The Side of the Angels (audio story)

The Side of the Angels
Doctor:	Eighth Doctor
Companion(s):	Liv, Helen
Featuring:	Ollistra, the Monk, Veklin, the Sonomancer
Main enemy:	Weeping Angels, the Eleven
Main setting:	New York City, early 1970s
Key crew
Publisher:	Big Finish Productions
Writer:	Matt Fitton
Director:	Ken Bentley
Producer:	David Richardson
Music:	Jamie Robertson
Sound:	Benji Clifford
Cover by:	Tom Webster
Release details
Release number:	4.3
Part of:	Doom Coalition 4
Release date:	7 March 2017
Format:	1 Episode on 1 CD (3rd of 4 stories); Download
Production code:	BFPDWCDMG042
ISBN:	ISBN 978-1-78178-623-9
Doom Coalition
← Previous	Songs of Love
Next →	Stop the Clock

The Side of the Angels was the third story in the audio anthology Doom Coalition 4, produced by Big Finish Productions. It was written by Matt Fitton and featured Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor, Nicola Walker as Liv Chenka and Hattie Morahan as Helen Sinclair.

Publisher's summary

Cardinal Ollistra has plans for New York, plans which involve the Deputy Mayor and her sponsor, one 'Reverend Mortimer' – better known to the Doctor as the Meddling Monk. The Eleven arrives to stamp out the resistance, but that isn't the only danger the Doctor finds lurking in the shadows – for New York is a city of Weeping Angels.

Plot

The Eleven interrogates Chancellor Volstrom as to the Doctor's whereabouts, repeatedly forcing them to regenerate by shooting them several times. They refuse, even at the cost of three regenerations.

At a celebration in 1970s New York City, the deputy mayor Joanie Carrington delivers a speech about the city's relationship with the "British" Planning Council, thanking Reverend Mortimer. He delivers his own speech, announcing six new building projects by his company, Seraph Construction. At a reception held afterwards, Cardinal Ollistra talks to Mortimer about the construction and is assured by him that the workforce will be no trouble.

Marty and Joe transport four statues when they begin to move, snapping both of their necks.

Outside, Cardinal Ollistra speaks to Joanie about relocating people living in the Lower East Side when the Doctor arrives, accusing her of doing nothing whilst Cardinal Padrac takes over Gallifrey. She sends Commander Veklin, who came with the Doctor, to look after Liv and Helen at the planning office and takes the Doctor to the NYPD to meet Reverend Mortimer, whom he knows better as "the Monk", and see the city.

Liv and Helen wait in Joanie's office and discuss the city when the deputy mayor arrives and offers them a lift to the City Museum which they accept. Veklin arrives to find them gone.

Using a Time Ring, the Eleven arrives in the 1970s and finds the two workers' bodies, their necks snapped beside a Seraph Construction van. He wonders who did it and what Cardinal Ollistra has planned.

The Doctor and Cardinal Ollistra meet the Monk, who says that he starts afresh with each regeneration and that the Doctor should not hold anything against him, remaining vague on whether he is an earlier or later incarnation than the one that the Doctor blames for Tamsin's death.

Marty and Joe's boss demands more security from the Eleven, believing him to work at Seraph's head office and bringing up the deaths of two other workers. The Eleven shoots and kills him after he tells him that he believes the deaths were caused by "the Sharpshooter".

In a helicopter, Cardinal Ollistra and the Monk show the Doctor what they have done to New York. He realises that they are building a replica of the Capitol on Earth. Meanwhile Liv, Helen and Joanie enter the museum, unaware that they are being followed by an Angel. Cardinal Ollistra shows the Doctor the Enclave, a power base from which scores of Time Lords can bide their time for Padrac's destruction of the future. The Doctor notices the Weeping Angels, recognising them using his sonic screwdriver, and learns that the Time Lords have joined forces with them.

In the museum, Liv spots a Native American painting containing the TARDIS and an Angel with a label saying that it was bequeathed to the museum by "Dr Sinclair and Dr Chenka" with further items in Room B12. She and Helen interpret it as a message and head to the room.

The Monk is in a restaurant where he is joined by Joanie. Shortly after, the Eleven arrives and spills his wine, recommending the soup of the day unless he has lost his appetite. Meanwhile, the Doctor admonishes Cardinal Ollistra for working with the Angels when she receives a call from Veklin telling her that Liv and Helen have gone missing and about the fatalities at the building site. Joanie leaves the restaurant and the Eleven asks the Monk to fill him in.

Cardinal Ollistra tells the Doctor that the Enclave is made of artron-infused alloys which she will be able to activate when Padrac's destruction of the universe takes place, using the energy of the Weeping Angels feeding on the humans to create a force field. They head to the Doctor's TARDIS to detect Liv and Helen, hailing a taxi.

Veklin escorts Joanie to a building to meet the Sharpshooter and leaves. A man takes Joanie to the Sharpshooter, whom she is surprised to find is a woman, and is told that the killings will stop tonight.

In the taxi, the Doctor tells Cardinal Ollistra that they should take the fight to Gallifrey, which she refuses to do. The taxi driver stops and tells them that there has been a power failure meaning that the traffic lights do not work, leading the Doctor and Cardinal Ollistra to travel by foot.

Veklin receives a call from the Monk, who invites her to join him at the museum to collect Liv and Helen. The two humans view the mass of art depicting the Angels when the Monk appears and switches on a projector, showing them a photograph of an Angel before locking them in. He bumps into Veklin outside and is joined by the Eleven, who shoots Veklin and has an Angel send her back in time, having used the Sonomancer to negotiate a new agreement. She turns off all power in the city.

