The Time of the Daleks (audio story)

The Time of the Daleks
Doctor:	Eighth Doctor
Companion(s):	Charley
Featuring:	Shakespeare, Rassilon
Main enemy:	Daleks, Mariah Learman
Main setting:	London, New Britain, 2050s Stratford-upon-Avon, 19 September 1572
Key crew
Publisher:	Big Finish Productions
Writer:	Justin Richards
Director:	Nicholas Briggs
Producer:	Gary Russell, Jason Haigh-Ellery
Music:	Nicholas Briggs
Sound:	Ian Potter
Cover by:	Clayton Hickman
Release details
Number of parts:	4
Release number:	32
Release date:	21 May 2002
Format:	2 CDs Download
Production code:	8K
ISBN:	ISBN 978-1-90365-461-3 (physical) ISBN 978-1-84435-736-9 (digital)
Main Range
← Previous	Embrace the Darkness
Next →	Neverland
Main Range Dalek Empire
← Previous	The Mutant Phase

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The Time of the Daleks was the thirty-second story in Big Finish's monthly range. It was written by Justin Richards and featured Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor, India Fisher as Charlotte Pollard and a cameo from Don Warrington as Rassilon.

It was the fifth in a series of 6 audio stories featuring the Eighth Doctor.

Publisher's summary

The Doctor has always admired the work of William Shakespeare. So he is a little surprised that Charley doesn't hold the galaxy's greatest playwright in the same esteem. In fact, she's never heard of him.

Which the Doctor thinks is quite improbable.

General Mariah Learman, ruling Britain after the Eurowars, is one of Shakespeare's greatest admirers, and is convinced her time machine will enable her to see the plays' original performances.

Which the Doctor believes is extremely unlikely.

The Daleks just want to help. They want Learman to get her time machine working. They want Charley to appreciate the first-ever performance of Julius Caesar. They believe that Shakespeare is the greatest playwright ever to have existed and venerate his memory.

Which the Doctor knows is utterly impossible.

Plot

Part one

Inside a ship, Daleks detonate a temporal extinction device to release temporal energy to change time whilst the famous 'dogs of war' speech from Shakespeare's play, 'Julius Caesar', is being recited. However, the device malfunctions, causing the time fissure to destabilise and the daleks to activate temporal shielding to protect themselves. The temporal corridor collapses, though the Dalek strategist and pilot escape. Meanwhile, the Doctor and Charley encounter a time wave, and Charley reveals that she has never heard of Shakespeare.

to be added

Part two

to be added

Part Three

to be added

Part Four

to be added

Cast

• The Doctor - Paul McGann
• Charley Pollard - India Fisher
• General Mariah Learman - Dot Smith
• Major Ferdinand - Julian Harries
• Viola - Nicola Boyce
• Kitchen Boy - Jem Bassett
• Priestly - Mark McDonnell
• Hart - Lee Moone
• Professor Osric - Ian Brooker
• Dalek Voice - Nicholas Briggs
• Dalek Voice / Yokel - Clayton Hickman
• Marcus - Robert Curbishley
• Mark Anthony / Army Officer / Tannoy - Ian Potter
• Rassilon - Don Warrington

Crew

• Cover Art - Clayton Hickman
• Director & Music - Nicholas Briggs
• Executive Producer - Jacqueline Rayner
• Producers - Gary Russell and Jason Haigh-Ellery
• Sound Design - Ian Potter
• Writer - Justin Richards

Worldbuilding

Conflicts

• The Daleks mention they gathered data from their attempted invasion of Gallifrey.

Daleks

• The Daleks are able to transform people, in this case Learman, into a Dalek via drugs and exposure to radiation.
• Learman causes a Dalek to temporally implode when she touches its arm, as it is a mutated version of her from the future.

Governments

• The Eurozone is mentioned.

Individuals

• The Doctor makes mention that Orson Welles did not recognise William Shakespeare.

Locations

• The Daleks mention the Library of Kar-Charrat.

Technology

• The Daleks have constructed their own Eye of Harmony.
• Omega built a function into the Eye of Harmony projecting it fractionally into the future.

