Smoke and Mirrors (audio story): Difference between revisions

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Mister Mavity

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 {{title dab away}}
 {{real world}}
-{{Infobox Story
+{{Infobox Story SMW
 |image           = Smokeandmirrors cover large.jpg
 |range           = Destiny of the Doctor
@@ Line 11: / Line 11: @@
 |enemy           = {{Ainley|c}}
 |setting         = [[England]], late [[1920s]]
-|writer          = [[Steve Lyons]]
+|writer          = Steve Lyons
 |director        = [[John Ainsworth]]
 |producer        = [[John Ainsworth]]
@@ Line 17: / Line 17: @@
 |music           = [[Steve Foxon]]
 |sound           = [[Steve Foxon]]
+|cover           = [[Paul Hocking]]
 |publisher       = Big Finish Productions
 |publisher2      = AudioGO
-|release date    = {{il|[[1 May (releases)|1 May]] 2013 (download)|[[2 May (releases)|2 May]] 2013 (CD)}}
+|release date    = 1 May 2013 (download) , 2 May 2013 (CD)
 |format          = 1 CD<br/>Download<br/>5th of 11 stories
 |production code =
@@ Line 40: / Line 41: @@
 Instead of travelling to [[Heathrow Airport|Heathrow]], [[Fifth Doctor|the Doctor]] follows a [[psionic beam]] to an [[England|English]] [[funfair]] in the late [[1920s]] and introduces [[Adric]], [[Nyssa]] and [[Tegan Jovanka|Tegan]] to [[Harry Houdini]], who wants his help to debunk the inexplicable abilities of a [[medium]]. The Doctor has his [[companion]]s stand guard whilst he and Houdini inspect the medium's booth and find her [[crystal ball]], which is actually an [[Ovid Sphere]] capable of reflecting [[thought]]s and [[memory|memories]]. He uses the sphere and is told by the [[Eleventh Doctor]] that he has to return it to the Ovids.
-The three companions accidentally wander into the [[menagerie]] and are confronted with a [[tiger]] which Adric runs from in the hope of buying time for Nyssa and Tegan to escape, but they are chased by a [[leopard]]. Adric is saved by [[hypnosis|hypnotised]] fairground workers and taken by them to a [[theatre]]. Meanwhile, Nyssa also has an odd encounter, with a man wearing the face of her lost father: The Master. He takes hypnotic control of her, and forces her to abduct Tegan and bring her to the theatre as well.
+The three companions accidentally wander into the [[menagerie]] and are confronted with a [[tiger]] which Adric runs from in the hope of buying time for Nyssa and Tegan to escape, but they are chased by a [[leopard]] and separated. Nyssa encounters a [[ghost]]ly [[Tremas Master|Master]] in a [[theatre]] and calls out for the Doctor before she is [[hypnosis|hypnotised]] to capture Tegan, whom she finds shortly after Adric is captured by the hypnotised fairground workers and performers. Having heard Nyssa's call, the Doctor goes after her, but Houdini hits him over the head and pushes him off of the [[pier]] in a [[crate]], having been told by the Master that the Doctor is untrustworthy and has been keeping important information about his life and death from him.
-The Doctor and Houdini hurry toward the theatre; but Houdini attacks him and takes him captive. He places the Doctor inside a crate that is intended to be used in his famous underwater escape trick, and tells him that he has met an old friend of the Doctor, who revealed to him that the Doctor has manipulated him and withheld information. It's all a lie, of course; and the Doctor recognises the source as the Master. Nevertheless, in an effort to persuade the Doctor to tell him more, Houdini pushes the crate into the water... and watches as the Doctor fails to escape.
+Nyssa is pained when Tegan makes her think about what the Master did to [[Tremas|her father]], as are the fairground workers, and Adric realises that the Master is an illusion. Tegan smashes a [[lamp]] beneath the stage which is focused onto a [[mirror]] and the Master loses his grip on Adric before ordering his slaves to kill the two of them, but Nyssa breaks free from her control and saves them. They are joined by the Doctor and Houdini, who despaired at how the Master got him to try to kill his old friend and helped him get back onto land.
