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{{TitleAudioStory}}
{{title dab away}}
{{real world}}{{Infobox Audiobook
{{real world}}
|name=Iterations of I
{{Infobox Story SMW
|image=Iterations of I D1.jpg
|image             = Iterations of i D1.jpg
|image2=Iterations of I D2.jpg
|image2           = Iterations of I D2.jpg
|series=''[[The Fifth Doctor Box Set (audio anthology)|The Fifth Doctor Box Set]]''
|range            = The Fifth Doctor Box Set
|number=2
|number in range  = 2
|doctor=Fifth Doctor
|series            = ''[[The Fifth Doctor Box Set]]''
|companions=[[Adric]], [[Nyssa]], [[Tegan Jovanka|Tegan]]
|number           = 2
|enemy=The [[Imagin Predator]]<br>[[Robert DeValley]]
|doctor           = Fifth Doctor
|setting=[[Fleming's Island]]
|companions       = [[Adric]], [[Nyssa]], [[Tegan Jovanka|Tegan]]
|writer=[[John Dorney]]
|enemy             = [[i Predator|''i'' predator]]
|director=[[Ken Bentley]]
|setting           = [[Fleming's Island]], [[December]] [[1981]]
|music=[[Fool Circle Productions]]
|writer           = John Dorney
|sound=[[Fool Circle Productions]]
|director         = [[Ken Bentley]]
|publisher=Big Finish Productions
|producer          = [[David Richardson]]
|release date=[[12 August (releases)|12 August]] [[2014 (releases)|2014]]
|music             = [[Fool Circle Productions]]
|format=4 Parts, 2 CDs
|sound             = Fool Circle Productions
|production code=
|cover            = [[Damien May]]
|isbn=
|publisher         = Big Finish Productions
|prev=Psychodrome (audio story)
|release date     = 12 August 2014
|next=none
|format           = 2 CDs<br/>Download<br/>2nd of 2 stories
|production code   = BFPDW5DBOX001
|isbn             = ISBN 978-1-78178-340-5
|prev             = Psychodrome (audio story)
|series2          = ''[[The Fifth Doctor Adventures]]''
|prev2            = Psychodrome (audio story)
|next2            = The Garden of Storms (audio story)
|soundcloudclip    = soundcloud.com/big-finish/doctor-who-the-fifth-doctor-box-set-iterations-of-i-scene-8-bonus-clip
|musicsuite        = soundcloud.com/foolcircle/i-of-i-music-suite-ep1
|soundcloudtrailer = soundcloud.com/foolcircle/doctor-who-iterations-of-i-trailer
|epcount          = 4
}}
}}
'''''Iterations of I''''' was the second story in ''[[The Fifth Doctor Box Set (audio anthology)|The Fifth Doctor Box Set]]''.
'''''Iterations of I''''' was the second and final story in the audio anthology ''[[The Fifth Doctor Box Set]]'', produced by [[Big Finish Productions]]. It was written by [[John Dorney]] and featured [[Peter Davison]] as the [[Fifth Doctor]], [[Matthew Waterhouse]] as [[Adric]], [[Sarah Sutton]] as [[Nyssa]] and [[Janet Fielding]] as [[Tegan Jovanka]].


== Publisher's summary ==
== Publisher's summary ==
The house on [[Fleming's Island]] had been left to rot. Ever since a strange and unexplained death soon after it was built, and plagued with troubling rumours about what lurked there, it remained empty and ignored for decades until the Cult moved in. As twenty people filled its many rooms, the eerie building seemed to be getting a new lease of life.
The house on [[Fleming's Island]] had been left to rot. Ever since a strange and unexplained [[death]] soon after it was built, and plagued with troubling rumours about what lurked there, it remained empty and ignored for decades until the Cult moved in. As twenty people filled its many rooms, the eerie building seemed to be getting a new lease of life.


But now it is empty again. The cult found something in its corridors... and then vanished.
But now it is empty again. The cult found something in its corridors... and then vanished.


