The Prisoner's Dilemma (audio story)

The Prisoner's Dilemma
Doctor:	Seventh Doctor
Companion(s):	Ace
Main enemy:	Zara, the Robot Constables
Main setting:	Erratoon
Key crew
Publisher:	Big Finish Productions
Writer:	Simon Guerrier
Director:	Lisa Bowerman
Music:	David Darlington
Sound:	David Darlington
Read by:	Sophie Aldred
Release details
Release number:	3.8
Release date:	30 January 2009
Format:	1 CD
Production code:	BFPDWCC15
ISBN:	ISBN 978-1-84435-357-6
The Companion Chronicles
← Previous	The Transit of Venus
Next →	Resistance

The Prisoner's Dilemma was the sixteenth release in the Companion Chronicles audio range. It was the eighth story of season 3. It was written by Simon Guerrier and featured Ace.

Publisher's summary

Two prisoners meet in a prison cell. Zara is searching for the segments of the Key to Time; she was only born yesterday but already she's killed hundreds of people. Ace is more ambitious: she was going to kill everyone on the planet.

What have they got against the people of Erratoon? They go peaceably about their simple assignments, beneath their artificial sky. They share their meals and leisure time and they never ask questions. Are they even real?

Ace and Zara will only survive if they can trust each other. Or perhaps if they sell each other out... If not their awful punishment is to become just like everyone else.

Plot

to be added

Cast

• Ace - Sophie Aldred
• Zara - Laura Doddington

References

• Zara refers to the Grace, the Tracers, the Key to Time, the White Guardian and the Black Guardian.
• Ace mentions Florana, the Eye of Orion and being quite an expert on making explosions.
• Harmonious 14 Zink uses a Time Ring.
• Zink was married to 1V Magda.

Textless cover art

Notes

• Unlike most other Big Finish Productions audios, this story is set during the Virgin New Adventures era. Bernice Summerfield is mentioned but not named. One other Companion Chronicle, Bernice Summerfield and the Criminal Code, is set during that era, although Ace is absent from that story.
• This is the first Companion Chronicle to feature the Seventh Doctor.
• This story is narratively linked to the audio story The Judgement of Isskar, which was likewise released in January 2009.
• This audio drama was recorded on 16 June 2008.

Continuity

• Ace tells Zara that she once met a "bloke made of liquorice." (TV: The Happiness Patrol)
• Zara is the twin sister of the Fifth Doctor's former companion Amy (later Abby). The Doctor previously encountered Zara on Mars in the distant past (AUDIO: The Judgement of Isskar) and on Chaos at the end of recorded time (AUDIO: The Chaos Pool). Both of these events have yet to take place in her personal timeline.
• Ace uses logic to confuse the Robot Constables. (TV: The Curse of Fenric)
• Ace has had her memories removed once before. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Genesys)
• Ace remembers travelling with the Doctor and a woman wearing earrings who "knew a lot about dead things." (PROSE: Love and War)
• Ace vaguely recalls being introduced to Robin Yeadon by her mother Audrey Dudman at Bernice and Jason Kane's marriage in Cheldon Bonniface on 24 April 2010 (PROSE: Happy Endings) and that she had previously met him as a young man in Crook Marsham in December 1968 (PROSE: Nightshade).
• Ace mentions having Christmas dinner in Cheldon Bonniface in 1992. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Revelation)
• Zara refers to the fact that the Fourth Doctor and Romana went on the run after assembling the Key to Time. (TV: The Armageddon Factor)

External links

• Official The Prisoner's Dilemma page at bigfinish.com
• The Prisoner's Dilemma at the Doctor Who Reference Guide