Time travel

• Time winds rip apart a Dalek.
• Chronons appear when there is a working time machine, except chronons are needed to make a time machine work.
• The Daleks plan to use a Temporal Extinction Device to enlarge a temporal rift and harness its power for their own time travel craft.
• The Daleks and Learman need a temporal stabiliser to make their time machines work.
• Orthopositronium coats the mirrors of Learman's time machine.
• The time portal connects to 305, 1572, 1585, 1599, 1666 and 1940.

Gallery

• 

  Original CD cover

• 

  Art by Martin Geraghty featured in DWM 317

Notes

• This story is marked as being "Dalek Empire Part Four".
• Justin Richards originally scripted Learman as a man, but Nicholas Briggs wanted to cast Dot Smith in the role.
• Orthopositronium exists in real-world physics.
• This story marks the first credited appearance of the Matrix Rassilon in an audio story. The Doctor talks to him during the narration in Seasons of Fear, and Rassilon is heard towards the end of the narration sequence, but he is not credited.
• This audio drama was recorded on 22 and 23 January 2001 and 27 February 2002.
• The Daleks recite the dialogue from Hamlet while working on a time machine with Professor Osric.

Continuity

• The Daleks using mirrors for time travel first appeared in TV: The Evil of the Daleks.
• Orson Welles did not recognise a Shakespearean quotation when the Doctor met him in New York City on 30 October 1938. The Doctor comments on this incongruity by referring to the fact that Welles made several Shakespearean films in the proper timeline. (AUDIO: Invaders from Mars)
• The Daleks serve refreshments, and pretend not to be threats, which unnerves the Doctor. (TV: The Power of the Daleks, Victory of the Daleks)
• The Daleks use information gathered on the Eye of Harmony from their invasion of Gallifrey (AUDIO: The Apocalypse Element) and on the time barriers at the Kar-Charrat library (AUDIO: The Genocide Machine) to construct their Temporal Extinction Device.
• A Dalek which goes through the mirrors ends up in a Roman fort in Britannia in 305. (AUDIO: Seasons of Fear)
• AUDIO: Neverland reveals the identity of the narrator quoting Shakespeare as well as the cause of the time disruptions.
• PROSE: Trading Futures makes reference to Learman.
• TV: Revelation of the Daleks first demonstrated how humans could be turned into Daleks.
• Mirrors were also used by UNIT for the purpose of time travel in TV: Turn Left.
• Later in his personal timeline, Shakespeare would meet the First Doctor, (PROSE: The Empire of Glass) the Fourth Doctor (PROSE: The Empire of Glass, TV: Planet of Evil, TV: City of Death, PROSE: The Stranger, The Writer, His Wife and the Mixed Metaphor), the Fifth Doctor, (AUDIO: The Kingmaker) the Ninth Doctor (COMIC: A Groatsworth of Wit) and the Tenth Doctor. (TV: The Shakespeare Code) With the exception of the latter two incidents, all of these encounters occurred many years earlier in the Doctor's personal timeline than the events of Time of the Daleks.
• Later in his personal timeline, Shakespeare would travel in the TARDIS once again in the company of the Fifth Doctor, Peri Brown, Erimem and King Richard III. (AUDIO: The Kingmaker)
• The Doctor once again observes, "Lead on, McDalek!" (AUDIO: We Are The Daleks)
• After dropping off Shakespeare in 1572, the Doctor detected a Time Roach and followed it to an RAF in Scotland in the 1970s. (AUDIO: Foreshadowing)
• The First Doctor encountered another group of Dalek Executioners, also known as the Pursuer-Daleks, in TV: The Chase. The Thirteenth Doctor encountered another group in TV: Eve of the Daleks.

External links

• Official The Time of the Daleks page at bigfinish.com

• The Time of the Daleks Transcript
• The Time of the Daleks at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
• DisContinuity for The Time of the Daleks at Tetrapyriarbus - The DisContinuity Guide
• An apparatus to search for mirror dark matter via the invisible decay of orthopositronium in vacuum