Trapped on the island one dark night, [[Fifth Doctor|the Doctor]], [[Tegan Jovanka|Tegan]], [[Nyssa]] and [[Adric]] look into the building's mysteries, its stories of madness and death. Their only chance is to understand what terrible thing has been disturbed here... before it consumes them utterly.
Trapped on the island one dark night, [[Fifth Doctor|the Doctor]], [[Tegan Jovanka|Tegan]], [[Nyssa]] and [[Adric]] look into the building's mysteries, its stories of [[madness]] and death. Their only chance is to understand what terrible thing has been disturbed here... before it consumes them utterly.


==Plot==
== Plot ==
=== Part One ===
=== Part one ===
''to be added''
In [[August]] [[1981]], [[student]]s [[Imogen Frazer]] and [[Martin Tuck]] take part in [[research]] on [[Fleming's Island]] off the [[coast]] of [[Ireland]] and Martin starts repeatedly saying ''i''. Imogen fails to return to [[England]] so, in [[December]], her boyfriend [[Jerome Khan]] travels to Ireland and reports her disappearance [[Robert DeValley|Constable Robert DeValley]], who knows the island as a place of [[evil]] and decides to take a [[boat]] there.


=== Part Two ===
Although [[Tegan Jovanka|Tegan]] is now happy to travel in [[the Doctor's TARDIS|the TARDIS]], [[Adric]] and [[Nyssa]] attempt to program the ship to take them to [[Heathrow Airport]] in 1981 as a test whilst [[Fifth Doctor|the Doctor]] is reading ''[[Black Orchid (book)|Black Orchid]]'' in [[TARDIS library|the library]]. They land on top of a [[cliff]] on Fleming's Island and, after the four travellers exit, the ship falls to the ground below and a [[storm]] hits. Looking for shelter, they go to a nearby [[mansion]] outside of which is a smashed boat. They enter and Nyssa suffers from a psychic shock as her mind is momentarily flooded with [[number]]s and [[voice]]s.
''to be added''


=== Part Three ===
Tegan stays with Nyssa, who repeatedly says ''i'' for a time, and finds a [[scrapbook]] which includes a [[newspaper]] article on the unexplained [[death]] of [[Sinead Iona Fleming|Sinead Fleming]] in the library. The Doctor and Adric find a smashed [[radio]] and go to repair the [[generator]], passing a series of [[gravestone]]s including Martin's, and are held at [[gun]]point after finding the body of a gunshot victim. One of several computers boots up in the house and shows the letter ''i''; despite Nyssa's protests, Tegan presses the return key.
''to be added''


=== Part Four ===
=== Part two ===
''to be added''
Robert makes [[Aoife Dineen|Aoife]] lower her gun. Jerome informs them that he and [[Donal Dineen|Donal]] have found two women and the three of them take the Doctor and Adric back to the mansion, on the way to which the Doctor has a psychic shock and sees images of people [[scream]]ing and being torn apart by the [[air]]. The two groups exchange information, with the four travellers learning that a cult based on the island has disappeared; the cultists believe that [[God (mythology)|God]] is an impossibly long number and hired Imogen to try to calculate it so they could change the world.
 
Aoife screams when she sees a face in the [[window]] which Adric and Tegan have also seen and most of the group go to investigate whilst Adric and Nyssa attempt to repair the radio. Adric notices that the computer that Tegan used is generating numbers and repeating ''i'' and interpolates it with [[equation]]s of his own, which gives the impression that something is moving through the numbers. He and Nyssa both start saying ''i''.
 
From Imogen's tapes, the Doctor learns that there is something alive in the numbers, that Martin died after pressing the enter key on a computer flashing the letter ''i'' and that another man shot himself after attempting to interact with it. The computers are impossible to destroy or switch off. After Tegan tells the Doctor that she interacted with the computer, they hurry downstairs and manage to stop Adric, but Nyssa and Aoife continue to repeat the letter. Donal shoots the computer and they pass out, but all of the computers flash the letter and Donal is torn apart by the air.
 
