The Revenants (audio story)

The Revenants
Doctor:	First Doctor
Companion(s):	Barbara, Ian
Main enemy:	The Marsh-Wains
Main setting:	Hoy, Orkney, Scotland, 1956 The Orkney Ferry, 2012
Key crew
Publisher:	Big Finish Productions
Writer:	Ian Potter
Director:	Lisa Bowerman
Read by:	William Russell Sharon Small
Release details
Release date:	31 May 2012
Format:	two episodes in MP3 digital download
The Companion Chronicles
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You may be looking for the Short Trips short story.

The Revenants was a free Companion Chronicle audio story released with a code in DWM 448. It is also available with the limited edition of Big Finish's 50th anniversary release: The Light at the End.

Publisher's summary

The present day: the Orkney Ferry, where Ian Chesterton meets a stranger whom he can confide in.

Decades earlier: the TARDIS lands on Orkney and Ian and Barbara are abandoned when the Doctor and his ship vanish in front of their eyes. As the pair head for civilisation, something is stirring in the treacherous bog lands.

Only the ancient Wissfornjarl can protect them...

Plot

The Marsh-Wains (1)

to be added

The Wissfornjarl (2)

to be added

Characters

• Ian Chesterton - William Russell
• Jeannie/Janet McKay - Sharon Small

References

• Orkney was taken over by Scotland in the 13th century.
• Ian believes that locking Susan Foreman out of the TARDIS so that she could stay with David Campbell in the 22nd century was the bravest thing that he ever saw him do.
• Ian refers to Sherlock Holmes and The Hound of the Baskervilles.
• Janet McKay is a spaywife or witch.
• Janet refers to Ragnarok, the final battle between the gods of good and evil at the end of the world in Norse mythology.
• Janet tells Ian and Barbara that Hoy is protected by Wissfornjarl. Ian and Barbara later discover that Wissfornjarl is none other than the Doctor.
• The Doctor tells Ian and Barbara that they exited the TARDIS before it was fully anchored in space and time. The TARDIS was pulled further backwards in time due to a huge cataclysm in the past. The Doctor remained in Hoy for several years, waiting to be reunited with Ian and Barbara.
• Over the course of the last few years, the Doctor has collected books on numerous different subjects, including Gulliver's Travels and Don Quixote.
• Ian attempts to convince Barbara to stay with him in 1956 and live under assumed names until they can resume their old lives in 1963. However, Barbara talks him of it as she could not bear to know about all the disasters before they happen and not be able to do anything about them. Furthermore, she believes that they owe it to the Doctor to remain with him as he waited for them in Hoy, particularly given Susan's recent departure.
• "Wissfornjarl" means "the Wise Old Chieftain."

Notes

• to be added

Continuity

• Ian tells Jeannie how he and Barbara came to be aboard the TARDIS. (TV: An Unearthly Child)
• Ian mentions that Susan had recently left the TARDIS after falling in love with David Campbell in the 22nd century. (TV: The Dalek Invasion of Earth)
• Ian refers to the fact that he once came across a sea of acid on Marinus. (TV: The Keys of Marinus)
• Barbara refers to their visits to Salem Village, Massachusetts in 1692 and 1693 (PROSE: The Witch Hunters) and Mexico in the 15th century (TV: The Aztecs).
• The Doctor reminds Ian that they have encountered beings with psychic abilities before, namely the Sensorites on the Sense Sphere in the 28th century. (TV: The Sensorites)
• The Doctor has read Gulliver's Travels. During his second incarnation, he would meet its protagonist Lemuel Gulliver in the Land of Fiction. (TV: The Mind Robber)

Releases

• The Revenants was available to readers of Doctor Who Magazine who went to the Big Finish website and entered a code to be found within the magazine. The digital download offer was only available from June to October 2012. (DWM 448)
• Doctor Who Magazine listed the offer's expiration date as 31 August 2012. However, it was pointed out that overseas delivery of the magazine could be very slow, so the deadline was extended to 31 October 2012. (Big Finish Podcast, 18 July 2012, 34:00)

External links

• The Light at the End - Limited Collector's Edition