Caerdroia (audio story)

Caerdroia
Doctor:	Eighth Doctor
Companion(s):	Charley, C'rizz
Main enemy:	The Kro'ka
Main setting:	The Interzone and Caerdroia, the Divergent Universe
Key crew
Publisher:	Big Finish Productions
Writer:	Lloyd Rose
Director:	Gary Russell
Music:	Steve Foxon
Post production:	Steve Foxon
Cover by:	Steve Johnson
Release details
Release number:	63
Release date:	November 2004
Format:	4 Episodes on 2 CDs
Production code:	8U
ISBN:	ISBN 1-84435-104-1
Big Finish Doctor Who audio stories
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Caerdroia was the sixty-third monthly Doctor Who audio story produced by Big Finish Productions. Released in November 2004, it featured the Eighth Doctor and companions Charley Pollard and C'rizz. It was essentially the "beginning of the end" of the Divergent Universe arc. Significantly, it depicted the Doctor's recovery of the TARDIS, which had been absent from the Eighth Doctor's adventures since AUDIO: Scherzo.

The story began to "pay off" the Divergent Universe arc by explaining things like the Interzone, the Kro'ka's motivations and fears, how a universe without time worked and the Divergence itself.

From a production standpoint, it was notable for its highly complex sound design, which had to depict abstract environments, including the Doctor's own mind. It also afforded Paul McGann the chance to play three different versions of his Doctor, each primarily exhibiting what Charley called a "mode" of his character. Thus, the story had one Doctor that was a bit surly and paranoid, another that was bouncy and excitable and another that was more or less the "regular" Eighth Doctor.

As of 2013, Caerdroia also had the distinction of being the only full length piece of performed Doctor Who to be written by an American woman.

Publisher's summary

Self-exiled to a new universe, separated from the TARDIS, opposed and manipulated by the Divergence and their agent the Kro'ka, the Eighth Doctor has been struggling to work out the nature of the cosmic game in which he's an unwilling pawn. Now, at last, he has a chance to find the answer — and regain the TARDIS!

Threatened and desperate, the Kro'ka abandons his behind-the-scenes machinations to confront the Doctor directly. But will both of them lose their way in the maze of the strange world in which they find themselves? A world in which a clock may have a cuckoo but no hands, a labyrinth imprisoning a paradox, and a Garden of Curiosities reveals something the Doctor has never seen before.

As the Doctor faces these challenges, Charley and C'rizz provide valuable help. But with the TARDIS itself at stake, the Doctor reaches deep inside himself to find some surprising new allies.

Plot

to be added

Cast

• The Doctor - Paul McGann
• Charley Pollard - India Fisher
• C'rizz - Conrad Westmaas
• The Kro'ka / Evans / Wayland - Stephen Perring
• Rassilon - Don Warrington

References

The Doctor

• The Doctor finally understands the meaning of the saying "safe as houses". After being split into three bodies, one of the Doctors explains that the expression originated in a 19th century recession in which the only financial security was in real estate.
• The "Tigger" Doctor comments that he thought that he was taller.
• The Doctor tells the Kro'ka that some of his "goofiest" incarnations have also been his sliest. He is seemingly referring to his second and fourth incarnations and possibly the original, light-hearted personality of his seventh incarnation.
• Charley tells C'rizz that the Doctor "attracts danger."
• The Doctor has the ability to enter another being's mind. While his morality usually stops him from doing so, his more pragmatic "Eeyore" personality has no compunctions about using it.

Individuals

• The Kro'ka describes Charley as "ever energetic."
• The Kro'ka has never shown himself to the Doctor, Charley and C'rizz.
• The Kro'ka cannot transport the Doctor from one zone to another unless he is conscious.
• The Kro'ka was not responsible for splitting the Doctor into three.
• C'rizz is afraid of heights.

TARDIS

• The TARDIS has a croquet court.
• The Kro'ka tells the Doctor that the TARDIS still exists but is no longer on Bortresoye.
• The TARDIS was responsible for splitting the Doctor into three.
• The Doctor and Charley never previously told C'rizz that the TARDIS is dimensionally transcendental.

The Doctor's items

• The "Eeyore" Doctor uses his last everlasting match.
• The three Doctors all have a ball of string the size of a beach ball in their dimensionally transcendental pockets.

Gallifreyan lifeforms

• Gallifrey has a form of rabbit - which are "rounder and cuddlier" than Earth rabbits - and a purple form of marlot which is cannot be found anywhere else in the cosmos.

Planets

• The Divergence are located on Caerdroia. The Doctor correctly surmises that the castle, which the Kro'ka claims is everywhere on the planet, is the "home office" of the Divergence.
• The "Tigger" Doctor says that sunflowers are unique to Earth.

Languages

• "Caerdroia" is the Welsh phrase for "the fortress of many turnings."

Cultural references from the real world

• The Doctor refers to The Three Little Pigs.
• Tigger is the Doctor's favourite character from Winnie the Pooh. In order to differentiate between the three Doctors, Charley refers to the more exuberant one as "Tigger" and the more irritable one as Eeyore.
• Charley refers to the 19th century American novelist Edgar Allan Poe.
• The "Eeyore" Doctor quotes the line "Curiouser and curiouser" from Alice in Wonderland.
• The "Tigger" Doctor refers to the flying rabbit from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, the island populated by dinosaurs in Jurassic Park and the legend of the Minotaur.

Zoology

• The cattle of Eutermes are small, scaly and lay eggs.
• Charley refers to buffalo, telling C'rizz that they are common in the American West and that they tend to stampede.
• Eutermes has a very dangerous wild animal known as an Obelat. According to C'rizz, they do not have any legs as such.

Species

• Eutermesans have significantly better hearing than humans.

Notes

Illustrated preview from DWM 350 by Mike Collins.

• An illustrated preview for this story featured in DWM 350 illustrated by Mike Collins.

Variant cover

• In cooperation with Big Finish, 'Tenth Planet' released this audio in a limited edition with a different cover, designed by Stuart Manning, during the Dimensions convention in early November. 'Tenth Planet' also sold the limited edition CD on their website. Click on the thumbnail at right for a larger version of the alternate cover.
• This is the first Eighth Doctor audio drama to feature the TARDIS since its brief cameo in AUDIO: The Twilight Kingdom in March 2004. However, an illusory version of it appeared in AUDIO: Faith Stealer.
• This audio drama was recorded on 8 June 2004 at The Moat Studios.

Continuity

• The "Tigger" Doctor compares the Obelat to the Minotaur. During his second incarnation, the Doctor, Jamie McCrimmon and Zoe Heriot encountered the Minotaur in the Land of Fiction. (TV: The Mind Robber)
• C'rizz refers to his mate L'da, whom he killed in the Kromon biosphere as she had been transformed into a Kromon queen. (AUDIO: The Creed of the Kromon)
• The "Tigger" Doctor surmises that the Divergence are putting into action plans which they made during previous encounters including memory editing in Light City (AUDIO: The Natural History of Fear) and personality duplication on Setarus (AUDIO: The Twilight Kingdom) to discover his ability to operate the TARDIS.
• Rassilon and the Kro'ka would later steal two dreamweavers from Caerdroia. (AUDIO: The Next Life)
• The First Doctor, Steven Taylor and Sara Kingdom previously visited the inner workings of another giant clock in 3999. (AUDIO: The Guardian of the Solar System)

External links

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