=== Part three ===
The Doctor wakes Nyssa and Aoife with [[smelling salts]] and tasks them with checking the mast so that the repaired radio can be used to get help. He realises that the threat is a sentient number which has been locked into the imaginary number ''i'' and believes that it is killing people in different ways as it attempts to find a way to communicate. The visions have simply been ripples on the surface of the world. Adric manages to trap the ''i'' and find a way to speak with it; it says Jerome's name and the name of [[Four Horseshoes|the pub]] where he met Imogen.
 
The Doctor deduces that Imogen has become a sentient number, but the group are kept from doing anything more when Robert holds them at gunpoint and demands that Adric hands him the number to be used to manipulate the [[stock market]]. After Adric gives him a [[floppy disk]], he shoots Adric in the leg to ensure that the group allow him to leave and take him to a [[hospital]] on the mainland. Robert barricades the door as he leaves with Adric to contact the outside world and the Doctor realises that the ''i'' wants to be set free before it is caught by [[i Predator|a predator]]; he releases the ''i'', but the predator kills Aoife.
 
=== Part four ===
The Doctor decides to try to defeat the predator by blinding it with [[data]] and sets up a generator to produce random numbers to attract it. He also explains that Sinead Fleming was likely killed by her husband, who entered and escaped the locked library using a trick window. The computers explode and the mansion is severely damaged, but the Doctor, Nyssa, Tegan and Jerome get out and attempt to keep Robert from leaving the [[island]] with Adric in a [[helicopter]] piloted by [[Joe (Iterations of I)|a colleague]].
 
Thanks to his [[Alzarian]] constitution, Adric's leg quickly heals and he escapes the helicopter, falling back to the island and suffering from nothing more than a limp. The predator enters the helicopter and causes it to crash, killing Robert and Joe. Tegan, having seen a [[map]], leads the way down to the TARDIS and Jerome realises that Imogen, whom he has a copy of on a disk, deliberately became an ''i'' to survive. Imogen turns him into an ''i'' and the Doctor attempts to use a [[calculator]] to confuse the predator before heading into the TARDIS, which the predator starts to devour. The ''i'' are able to take it, however, and thank the Doctor.
 
The Doctor changes the frequency of the [[TARDIS scanner]], allowing him and his companions to watch as the ''i'' trap the predator in a mathematical whirlpool created by the [[feedback loop]] of the calculator. He starts piloting the ship, theorising that Adric using negative numbers instead of positive ones was what brought them to Fleming's Island. Adric leaves the control room, feeling that what has happened is his fault and that nobody takes him seriously, and the TARDIS dematerialises.


== Cast ==
== Cast ==
* [[Fifth Doctor|The Doctor]] - [[Peter Davison]]
* [[Fifth Doctor|The Doctor]] - [[Peter Davison]]
* [[Tegan Jovanka|Tegan Jovanka]] - [[Janet Fielding]]
* [[Tegan Jovanka]] - [[Janet Fielding]]
* [[Nyssa]] - [[Sarah Sutton]]
* [[Nyssa]] - [[Sarah Sutton]]
* [[Adric]] - [[Matthew Waterhouse]]
* [[Adric]] - [[Matthew Waterhouse]]
Line 54: Line 78:
* [[Donal Dineen]] - [[Teddy Kempner]]
* [[Donal Dineen]] - [[Teddy Kempner]]
* [[Imogen Frazer]] - [[Allison McKenzie]]
* [[Imogen Frazer]] - [[Allison McKenzie]]
* [[Martin Tuck]] - [[John Dorney]]
== Crew ==
* Cover Art - [[Damien May]]
* Director - [[Ken Bentley]]
* Executive Producers - [[Jason Haigh-Ellery]] and [[Nicholas Briggs]]
* Music and Sound Design - [[Fool Circle Productions]]
* Producer - [[David Richardson]]
* Script Editor - [[Jonathan Morris]]
* Writer - [[John Dorney]]


