Day of the Vashta Nerada (audio story)

Day of the Vashta Nerada
Doctor:	Eighth Doctor
Featuring:	War Ollistra
Main enemy:	Nerada Vashta, Vashta Nerada, Dendry
Main setting:	Synthesis Station, Last Great Time War
Key crew
Publisher:	Big Finish Productions
Writer:	Matt Fitton
Director:	Barnaby Edwards
Producer:	David Richardson
Music:	Howard Carter
Sound:	Howard Carter
Cover by:	Tom Webster
Release details
Number of parts:	1
Part of:	Classic Doctors, New Monsters: Volume Two
Release date:	27 July 2017
Format:	1 CD Download 4th of 4 stories
Production code:	BFPDWNEWMON02
ISBN:	ISBN 978-1-78575-427-2 (physical); ISBN 978-1-78575-428-9 (digital)
Classic Doctors, New Monsters
← Previous	The Carrionite Curse
Next →	The House That Hoxx Built
Classic Series - Special Releases
← Previous	The Carrionite Curse
Next →	Doctor Who and the Iron Legion

Day of the Vashta Nerada was the fourth and final story in Classic Doctors, New Monsters: Volume Two, produced by Big Finish Productions. It was written by Matt Fitton and featured Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor.

Publisher's summary

As the Time War rages, Cardinal Ollistra of Gallifrey seeks to create ever more dangerous weapons to deploy against the enemy.

When the Doctor stumbles across Synthesis Station, he discovers that the Time Lords have sponsored a project to weaponise already-lethal creatures. But in doing so, Eva Morrison and her team have unwittingly used a colony of Vashta Nerada with a very unfortunate history of humanoid contact.

The Doctor finds himself leading a desperate race for survival, in which the shadows may be the least of their worries...

Plot

to be added

Cast

• The Doctor - Paul McGann
• Ollistra - Jacqueline Pearce
• Dr. Eva Morrison - Jan Ravens
• Biotech Dendry - Himesh Patel
• Commander Roxita / Security Chief Raldon - Tim Wallers

Worldbuilding

• Eva's team create the Nerada Vashta, which thrive in the light.
• The Time Lords intend for the Vashta Nerada to be engineered with the ability to consume Dalekanium, planning to unleash them on Dalek battlecruisers and ultimately Skaro itself.
• Dendry plans to sip cocktails at Dorium Maldovar's Maldovarium.
• As the survivors prepare to return to Gallifrey, the Doctor comments that he has half a mind to drop the War Ollistra on Pluto and have her walk the rest of the way.
• Ollistra describes the TARDIS as "an antiquated contraption".
• The TARDIS does not have a Zero Room "at the moment."
• The Doctor ejects his Fledershrews from the TARDIS alongside the Vashta Nerada.
• The survivors take refuge in the secondary control room.
• The Doctor acquired three space suits from one of the Apollo missions: "32, 33, I forget." Ollistra refers to them as Bronze Age.
• A guard is devoured by the Vashta Nerada.
• The Doctor mentions dignity.

Notes

to be added

Continuity

• The Doctor mentions his encounter with the Vashta Nerada on Funworld during his fourth incarnation. (AUDIO: Night of the Vashta Nerada)
• Ollistra travelled to Synthesis Station in a Battle TARDIS. (COMIC: The Stockbridge Horror; AUDIO: Neverland; PROSE: Engines of War)
• The Doctor met Ollistra's previous incarnation in New York City in the 1970s. (AUDIO: The Side of the Angels)
• The Doctor refuses to fight in the Time War. (TV: The Night of the Doctor; AUDIO: The Sontaran Ordeal)
• Following the deaths of Georgia Donnelly and the Funworld's skeleton crew, the project was abandoned and the world became known as Theta 49. (AUDIO: Night of the Vashta Nerada)
• Dendry mentions "Maldovar's bar." (TV: The Pandorica Opens, A Good Man Goes to War)
• Defending the Vashta Nerada experiments being conducted off Gallifrey, Ollistra comments that there are enough shadows in the Cloisters as it is. (TV: Hell Bent)
• Ollistra refers to the Time Lords' War Council. (TV: The Day of the Doctor; AUDIO: The Innocent)
• Roxita mentions that TARDISes exist in a state of temporal grace. (TV: The Hand of Fear)
• The Doctor's TARDIS currently lacks a Zero Room. Its original Zero Room was ejected shortly after the Doctor's regeneration into his fifth incarnation. (TV: Castrovalva) It was eventually reconstructed. (AUDIO: Zaltys, Renaissance of the Daleks)
• The Doctor notes that the secondary control room has wood panelling. (TV: The Masque of Mandragora, et. al)
• The Doctor notes that he has allowed the Fledershrews to live in the TARDIS for many years. (AUDIO: And You Will Obey Me, Black and White, Nevermore, Relative Dimensions)
• Offering the remaining space suits to the others, the Doctor assures that he will simply hang onto the TARDIS shell as he is ejected into the Time Vortex before it returns to real space only for Roxita to point out that such an act would be impossible. Nevertheless, this feat would be achieved by the immortal Captain Jack Harkness, reviving shortly after it killed him. (TV: Utopia) The Doctor would eventually find himself successfully holding onto the TARDIS exterior to escape a pocket universe. (TV: Hide)
• The Doctor remembers taking space suits from either Apollo 32 or Apollo 33. Apollo 34 would establish Bowie Base One on Mars in the late 2050s. (TV: The Waters of Mars)
• The Doctor tells Ollistra that he is not a warrior. (TV: The Night of the Doctor)
• The Doctor would later face the Vashta Nerada again during his tenth (TV: Silence in the Library / Forest of the Dead; COMIC: Untitled) and eleventh incarnations. (GAME: Shadows of the Vashta Nerada; COMIC: Space Oddity)

External links

• Official Day of the Vashta Nerada page at bigfinish.com