He Jests at Scars... (audio story)

He Jests at Scars...
Main character(s):	The Valeyard
Featuring:	Melanie Bush
Main enemy:	The Valeyard Coordinator Vansell
Main setting:	Gallifrey (Unbound)
Key crew
Publisher:	[[publisher::Big Finish Productions]]
Writer:	Gary Russell
Director:	Gary Russell
Producer:	Jim Mortimore
Release details
Release number:	4
Release date:	September 2003
Format:	1 CD
Production code:	DWUN04
ISBN:	ISBN 1-84435-016-9
Doctor Who Unbound
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Publisher's summary

The thing about meddling with time is that one moment something is real, the next, it’s been erased. Probability becomes just a possibility. Established truth becomes a theoretical falsehood. Like dominoes, as one timeline falls, the others come cascading down around it. You can engineer new timelines, new possibilities, but before long, the distinction between what is, what was, what might be and what never can be becomes blurred.

Out of this grow myths, lies and legends. The Doctor was one such legend, but no one knows whether he truly ever existed. Well, not now they don’t. The Mighty One, ruling the multiverses from the eternal city of Chronopolis, has made sure of that.

Cast

• The Valeyard - Michael Jayston
• Melanie Bush - Bonnie Langford
• Coordinator Vansell - Anthony Keetch
• The President - Tim Preece
• Ellie Martin - Juliet Warner
• Nula - Jane MacFarlane
• Gerrof - Mark Donovan

References

• Megabyte Modem is mentioned twice.
• The following companions (who might have travelled with the Doctor in an alternative timeline) are mentioned: Peri Brown, Evelyn Smythe, Ace, Hex, Charley Pollard and C'rizz.
• Ellie Martin appeared in the (non Unbound universe) as a friend of Sarah Jane Smith.
• Time ram is attempted.
• Mel is given a time ring.
• Chronopolis
• There are numerous references made to the Doomsday Weapon on Uxarieus (DW: Colony in Space), the Tharils (DW: Warriors' Gate), the Monan Host (BFA: The Apocalypse Element), the Urbankans (DW: Four to Doomsday), the Moroks (DW: The Space Musem), the Nimon (DW: The Horns of Nimon) and the Navarinos (DW: Delta and the Bannermen).

Notes

• The title is a reference to the line from William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet: "He jests at scars, that never felt a wound."
• This story marks the first and only appearance of the Valeyard in an audio drama.
• This audio drama was recorded on 26 June 2003.

Continuity

• Vansell, introduced in BFA: The Sirens of Time and also appeared in PDA: Divided Loyalties, BFA: The Apocalypse Element and BFA: Neverland. Three other alternative versions of the character were depicted in BFA: Reborn, BFA: Disassembled and BFA: Annihilation.
• An alternative version of Ellie Martin appeared in the Sarah Jane Smith audio series.
• Time Rings first appeared in DW: Genesis of the Daleks.
• The concept of a time ram first occurred in DW: The Time Monster.
• Ellie complains that the Valeyard criticises her for carrying weapons unless it suits him. In the proper timeline, the Seventh Doctor's companion Ace frequently raises similar objections. (DW: Remembrance of the Daleks, et al)
• The Matrix’s projection of the Sixth Doctor’s missed encounter with Mel is inconsistent with their actual first encounter in PDA: Business Unusual; they didn’t meet at the police station, but the previous day, when the Doctor took her friend Trey Korte back home before realising that he was staying with Mel. However, this story does take place in an alternative timeline, and it is possible that the Valeyard had already changed history in some other way, perhaps erasing Trey or the Nestenes from history.
• The Valeyard implies that he’s picked up a weapon which belonged to Jack the Ripper, a probable reference to PDA: Matrix.
• Vansell observes the Valeyard and Ellie onboard the Hyperion III in the place of the Sixth Doctor and Mel in the proper timeline. The Valeyard leaves Commodore Travers and his entire crew dead as well as leaving the "augmented aubergines" to their own devices. (DW: Terror of the Vervoids)
• Vansell compares the Valeyard to the inchoate form of the Watcher (DW: Logopolis) but claims that it is unprecedented for such a being to achieve independent sentience, implying either that the Time Lords are unaware of the existence of Cho-Je (DW: Planet of the Spiders) or that he was something else entirely.
• Vansell refers to the Time Lords once sending the Doctor on an ultimately unsuccessful mission to destroy the Daleks after the Valeyard has altered history by giving the Thals a formula to wipe out the Daleks before their creation. (DW: Genesis of the Daleks)
• Nula is from the planet Archetryx. (BFA: The Apocalypse Element)
• The Valeyard intends to stop his fourth incarnation from destroying Logopolis and to steal the Master's TARDIS. (DW: Logopolis)
• The First Doctor, Steven Taylor and "an extinct bird" visited Logopolis after leaving 13th century Kiev. (PDA: Bunker Soldiers)
• In various alternative timelines, Mel died of a brain tumour on Earth in 2012, on the colony planet Heritage in the 61st century (PDA: Heritage) and in the crash of the spaceship Nosferatu II while travelling with Sabalom Glitz (DW: Dragonfire).
• Vansell observes the Valeyard and Ellie visiting a Silurian bunker in the Galapagos Islands, as the Sixth Doctor and his companion Evelyn Smythe did on 19 September 1835 in the proper timeline. (BFA: Bloodtide)
• The Valeyard tells Mel the names of various companions which whom the Doctor might have travelled in another timeline (namely, the proper timeline): Peri Brown (DW: Planet of Fire), Evelyn Smythe (BFA: The Marian Conspiracy), Ace (DW: Dragonfire), Hex (BFA: The Harvest), Charley Pollard (BFA: Storm Warning) and C'rizz (BFA: The Creed of the Kromon).

Timeline

• He Jests at Scars.. occurs after an alternative version of DW: The Ultimate Foe

External links

• Official He Jests at Scars... page at bigfinish.com
• He Jests at Scars... at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
• DisContinuity for He Jests at Scars... at Tetrapyriarbus - The DisContinuity Guide