== References ==
== Worldbuilding ==
''to be added''
* The [[computer]]s in the house on [[Fleming's Island]] have a capacity of two [[Megahertz]]. The Doctor correctly dates them to the early [[1980s]].
* The [[Fifth Doctor]] believes that [[number]]s have no [[existence]] on their own, and only exist in relation to other [[thing]]s.
* [[Jerome Khan]] studies English while his [[girlfriend]] [[Imogen Frazer]] studies [[Mathematics|Maths]]. Both attend [[university]] in [[London]].
* Tegan describes the Doctor and Adric's bickering as "the '[[Sherlock Holmes|Elementary, Dear Watson]]' routine."
* Tegan refers to the [[Loch Ness Monster]].
* Neither Tegan nor Nyssa believe in [[ghost]]s.
* [[Branwell Damien Fleming]] was born in [[1878]] and died in [[1935]].
* [[Sinead Iona Fleming]] was born in [[1905]] and died in [[1930]].
* [[Martin Tuck]] was born in [[1962]].
* In [[1980]], a cult, which believed that [[God]] was an impossibly long [[number]], took up residence on Fleming's Island.
* DeValley refers to Adric as "[[Pyjamas|pyjama]] game."


== Notes ==
== Notes ==
Line 62: Line 107:


== Continuity ==
== Continuity ==
''to be added''
* [[Adric]] refers to the fact that he once piloted the [[TARDIS]] ([[TV]]: ''[[The Visitation (TV story)|The Visitation]]'') while [[Tegan Jovanka|Tegan]] reminds him that she once did as well. ([[TV]]: ''[[Castrovalva (TV story)|Castrovalva]]'') In piloting it, Adric activates the [[Synchronic feedback circuit]]. ([[TV]]: ''[[The Pirate Planet (TV story)|The Pirate Planet]]'')
* The Doctor is in the [[TARDIS library]] reading ''[[Black Orchid (book)|Black Orchid]]'' by [[George Cranleigh]], which was given to him by the author's mother [[Madge Cranleigh|Lady Madge Cranleigh]] on [[11 June]] [[1925]]. ([[TV]]: ''[[Black Orchid (TV story)|Black Orchid]]'') He would later describe it as being very interesting. ([[TV]]: ''[[Earthshock (TV story)|Earthshock]]'') His [[Sixth Doctor|sixth incarnation]] was less fond of the book, later describing it as "a Boy's Own adventure about an aristocrat who yomped through the Brazilian rainforests, depriving the natives of their orchids." ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[Year of the Pig (audio story)|Year of the Pig]]'')
* Adric attempts to [[Dematerialisation circuit|materialise]] the TARDIS at [[Heathrow Airport]] in 1981, as the Doctor had failed to do on numerous previous occasions. ([[TV]]: ''[[Four to Doomsday (TV story)|Four to Doomsday]]'', ''[[Kinda (TV story)|Kinda]]'', ''[[The Visitation (TV story)|The Visitation]]''; [[AUDIO]]: ''[[Psychodrome (audio story)|Psychodrome]]'', ''[[Smoke and Mirrors (audio story)|Smoke and Mirrors]]'') He would later attempt it again after another argument with Tegan. ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[The Contingency Club (audio story)|The Contingency Club]]'')
* [[Adric]] refers to the [[Logopolitan]]s' use of computers to warp space-time. ([[TV]]: ''[[Logopolis (TV story)|Logopolis]]'')
* The Doctor laments the destruction of his [[the Doctor's sonic screwdriver|sonic screwdriver]] by the [[Terileptil]] leader in [[September]] [[1666]]. ([[TV]]: ''[[The Visitation (TV story)|The Visitation]]'')
* Nyssa refers to the death of her father [[Tremas]] at the hands of {{Ainley}}. ([[TV]]: ''[[The Keeper of Traken (TV story)|The Keeper of Traken]]'')
* Tegan tells the Doctor that she has not been able to keep up with him since he had "[[Fourth Doctor|curly hair]] and [[The Doctor's scarf|a scarf]]." ([[TV]]: ''[[Logopolis (TV story)|Logopolis]]'')
* Tegan refers to [[Agatha Christie]]. During his [[Tenth Doctor|tenth incarnation]], the Doctor and [[Donna Noble]] met Christie at [[Eddison Manor]] on [[8 December]] [[1926]]. ([[TV]]: ''[[The Unicorn and the Wasp (TV story)|The Unicorn and the Wasp]]'')
* Adric refers to the fact that [[Alzarian]]s heal much more quickly than humans. ([[TV]]: ''[[Full Circle (TV story)|Full Circle]]'', ''[[The Visitation (TV story)|The Visitation]]'')