-On the theatre's stage, Adric is seized by the Master, but he cannot see him. In the struggle, he sees a mirror propped up on the stage, and realises that the Master is visible in the mirror, and their reflections are struggling. It defies science, but there's little time to think about it, as he struggles to break free. Tegan intervenes, and sees the situation, and starts to throw a chair to break the mirror; Adric shouts at her to stop, not knowing what effect it may have on him. Instead, she throws the chair at the spotlight that is trained on the mirror, creating the reflections; it breaks, and the Master vanishes.
+The Doctor recovers the Ovid Sphere and deduces that the Master has used another one to project himself to Earth from [[Castrovalva|a collapsing dimension]], but he remembers what the Eleventh Doctor said about destroying it and instead, with Tegan's help, soothes the energy with calming thoughts. The hypnotised workers lose their memory and Houdini easily persuades them that they were test subjects in a new act of his. The Doctor tells Houdini that he knew about his intentions all along and escaped from the crate using his methods and returns to the TARDIS with the Ovid Sphere, which he plans to return to the [[Ovid (species)|Ovids]] in a future [[incarnation]].
-All is not saved, though. Enraged, the Master starts to use the Ovid sphere to release massive amounts of electricity through the fairground, setting things on fire and destroying buildings. Houdini catches up with the companions as they try to escape, but they are cut off. Suddenly the Doctor returns, and reveals that he picked Harry's pockets for his lockpicking kit, using that—and his Time Lord ability to bypass respiration—to escape the trap. He had suspected Harry was not himself all along. They make their way back to the fortune teller's booth, the Doctor explaining that the Master was never corporeally there at all; he seems to be still trapped in the collapsing dimension where they last saw him. Instead he was using the sphere to exert his will remotely, and even project himself. He locates the sphere, and is tempted to destroy it—just as promised—but instead, he makes contact with it to try to soothe it and end the energy discharge. It isn't enough, however, and Tegan joins the link, adding her own thoughts to bring the crisis to an end.
-As the smoke clears, the fairground workers awaken from their trance, having no memory of the last twelve hours. Houdini convinces them they have been unwitting participants in an experimental new act, which seems to satisfy them. He again attempts to persuade the Doctor to let him see inside the TARDIS, but is gently rebuffed, and admits that it's better to make his future than to know it. As the Doctor and companions leave, Tegan again asks to be taken to Heathrow, but the Doctor tells her they must first make a stop: to return the sphere to the Ovids.
 == Cast ==
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 * [[Harry Houdini]] - [[Tim Beckmann]]
-== References ==
+== Worldbuilding ==
 * Nyssa and Adric consider the fairground carousel to be rather frivolous and silly.
 * [[Harry Houdini]] has met the Doctor on several previous occasions and is aware of [[regeneration]]. As he once met [[Jo Grant]], one of these encounters took place during his [[Third Doctor|third incarnation]]. He learned of the existence of the [[Bay City Rollers]] from Jo.
-* The [[Ovid (species)|Ovid]]s are beings of pure thought who travel from world to world in crystal spheres. Four of them became trapped in [[New York City]] in the [[1890s]]. They can give form to dreams and nightmares. Houdini helped the [[First Doctor]], [[Ben Jackson]] and [[Polly Wright]] free the Ovids.
+* The [[Ovid (species)|Ovids]] are beings of pure thought who travel from world to world in crystal spheres. Four of them became trapped in [[New York City]] in the [[1890s]]. They can give form to dreams and nightmares. Houdini helped the [[First Doctor]], [[Ben Jackson]] and [[Polly Wright]] free the Ovids.
 * There were no [[zoo]]s on [[Traken]].
 * There is a [[tiger]] and a [[leopard]] in the fairground menagerie.
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 {{Tremas Master stories}}
 {{TitleSort}}
 [[Category:Destiny of the Doctor audio stories]]
 [[Category:Fifth Doctor audio stories]]