The Doctor and Cardinal Ollistra are approached by the Monk, who tells them that Liv and Helen are in the Doctor's TARDIS in Joanie's office. Meanwhile, the projected Angel starts reaching out of the screen and Liv and Helen use Everlasting Matches, which prove to be anything but, to allow them to see it. The Doctor, Cardinal Ollistra and the Monk enter the TARDIS and the Doctor realises that the Monk is trying to escape, getting him to tell him about the Eleven. He has the TARDIS send out artron energy to attract the Angels and save the humans.

Liv and Helen light a torch and maintain eye contact with the Angel when two more enter. Joanie and the Sharpshooter save them, with the Sharpshooter revealed to be Veklin after she was sent back in time sixty years and the one behind the clues about how to survive the Angels. Veklin tells Liv to fly a helicopter to the planning office and to inform the Doctor of the Eleven's presence whilst she looks at an Angel to keep it from killing Joanie, eventually agreeing to leave her and save her city.

The Monk detects multiple TARDIS departures across the Enclave, signifying that the Time Lords have chosen to flee the city, and hands the Doctor the telephone when he receives a call from an Angel using Joanie's voice. The Angel tells them that they received a better offer from "the crazy Time Lord and the siren" when the Eleven arrives escorting the Doctor and Cardinal Ollistra onto the roof, having tied some of the Planning Council there for the Angels. Liv and Helen land on the roof and keep their eyes on the Angels.

The Eleven has the Monk stand amongst the Angels and tells everybody to close their eyes. The Doctor, having judged that the Monk is the same as he has always been, closes his eyes and allows the Angels to send the Monk back in time. The Eleven offers the councillors the option of joining Padrac before the Three shoots them instead, leaving only Cardinal Ollistra, whom the Eleven pushes from the building. The Doctor grapples with the Eleven, allowing Liv to take his staser, before convincing some of his previous selves that Padrac and the Sonomancer do not want him. The Eight uses the Time Ring, sending the Eleven back to Gallifrey.

With the Angels feeding on the power that they themselves provided to the Enclave, particularly by sending the Monk back centuries, the Doctor, Liv and Helen re-enter the TARDIS in the knowledge that the temporal paradox will rewind time to before Cardinal Ollistra arrived. Using feedback from the Enclave, the Doctor launches the TARDIS through the Time Vortex to stop Padrac.

Cardinal Ollistra is found on the ground by Veklin and regenerates. "Gallifrey must stand", her next incarnation says.

Cast

• The Doctor - Paul McGann
• Liv Chenka - Nicola Walker
• Helen Sinclair - Hattie Morahan
• The Eleven - Mark Bonnar
• The Sonomancer - Emma Cunniffe
• The Meddling Monk - Rufus Hound
• Veklin - Beth Chalmers
• Cardinal Ollistra - Carolyn Pickles
• Ollistra - Jacqueline Pearce
• Joanie Carrington - Ronni Ancona

Worldbuilding

• The Monk announces six new bridge building projects and a dozen new skyscrapers.
• Reverend Mortimer is known thanks to Public Access Television.
• Joanie is owed a drink by Donnie.
• Joanie's chauffeur is Tony.
• The Monk mentions the Brasserie Lapin Blanc.
• Ollistra has Joanie relocate those living in the Lower East Side, using "urban renewal" as a cover.
• The Doctor compares the Monk to Robert Moses.
• The Eleven uses a Time Ring.
• The helicopter has an artron filter.
• The City Museum's boss is Stirling, whom Joanie dated in high school. The special exhibit is Legends of New York State from Before the First Colonists, featuring Native American paintings.
• The Monk orders a bottle of zinfandel, caviar and lobster claws.
• The Monk uses a quantum communicator to speak to the Weeping Angels.
• Commonplace Native American stories include fire-making and coyotes.
• Helen mentions Prometheus.
• Humans use fossil fuels, which Ollistra finds primitive.
• Liv uses Promethean Everlasting Matches.
• Angel Joanie calls the Eleven and the Sonomancer "the crazy Time Lord and the siren".

Notes

Textless cover.

• This story was recorded at The Moat Studios.
• According to Nicholas Briggs, the use of Rufus Hound's incarnation of the Monk in this story was a result of Graeme Garden, the actor who played the Monk previously contemporary to the Eighth Doctor, becoming increasingly unavailable.

Continuity

• The Doctor recognises the Weeping Angels. (AUDIO: Fallen Angels)
• The Monk wishes to "start afresh" with the Doctor, deducing from his manner that he had been antagonised by a past or future incarnation of his. (AUDIO: To the Death)
• Ollistra and the Monk state that they did not bring the Angels to New York; they were already there. (TV: The Angels Take Manhattan)
• The image of an Angel becomes an Angel. (TV: The Time of Angels)
• Liv uses Promethean Everlasting Matches. (PROSE: Doctor Who in an Exciting Adventure with the Daleks; AUDIO: Caerdroia)
• Liv warns Helen, "Don't look away. Don't blink." (TV: Blink)
• The Angels take the voice of a person they kill, with Joanie Carrington, as they later do with Angel Bob. (TV: The Time of Angels)
• The Eighth Doctor would later meet Ollistra's next incarnation on numerous occasions. (AUDIO: Day of the Vashta Nerada, Echoes of War, et al.)
• The Eleven calls the Monk "Mortimer," a reference to the name "Mortimus," which was given as his original name in PROSE: No Future.
• Mortimus is stuck in the 1970s. (AUDIO: The Rise of the New Humans)

External links

• Official The Side of the Angels page at bigfinish.com