No Place Like Home (audio story)

No Place Like Home (audio story)

left

No Place Like Home
Doctor:	[[doctor::Fifth Doctor]]
Companion(s):	Erimem, Shayde
Main setting:	Inside the Doctor's TARDIS
Key crew
Publisher:	[[publisher::Big Finish Productions]]
Writer:	Iain McLaughlin
Director:	Gary Russell
Release details
Release number:	3
Release date:	January 2003
Format:	1 Episode on 1 CD
Production code:	DWMCD04

No Place Like Home was a special Big Finish Productions recording given away with Doctor Who Magazine #326. It featured the Doctor and then-new companion Erimem in an adventure entirely set within the Doctor's TARDIS. A somewhat tongue-in-cheek comedy, the story had an unusual number of references to the Doctor's past lives and companions, and was notable for including the first performed appearance of Shayde, a companion who had previously only been used in DWM comic strips.

Publisher's summary

Whilst showing his latest companion, Erimem, around her new home, the Doctor discovers that the TARDIS seems remarkably keen to be as unhelpful as possible. Almost as if it wants rid of its occupants...

Cast

• The Doctor - Peter Davison
• Erimem - Caroline Morris
• The Rovie / Shayde - Mark Donovan

References

• Shayde first appeared in the Fifth Doctor comic strip, The Tides of Time. He later had a more complicated relationship in the Eighth Doctor comic strip stories, beginning with The Final Chapter.

Notes

• This is the only story in which Erimem appears but Peri does not.

Continuity

• Shayde's warning to the Doctor is a direct homage to the Time Lord's warning to the Fourth Doctor in Genesis of the Daleks. Again, the Time Lords "foresee a time" when a race will conquer the universe — only this time, it is the rovies.
• As in Time and the Rani — and, later, The Christmas Invasion — the TARDIS wardrobe features the outfits of several previous incarnations. In particular, Erimem encounters the Fourth Doctor's scarf and hat, the Second Doctor's furry overcoat, (DW: The Abominable Snowmen, The Five Doctors) and the Third Doctor's frilly shirts and smoking jackets. Of the three, the Fifth Doctor seems fondest of the scarf — which he describes as "useful", but cumbersome as he tended to trip over it on occasion. The furry coat is described as being made of polyester, rather than animal skin, and as having come from the planet Thraxis. He expresses positive embarrassment at her having discovered the kind of clothes he wore in his third life.
• A number of companions' clothes are also discovered in the wardrobe, including a dress worn by both Victoria Waterfield and Sarah Jane Smith, (DW: Pyramids of Mars) a kilt worn by Jamie, and one set of Leela's skins, which the Doctor says Peri once considered wearing.
• The TARDIS is said to have the ability to automatically reconfigure its internal arrangement of rooms, leaving the Doctor temporarily unaware of where the rooms had been moved. This was later touched upon in DW: The Eleventh Hour and IDW: Tesseract.
• Shayde is again seen here as an agent of the Time Lords, working both for them and, to an extent, with the Doctor. He is described as having the ability to remove his dome-like "head" and absorb things into himself. He is given a male voice, a gender assignment not entirely clear in the comics, especially after he merged with Fey Truscott-Sade to become the more feminine combined being, Feyde.
• Similar to a conversation between the Second Doctor and Victoria in The Tomb of the Cybermen, the Fifth Doctor speaks to Erimem about his memories of his family. He says he does not, in fact, think of his family very much at all, save for occasional thoughts of Susan.
• The Fifth Doctor expresses a disdain of cats, which was a running gag in his adventures with Erimem, at least until her cat's death.

Timeline

• No Place Like Home occurs after BFA: The Church and the Crown
• No Place Like Home occurs before BFA: Nekromanteia

External links

• No Place Like Home at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
• DisContinuity for No Place Like Home at Tetrapyriarbus - The DisContinuity Guide