The Time of the Daleks (audio story)

The Time of the Daleks
Doctor:	[[doctor::Eighth Doctor]]
Companion(s):	Charley Pollard
Main enemy:	The Daleks
Main setting:	London, New Britain, 2050s Stratford-Upon-Avon, 19 September 1572
Key crew
Publisher:	[[publisher::Big Finish Productions]]
Writer:	Justin Richards
Director:	Nicholas Briggs
Sound:	Nicholas Briggs
Post production:	Ian Potter
Cover by:	Clayton Hickman
Release details
Release number:	32
Release date:	May 2002
Format:	2 CDs - 4 Episodes
Production code:	8K
ISBN:	ISBN 1-903654-61-0
Big Finish Doctor Who audio stories
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The Time of the Daleks was the thirty-second monthly Doctor Who audio story produced by Big Finish Productions. It was the fifth in a series of 6 audio stories featuring the Eighth Doctor. It featured Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor and India Fisher as Charlotte Pollard with Nicholas Briggs and Clayton Hickman as the Daleks.

Publisher's summary

The Doctor has always admired the work of William Shakespeare. So he is a little surprised that Charley doesn’t hold the galaxy’s greatest playwright in the same esteem. In fact, she’s never heard of him.

Which the Doctor thinks is quite improbable.

General Mariah Learman, ruling Britain after the Eurowars, is one of Shakespeare’s greatest admirers, and is convinced her time machine will enable her to see the plays’ original performances.

Which the Doctor believes is extremely unlikely.

The Daleks just want to help. They want Learman to get her time machine working. They want Charley to appreciate the first-ever performance of Julius Caesar. They believe that Shakespeare is the greatest playwright ever to have existed and venerate his memory.

Which the Doctor knows is utterly impossible.

Plot

to be added

Cast

• The Doctor - Paul McGann
• Charley Pollard - India Fisher
• General Mariah Learman - Dot Smith
• Viola Learman - Nicola Boyce
• Major Ferdinand - Julian Harries
• Priestly - Mark McDonnell
• Hart - Lee Moone
• Professor Osric - Ian Brooker
• The Daleks - Nicholas Briggs
• The Daleks / Yokel - Clayton Hickman
• Marcus - Robert Curbishley
• Mark Anthony / Army Officer / Tannoy - Ian Potter
• The Orator - Don Warrington
• Kitchen Boy - Jem Bassett

References

Conflicts

• The Daleks mention they gathered data from their attempted invasion of Gallifrey.

Daleks

• The Daleks are able to transform people, in this case Learman into a Dalek via drugs and exposure to radiation.

Governments

• The Eurozone is mentioned.

Individuals

• The Doctor makes mention that Orson Welles did not recognise William Shakespeare.

Locations

• The Daleks mention the Library of Kar-Charrat.

Technology

• The Daleks have constructed their own Eye of Harmony.
• Omega built a function into the Eye of Harmony projecting it fractionally into the future.

Time travel

• Time winds rip apart a Dalek.
• Chronons appear when you have a working time machine, except you need chronons to make a time machine work.
• The Daleks plan to use a Temporal Extinction Device to enlarge a temporal rift and harness its power for their own time travel craft.
• The Daleks and Learman need a temporal stabiliser to make their time machines work.
• Orthopositronium coats the mirrors of Learman's time machine.
• The time portal connects to 305, 1572, 1585, 1599, 1666 and 1940.

Notes

• This story is marked as being "Dalek Empire Part Four".
• Justin Richards originally scripted Learman as a man, but Nicholas Briggs wanted to cast Dot Smith in the role.
• Orthopositronium exists in real-world physics.
• This story marks the first credited appearance of Rassilon in an audio story, The Doctor talks to him during the narration in Seasons Of Fear, and Rassilon is heard towards the end of the narration sequence, he is not credited.
• This audio drama was recorded on 22 and 23 January 2001 and 27 February 2002.

Continuity

• The Daleks using mirrors for time travel first appeared in TV: The Evil of the Daleks.
• Orson Welles did not recognise a Shakespearean quotation in AUDIO: Invaders from Mars. The Doctor comments on this incongruity by referring to the fact that Welles made several Shakespearean films in the proper timeline.
• The Daleks' previous forays into information gathering were in AUDIO: The Genocide Machine and The Apocalypse Element.
• A Dalek which goes through the mirrors ends up in a Roman fort in Londinium in Britannia in 305. (AUDIO: Seasons of Fear)
• AUDIO: Neverland reveals the identity of the narrator quoting Shakespeare as well as the cause of the time disruptions.
• PROSE: Trading Futures makes reference to Learman.
• TV: Revelation of the Daleks first demonstrated how humans could be turned into Daleks.
• Mirrors were also used by UNIT for the purpose of time travel in TV: Turn Left.
• Later in his personal timeline, Shakespeare would meet the First Doctor (PROSE: The Empire of Glass), the Fourth Doctor (PROSE: The Empire of Glass, TV: Planet of Evil, TV: City of Death, PROSE: The Stranger, The Writer, His Wife and the Mixed Metaphor), the Fifth Doctor (AUDIO: The Kingmaker), the Ninth Doctor (COMIC: A Groatsworth of Wit) and the Tenth Doctor (TV: The Shakespeare Code). With the exception of the latter two incidents, all of these encounters occurred many years earlier in the Doctor's personal timeline than the events of Time and the Daleks.
• Later in his personal timeline, Shakespeare would travel in the TARDIS once again in the company of the Fifth Doctor, Peri Brown, Erimem and King Richard III. (AUDIO: The Kingmaker)

External links

• Official The Time of the Daleks page at bigfinish.com
• The Time of the Daleks at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
• DisContinuity for The Time of the Daleks at Tetrapyriarbus - The DisContinuity Guide
• An apparatus to search for mirror dark matter via the invisible decay of orthopositronium in vacuum