Piece of Mind (audio story)

Piece of Mind
Main character(s):	Jack Harkness
Featuring:	Sixth Doctor
Key crew
Publisher:	Big Finish Productions
Writer:	James Goss
Director:	Scott Handcock
Producer:	James Goss
Music:	Blair Mowat & Ben Foster
Sound:	Richard Fox & Steve Foxon
Release details
Number of parts:	1
Release number:	2.1
Part of:	The Lives of Captain Jack: Volume Two
Release date:	12 June 2019
Format:	1 CD Download 1st of 3 stories
Production code:	BFPHARKNESS02CD
ISBN:	ISBN 978-1-78703-819-6 (physical); ISBN 978-1-78703-820-2 (digital)
The Lives of Captain Jack
← Previous	Month 25
Next →	What Have I Done?

You may be looking for the Lethbridge-Stewart short story.

Piece of Mind was the first audio story in the anthology The Lives of Captain Jack: Volume Two. It was written by James Goss and starred John Barrowman as Captain Jack Harkness.

Publisher's summary

When the Sixth Doctor falls dying into his arms, Jack must carry on in his place. Is the universe ready for a whole new kind of Doctor?

Plot

to be added

Cast

• Captain Jack Harkness - John Barrowman
• The Doctor - Colin Baker
• Hayat - Sophie Hopkins
• Callista - Hannah Arterton
• Zor - Prasanna Puwanarajah

Worldbuilding

• While acting as the Sixth Doctor's successor, Jack wears the Sixth Doctor's coat and yellow-stripped trousers, including his seventh favourite waistcoat, and adopts his accent. He claims to be a Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey in the constellation of Kasterborous.
• Not familiar with the Doctor's current situation, "the Doctor" uses post-regenerative amnesia as an excuse for his lack of knowledge.
• Jack throws the fast return switch.
• "The Doctor" uses a "sonic screwdriver" which he got for a discount from the Red Dragon Centre.
• "The Doctor" claims to have "bounced back" from death like rubber and the Spice Girls.
• "The Doctor" claims that, while his face may change, his hearts remain the same.
• The Doctor is on the brink of regenerative collapse before Jack heals him.
• Jack calls the Doctor "dude".
• The Doctor builds a synaptic interface from his symbiotic nuclei and the TARDIS's telepathic circuits, which he uses to spy on "the Doctor", though the signal gets "a bit fizzy" at a distance.
• The Doctor objects to "the Doctor's" use of guns.
• The Doctor calls Jack a "bragadocious flibbertigibbet".
• The Doctor complains to Jack that his orange squash is empty.
• The Doctor asks Jack for a fresh copy of The Beano.
• Jack asks the Doctor if he wants to watch TV, claiming that Pointless is on.
• "The Doctor" claims that his true name is "Dr Bernard Gariboldi".
• The Doctor objects to "the Doctor's" marriage to Callista, which he likens to marrying the Dalek Emperor. Jack counters by pointing out that the Doctor is still fighting the Daleks, and uses a hypothetical romance with Davros to taunt him.
• "The Doctor" notes that the Daleks call him "the Oncoming Storm".
• "The Doctor" deliriously calls Hayat "Rose".
• While acting as "Captain Jack Harkness", the Doctor wears Jack Harkness' coat. He identifies as an "immortal space adventurer".
• "Jack Harkness" likes his "dastardly masterminds" "sunny side-up, and served in an ice cool glass with grits on the side".
• Jack notes that he is not sure how divorce is done on Gallifrey.
• The Doctor tells Jack that he should have consulted the index file for the Janavar.
• Hayat kisses "the Doctor".
• The Doctor claims that he will soon fall into a healing coma, where he will "edit" his memories of meeting Jack as he sleeps.
• The Doctor calls himself a philosopher king.

Notes

• This story features a unique arrangement of Captain Jack's theme with elements of the Season 23 Doctor Who theme.
• Though Jack notes that he has waited "a hundred years" for the Doctor, the Earth date of this story is not explicitly given, though it's possible some references could be due to time travel.
  • Jack establishes in TV: Utopia that his wait on Earth, after leaving the Game Station's era, began in 1869, implying this story opens around 1969.
  • In the real world the Red Dragon Centre, which Jack mentions having visited, was not given that name until the year 2000, but the same has not been established in the DWU.
  • In TV: Fragments, set in the late 19th century, Jack was informed by the girl that he would find the Doctor only after the century turned twice.
  • Jack keeps the Doctor from regenerating, implying he has the Tenth Doctor's hand, which would set the story after 2006
  • Jack also suggests that the Sixth Doctor watches Pointless, which started airing in 2009.
• In the real world, Colin Baker has competed on Pointless Celebrities.

Continuity

• Jack has been waiting for the Doctor for the past hundred years. (TV: Utopia)
• Jack, waiting for the Ninth Doctor, finds the Sixth Doctor in the TARDIS, not unlike how Charley Pollard met the Sixth Doctor after being left behind by the Eighth Doctor. (AUDIO: The Girl Who Never Was)
• Jack uses the Doctor's regeneration energy to heal him without changing his form. The Tenth Doctor would later do the same thing. (TV: Journey's End)
• Jack believes "Zor" to be a villain's name, an intuition which turns out to be correct. Incidentally, the Fourth Doctor once fought another Zor, leader of the Pescatons. (AUDIO: Doctor Who and the Pescatons)
• Jack notes that the Sixth Doctor is not the Doctor he has been waiting for. (TV: The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances etc.)
• Jack mentions "tumultuous buffeting." (PROSE: Time and the Rani)
• The Doctor previously called Peri Brown a "flibbertigibbet" while attempting to save her from being used as a body for Kiv. (TV; Mindwarp)
• As "the Doctor", Jack notes that the Daleks call him "the Oncoming Storm". Jack had heard the Ninth Doctor speak of this to the Daleks of human origin aboard the Emperor's flagship. (TV: The Parting of the Ways)
• The Sixth Doctor assists "the Doctor" by pretending to be "Captain Jack Harkness", not unlike what he did for Banto Zame, who also got into trouble after impersonating the Doctor. (AUDIO: The One Doctor)
• Jack tells the Doctor off for flirting with Callista, as the Doctor had done to him previously (TV: Bad Wolf) and would do a number of times in Jack's future. (TV: Utopia, Journey's End, The End of Time)
• Jack asks the Doctor if he is proposing when he asks if there is anyone who Jack is not kissing. Earlier from his perspective, he shared a kiss with the Ninth Doctor. (TV: The Parting of the Ways)
• The Doctor is disappointed with Jack for not looking up the Janovar in the TARDIS index file. (TV: Castrovalva)
• The Doctor assures Jack that he will "edit" his memory of their premature meeting. Indeed, the Ninth Doctor fails to recognise the younger Jack. (TV: The Empty Child)
• The Seventh Doctor will later edit his memories again. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Genesys)
• The Sixth Doctor, acknowledging that he is not as good at apologising as he should be, preemptively apologises "several lifetimes early" to Jack for his future incarnation abandoning him, (TV: The Parting of the Ways) admitting that he does it to the best of his companions and "the robot dog". (TV: The Invasion of Time, Warriors' Gate)
• The Doctor and Jack both concur that they will meet again in the future. Indeed, Jack will ultimately reunite with the Tenth Doctor. (TV: Utopia)
• Though the Doctor claims not to be the "marrying kind", he has by this point shared adventures with River Song. However, his memories of these encounters were erased. (AUDIO: World Enough and Time, The Eye of the Storm)

External links

• Official Piece of Mind page at bigfinish.com