== External links ==
== External links ==
* {{bigfinish|releases/v/the-fifth-doctor-box-set-1014|Iterations of I}}
{{bigfinish|releases/v/the-fifth-doctor-box-set-1014}}
 
{{BF 5DA}}
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{{TitleSort}}
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[[Category:2014 audio stories]]
[[Category:2014 audio stories]]
[[Category:Fifth Doctor audio stories]]
[[Category:Fifth Doctor audio stories]]
[[Category:Stories set in Ireland]]
[[Category:Stories set in 1981]]
[[Category:Audio stories that use the Peter Howell theme]]
[[Category:The Fifth Doctor Adventures audio stories]]
[[fr:Iterations of I]]

Latest revision as of 22:21, 7 February 2024

RealWorld.png

Iterations of I was the second and final story in the audio anthology The Fifth Doctor Box Set, produced by Big Finish Productions. It was written by John Dorney and featured Peter Davison as the Fifth Doctor, Matthew Waterhouse as Adric, Sarah Sutton as Nyssa and Janet Fielding as Tegan Jovanka.

Publisher's summary[[edit] | [edit source]]

The house on Fleming's Island had been left to rot. Ever since a strange and unexplained death soon after it was built, and plagued with troubling rumours about what lurked there, it remained empty and ignored for decades until the Cult moved in. As twenty people filled its many rooms, the eerie building seemed to be getting a new lease of life.

But now it is empty again. The cult found something in its corridors... and then vanished.

Trapped on the island one dark night, the Doctor, Tegan, Nyssa and Adric look into the building's mysteries, its stories of madness and death. Their only chance is to understand what terrible thing has been disturbed here... before it consumes them utterly.

Plot[[edit] | [edit source]]

Part one[[edit] | [edit source]]

In August 1981, students Imogen Frazer and Martin Tuck take part in research on Fleming's Island off the coast of Ireland and Martin starts repeatedly saying i. Imogen fails to return to England so, in December, her boyfriend Jerome Khan travels to Ireland and reports her disappearance Constable Robert DeValley, who knows the island as a place of evil and decides to take a boat there.

Although Tegan is now happy to travel in the TARDIS, Adric and Nyssa attempt to program the ship to take them to Heathrow Airport in 1981 as a test whilst the Doctor is reading Black Orchid in the library. They land on top of a cliff on Fleming's Island and, after the four travellers exit, the ship falls to the ground below and a storm hits. Looking for shelter, they go to a nearby mansion outside of which is a smashed boat. They enter and Nyssa suffers from a psychic shock as her mind is momentarily flooded with numbers and voices.

Tegan stays with Nyssa, who repeatedly says i for a time, and finds a scrapbook which includes a newspaper article on the unexplained death of Sinead Fleming in the library. The Doctor and Adric find a smashed radio and go to repair the generator, passing a series of gravestones including Martin's, and are held at gunpoint after finding the body of a gunshot victim. One of several computers boots up in the house and shows the letter i; despite Nyssa's protests, Tegan presses the return key.

