The Oncoming Storm (audio story)

The Oncoming Storm
Main character(s):	Winston Churchill
Featuring:	Ninth Doctor, Hetty
Main enemy:	RATS
Main setting:	London, December 1939
Key crew
Publisher:	Big Finish Productions
Writer:	Phil Mulryne
Director:	Ken Bentley
Producer:	David Richardson
Music:	Howard Carter
Sound:	Steve Foxon
Cover by:	Tom Webster
Release details
Part of:	The Churchill Years: Volume One
Release date:	14 January 2016
Format:	1 Episode on 1 CD (1st of 4 stories)
Production code:	BFPDWWINST01
ISBN:	ISBN 978-1-78178-944-5
The Churchill Years
Next →	Hounded

The Oncoming Storm was the first story in the first volume of The Churchill Years audio series. It featured the Ninth Doctor.

Publisher's summary

Late 1939. Britain faces the might of Germany. Winston Churchill serves as First Lord of the Admiralty. But Churchill soon finds himself facing a more immediate threat than the looming Nazi menace. A "Stone" with the most mysterious properties is discovered in the Thames' sands, and soon oddly spoken soldiers are creeping round London ruthlessly trying to acquire it. Who are they? Can Churchill and his new secretary Hetty Warner defeat them? And what about the man in the battered leather jacket that Hetty meets? Churchill feels sure they can rely on the Doctor to help them! Except that this Doctor seems to want to stay hidden in the shadows...

Plot

The Doctor follows traces of a Gallifreyan stone to 1939 London. to be expanded

Cast

• Winston Churchill - Ian McNeice
• Hetty Warner - Emily Atack
• Frederick Lindemann - Michael Gould
• Lt-Commander Sandy McNish - Derek Riddell
• Able Seaman Phillips - Phil Mulryne

Worldbuilding

Individuals

• Hetty mentions her gran.
• Churchill mentions Hitler and his war effort.
• Winston is First Lord of the Admiralty.

Dates

• 22 November 1939 - A mine is dropped from the sky over the Thames Estuary.
• 23 November 1939 - The mine and Augur's Stone are recovered from the sands.
• December 1939 - The blackout remains in effect after being introduced in September 1939.

Geography

• An object is dropped over the Thames Estuary, where it became trapped on the sands around Shoeburyness.
• Winston is working out of Admiralty House.
• Frederick mentions America.
• Hetty comes from Wakefield.
• McNish has heard about "someone asking questions in Portsmouth".

Technology

• A magnetic mine is salvaged from the Thames.
• Phillips discovers the Augur's Stone.

Miscellaneous

• Churchill compares the Doctor to the Pied Piper of Hamlin.
• The Doctor talks about "his war".
• Churchill remembers serving in India.
• The stone is from Gallifrey, and was an attempt to preserve the planet. Hetty refers to it as an augur's stone.
• McNish asks "Doctor who?".
• Hetty notes that, even in day time, the Doctor does not wear a necktie.
• Churchill, McNish, and Lindemann secure the stone in the Admiralty House and drink "medicinal" brandy.

Notes

• This story was recorded on 27-28 July & 30 July-31 July 2015.
• This is the first audio story featuring the Ninth Doctor to be wholly produced by Big Finish; Night of the Whisper was a co-production with AudioGo.
• The title refers to the nickname the Doctor was given by the Daleks.

Continuity

• Inspired by RATS, Churchill believes a mechanical soldier could be instrumental to the war effort. Churchill would go on to implement a similar program through the development of the Ironsides. (TV: Victory of the Daleks)
• The Doctor grabs Hetty's hand and shouts, "Run!" (TV: Rose)
• Churchill keeps butterflies in Chartwell Manor. (AUDIO: The Chartwell Metamorphosis)
• Churchill says he has met the Doctor on a number of occasions beforehand. (PROSE: Players, COMIC: The Eagle of the Reich) He will meet this incarnation again on a number of occasions. (AUDIO: Human Conflict, I Was Churchill's Double, PROSE: The Lost Diaries of Winston Spencer Churchill)
• The Ninth Doctor would later visit London during the Blitz in 1941 with Rose Tyler. (TV: The Empty Child / The Doctor Dances)
• Churchill fears Hetty's mind will explode under the influence of the Gallifreyan stone, much like Donna Noble's mind would with Time Lord knowledge. Here the Doctor is able to aid Hetty back to health psychically by placing his fingers on her temples; his tenth incarnation will be forced to wipe Donna's mind using the same method. (TV: Journey's End)
• The augur's stone was designed to allow its user to achieve a heightened intelligence and perceive the outcomes of any situation. Rassilon was able to achieve a superior form of this by turning Borusa into a possibility engine. (PROSE: Engines of War)
• Hetty accesses the stone's powers and is able to see "everything", and is compared to a demigod; she wonders how the Doctor can bear to stand the stone's powers and not go mad. The Bad Wolf entity has a remarkably similar reaction to her own powers after Rose Tyler absorbs the energy of the time vortex, with the Doctor commenting that he sees everything the same way, and that it's maddening. (TV: The Parting of the Ways)
• Hetty, under the influence of the stone, understands that the Doctor was trying to keep the RATS away from the stone for their own safety and protection. The Family of Blood would learn that the Tenth Doctor fled from them to keep them safe as well, from his own wrath. (TV: Human Nature / The Family of Blood)

External links

• Official The Oncoming Storm page at bigfinish.com
• Official The Churchill Years page at bigfinish.com