The Side of the Angels (audio story)

The Side of the Angels
Doctor:	Eighth Doctor
Companion(s):	Liv, Helen
Featuring:	Ollistra, the Monk, Veklin
Main enemy:	Weeping Angels, the Eleven
Main setting:	New York City, early 1970s
Key crew
Publisher:	Big Finish Productions
Writer:	Matt Fitton
Director:	Ken Bentley
Producer:	David Richardson
Music:	Jamie Robertson
Sound:	Benji Clifford
Cover by:	Tom Webster
Release details
Release number:	4.3
Part of:	Doom Coalition 4
Release date:	7 March 2017
Format:	1 Episode on 1 CD (3rd of 4 stories); Download
Production code:	BFPDWCDMG042
ISBN:	ISBN 978-1-78178-623-9
Doom Coalition
← Previous	Songs of Love
Next →	Stop the Clock

The Side of the Angels was the third story in the audio anthology Doom Coalition 4, produced by Big Finish Productions. It was written by Matt Fitton and featured Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor, Nicola Walker as Liv Chenka and Hattie Morahan as Helen Sinclair.

Publisher's summary

Cardinal Ollistra has plans for New York, plans which involve the Deputy Mayor and her sponsor, one 'Reverend Mortimer' – better known to the Doctor as the Meddling Monk. The Eleven arrives to stamp out the resistance, but that isn't the only danger the Doctor finds lurking in the shadows – for New York is a city of Weeping Angels.

Plot

The Eleven interrogates Chancellor Volstrom as to the Doctor's whereabouts, repeatedly forcing them to regenerate by shooting them. They refuse.

At a celebration in 1970s New York City, the deputy mayor Joanie Carrington delivers a speech about the city's relationship with the "British" Planning Council, thanking Reverend Mortimer. He delivers his own speech, announcing six new building projects by his company, Seraph Construction. At a reception held afterwards, Cardinal Ollistra talks to Mortimer about the construction and is assured by him that the workforce will be no trouble.

Marty and Joe transport four statues when they begin to move, snapping both of their necks.

Outside, Cardinal Ollistra speaks to Joanie about relocating people living in the Lower East Side when the Doctor arrives, accusing her of doing nothing whilst Cardinal Padrac takes over Gallifrey. She sends Commander Veklin, who came with the Doctor, to look after Liv and Helen at the planning office and takes the Doctor to the NYPD to meet Reverend Mortimer, whom he knows better as "the Monk", and see the city.

Liv and Helen wait in Joanie's office and discuss the city when the deputy mayor arrives and offers them a lift to the City Museum which they accept. Veklin arrives to find them gone.

Using a Time Ring, the Eleven arrives in the 1970s and finds the two workers' bodies, their necks snapped beside a Seraph Construction van. He wonders who did it and what Cardinal Ollistra has planned.

The Doctor and Cardinal Ollistra meet the Monk, who says that he starts afresh with each regeneration and that the Doctor should not hold anything against him, remaining vague on whether he is an earlier or later incarnation than the one that the Doctor blames for Tamsin's death.

Marty and Joe's boss demands more security from the Eleven, believing him to work at Seraph's head office and bringing up the deaths of two other workers. The Eleven shoots and kills him after he tells him that he believes the deaths were caused by hoodlums.

In a helicopter, Cardinal Ollistra and the Monk show the Doctor what they have done to New York. He realises that they are building a replica of the Capitol on Earth. Meanwhile Liv, Helen and Joanie enter the museum, unaware that they are being followed by an Angel. Cardinal Ollistra shows the Doctor the Enclave, a power base from which scores of Time Lords can bide their time for Padrac's destruction of the future. The Doctor notices the Weeping Angels, recognising them using his sonic screwdriver, and learns that the Time Lords have joined forces with them.

To be completed.

Cast

• The Doctor - Paul McGann
• Liv Chenka - Nicola Walker
• Helen Sinclair - Hattie Morahan
• The Eleven - Mark Bonnar
• The Meddling Monk - Rufus Hound
• Veklin - Beth Chalmers
• Cardinal Ollistra - Carolyn Pickles
• Ollistra - Jacqueline Pearce
• Joanie Carrington - Ronni Ancona

References

• The Monk announces six new bridge building projects and a dozen new skyscrapers.
• Reverend Mortimer is known thanks to Public Access Television.
• Joanie is owed a drink by Tony and goes on a date with him.
• The Monk mentions the Brasserie Lapin Blanc.
• Ollistra has Joanie relocate those living in the Lower East Side, using "urban renewal" as a cover.
• The Doctor compares the Monk to Robert Moses.
• The helicopter has an artron filter.
• The City Museum's boss is Stirling, whom Joanie dated in high school.
• The Monk uses a quantum communicator to speak to the Weeping Angels.
• The Eleven uses a Time Ring.

Notes

Textless cover.

to be added

Continuity

• The Doctor recognises the Weeping Angels. (AUDIO: Fallen Angels)
• The Monk wishes to "start afresh" with the Doctor, deducing from his manner that he had been antagonised by a past or future incarnation of his. (AUDIO: To the Death)
• Ollistra and the Monk state that they did not bring the Angels to New York; they were already there. (TV: The Angels Take Manhattan)
• The image of an Angel becomes an Angel. (TV: The Time of Angels)
• Liv uses Promethean Everlasting Matches. (PROSE: Doctor Who in an Exciting Adventure with the Daleks; AUDIO: Caerdroia)
• Liv warns Helen, "Don't look away. Don't blink." (TV: Blink)
• The Angels take the voice of a person they kill, with Joanie Carrington, as they later do with Angel Bob. (TV: The Time of Angels)
• The Eighth Doctor would later meet Ollistra's next incarnation on numerous occasions. (AUDIO: Day of the Vashta Nerada, Echoes of War, et al.)
• The Eleven calls the Monk "Mortimer," a reference to the name "Mortimus," which was given as his original name in PROSE: No Future.
• Mortimus is stuck in the 1970s. (AUDIO: The Rise of the New Humans)

External links

• Official The Side of the Angels page at bigfinish.com