The teachers inform Susan that the Doctor has a plan to return them all home, but Susan is horrified by this revelation, knowing what it will mean. She rushes back to the TARDIS to stop the Doctor, before he can assemble his hypercube and contact the Time Lords.

The Doctor berates himself for his controlling selfishness. Not only did he kidnap Ian and Barbara but he also took Susan away from her home without giving her a choice. He believes his plan will give back his companions the ability to live their own lives. Susan disagrees. She sees her home not on Gallifrey but in the TARDIS, with her grandfather.

Ian, Barbara and Susan all choose to stay with the Doctor for the time being. They will be there for as long as it takes for the Doctor to find a way back to their proper time and place. Ian and Barbara know the Doctor is sincere in his pledge to get them home. Thought it may take time, they will still have many adventures along the way.

Characters

• First Doctor
• Susan Foreman
• Ian Chesterton
• Barbara Wright
• Horace Bradshaw
• Sidney Morris
• Mrs Noakes

Worldbuilding

• Susan gets angry when Sid tells her that her parents don't want her.

Notes

• This story was meant to be released with The Lovecraft Invasion, but due to that story being delayed in production, Big Finish Productions released the Short Trip on its own at the end of the month. The Lovecraft Invasion was finally released a month later, on 30 July.
• The title derives from the nursery rhyme, To market, to market.
• In response to another Tweet, Barker jokingly mentioned that Coal Hill School had been painted lime green for the duration of the Home Again, Home Again.
• Susan mentions Gallifrey by name, something which was never done throughout the 1960s. Gallifrey was not named as such until The Time Warrior in 1973, although Home Again, Home Again is far from the first story to apply the use of the name retroactively.

Continuity

• Ian wants to make sure their visit to Coal Hill isn't just a recreation in an alien museum (AUDIO: The Time Museum, COMIC: Hunters of the Burning Stone) or a dream. (PROSE: Nothing at the End of the Lane)
• The Doctor prepares to use a hypercube to contact the Time Lords, but was stopped by Susan. He finally does so in his second incarnation. (TV: The War Games)
  • In a later incarnation, during a post-Time War period where he thought of himself as the last Time Lord, the Doctor would be lured by another hypercube to the entity House, where Time Lords were kidnapped and harvested for their organs to "fix" Auntie and Uncle. Where the Doctor once viewed the hypercubes as a terrifying concept, the Eleventh Doctor saw them as a sign of hope. (TV: The Doctor's Wife)
• Susan implies that the Doctor's decision to take her away from Gallifrey was not her choice. The Doctor says that he was forced to leave, but took Susan along because he could not face leaving alone. (AUDIO: The Beginning)
• Despite the Doctor's warnings of paradoxes, Ian and Barbara find themselves in a similar situation to Rose Tyler, who had attempted to visit the death of her father twice. Where Ian and Barbara managed to avoid a paradox and had heeded the Doctor's warnings, Rose Tyler did not and caused a temporal paradox, which introduced Reapers to cleanse the timeline. (TV: Father's Day)
• Later, the Doctor successfully returns Ian and Barbara to November 1963, but because of further time travel complications, they are forced to depart yet again. (AUDIO: 1963)