Part two[[edit] | [edit source]]

Robert makes Aoife lower her gun. Jerome informs them that he and Donal have found two women and the three of them take the Doctor and Adric back to the mansion, on the way to which the Doctor has a psychic shock and sees images of people screaming and being torn apart by the air. The two groups exchange information, with the four travellers learning that a cult based on the island has disappeared; the cultists believe that God is an impossibly long number and hired Imogen to try to calculate it so they could change the world.

Aoife screams when she sees a face in the window which Adric and Tegan have also seen and most of the group go to investigate whilst Adric and Nyssa attempt to repair the radio. Adric notices that the computer that Tegan used is generating numbers and repeating i and interpolates it with equations of his own, which gives the impression that something is moving through the numbers. He and Nyssa both start saying i.

From Imogen's tapes, the Doctor learns that there is something alive in the numbers, that Martin died after pressing the enter key on a computer flashing the letter i and that another man shot himself after attempting to interact with it. The computers are impossible to destroy or switch off. After Tegan tells the Doctor that she interacted with the computer, they hurry downstairs and manage to stop Adric, but Nyssa and Aoife continue to repeat the letter. Donal shoots the computer and they pass out, but all of the computers flash the letter and Donal is torn apart by the air.

Part three[[edit] | [edit source]]

The Doctor wakes Nyssa and Aoife with smelling salts and tasks them with checking the mast so that the repaired radio can be used to get help. He realises that the threat is a sentient number which has been locked into the imaginary number i and believes that it is killing people in different ways as it attempts to find a way to communicate. The visions have simply been ripples on the surface of the world. Adric manages to trap the i and find a way to speak with it; it says Jerome's name and the name of the pub where he met Imogen.

The Doctor deduces that Imogen has become a sentient number, but the group are kept from doing anything more when Robert holds them at gunpoint and demands that Adric hands him the number to be used to manipulate the stock market. After Adric gives him a floppy disk, he shoots Adric in the leg to ensure that the group allow him to leave and take him to a hospital on the mainland. Robert barricades the door as he leaves with Adric to contact the outside world and the Doctor realises that the i wants to be set free before it is caught by a predator; he releases the i, but the predator kills Aoife.

Part four[[edit] | [edit source]]

The Doctor decides to try to defeat the predator by blinding it with data and sets up a generator to produce random numbers to attract it. He also explains that Sinead Fleming was likely killed by her husband, who entered and escaped the locked library using a trick window. The computers explode and the mansion is severely damaged, but the Doctor, Nyssa, Tegan and Jerome get out and attempt to keep Robert from leaving the island with Adric in a helicopter piloted by a colleague.

Thanks to his Alzarian constitution, Adric's leg quickly heals and he escapes the helicopter, falling back to the island and suffering from nothing more than a limp. The predator enters the helicopter and causes it to crash, killing Robert and Joe. Tegan, having seen a map, leads the way down to the TARDIS and Jerome realises that Imogen, whom he has a copy of on a disk, deliberately became an i to survive. Imogen turns him into an i and the Doctor attempts to use a calculator to confuse the predator before heading into the TARDIS, which the predator starts to devour. The i are able to take it, however, and thank the Doctor.

The Doctor changes the frequency of the TARDIS scanner, allowing him and his companions to watch as the i trap the predator in a mathematical whirlpool created by the feedback loop of the calculator. He starts piloting the ship, theorising that Adric using negative numbers instead of positive ones was what brought them to Fleming's Island. Adric leaves the control room, feeling that what has happened is his fault and that nobody takes him seriously, and the TARDIS dematerialises.

Cast[[edit] | [edit source]]

Crew[[edit] | [edit source]]

Worldbuilding[[edit] | [edit source]]

Notes[[edit] | [edit source]]

Continuity[[edit] | [edit source]]

External links[[edit] | [edit source]]