The Forsaken (audio story)
The Forsaken was the second story of the second series of The Early Adventures, produced by Big Finish Productions. It was written by Justin Richards, narrated by Anneke Wills and Frazer Hines and featured the Second Doctor, Ben Jackson, Polly Wright and Jamie McCrimmon.
It was notable for showing Ben meeting his father, James Jackson. In keeping with the show's decision to abandon pure historical stories after The Highlanders, this story contained sci-fi elements.
Publisher's summary
The TARDIS lands on an island off Singapore during the Japanese invasion of 1942. The travellers are found by some British soldiers — among them a certain Private James Jackson, who just happens to be Ben's father. But they're not the only visitors to the island...
Plot
Part one
Private James Jackson and his platoon are under enemy fire and escape. Meanwhile, the TARDIS crew consisting of the Doctor, Jamie, Ben and Polly arrive on Kenga in Singapore during the Japanese invasion in 1942. The air smells like sea salt and they decide to go have a look around. On the beachfront Polly spots a figure that mysteriously vanishes and Polly believes it to be death personified. They go investigate. They encounter Captain Clive Freeman who takes them to a hotel for American tourists. He warns them of the invading Japanese fleets.
They find the hotel to be in a run-down state and visit the bar where they meet Maggie Bishop, Mr. Andrews (a diplomat), Corporal Gibbs, Private Lawson and Private James "Jim" Jackson, where an astonished Ben later privately reveals that James Jackson is his father. While it is insisted they leave, the Doctor declares they must stay and investigate the mysterious figure Polly saw on the beach. Jamie goes to get some food for the group at Maggie's instructions, and ends up seeing the same figure Polly saw. He rushes to go tell the group. The Doctor, Ben and Jamie go investigate. They find a locked door and once they manage to open it, find a room full of dead bodies despite Maggie telling them that all the hotel staff had fled once they caught wind of the Japanese forces approaching...
Part two
The Doctor explains that the staff have just "died", without any trace of actually having been murdered. They reconvene with Polly and explain their discovery to her. Despite her insistence they leave, the Doctor says they must stay and it is revealed Ben wants to stay to make sure his father survives so that his existence won't be put in jeopardy, which the Doctor agrees. The four then join the returned Captain Freeman and company when they are suddenly bombed by fighter planes, and Private Andrews is injured. Jamie and Ben later go to retrieve a recovering Andrews, only to find him dead and bearing the same scratches they saw earlier on the dead bodies in the locked room. Agreeing that whatever did this was not human, they decide they need to find whatever did this and stop it. They tell the others of Andrew's death and then split into groups to search for potential intruders. Ben searches with his father while Polly talks with Maggie and Captain Freeman, claiming to have heard something, goes off to investigate by himself. The Doctor and Corporal Gibbs search one of the upper floors wile Jamie and Private Dawson search the ground floors. Ben spots something and he and Private Jackson chase after it while Jamie has an idea and sets a trap for the intruder, which the Doctor accidentally triggers, but the noise seems to attract the creature's attention and they attempt to capture it but fail. The creature, however, drops a metal disk that the Doctor picks up and later examines privately in a secluded room more closely when the creature interrupts his examination as it has come back to kill him...
Part three
The Doctor reveals he has tricked the creature and Jamie and Ben prepare to trap it when Maggie accidentally enters and the creature murders her and escapes into the jungle. The three reconvene and explain what is going on to the Captain and the soldiers. They decide to split up, Polly with the Doctor and Ben, Jamie and the Captain as a trio and they chase the creature into the jungle, as the Doctor is worried about it getting off the island and wreaking havoc in the world. He and Polly then investigate the hotel to try and discern the creature's motives. He eventually realises that the creature feasts on fear and tries to make its victims as scared as possible to give it a more filling meal. He worries it's trying to do this to Ben, Jamie and the platoon but decides they need to learn more about the creature first, believing they can take care of themselves and begin to analyze the metal disk.
Meanwhile the creature tricks, traps, lures and kills Private Lawson by disguising itself as Jamie. The Doctor, when he can't find the disk anymore, believes someone has taken it. He and Polly think, and realize that the creature can also change shapes and disguise itself as one of them. Ben, Jamie and the soldiers continue searching the jungle. The Doctor goes off into the jungle to warn the rest and makes Polly stay behind in case they return before he finds them. Later, she is joined by Captain Freeman who is looking for the Doctor and after Polly explains he went off to find him, he opts to stay and wait with her until he returns. Ben, Jamie and the soldiers, meanwhile, find a pile of bodies that have been dead for days, among them the body of Captain Freeman...
Part four
Polly is cornered by Captain Freeman (the creature in disguise) but manages to escape after the creature reveals itself. The Doctor finds Ben, Jamie and the soldiers and after he manages to convince them he's not the alien creature he takes out a device and using it they manage to find the alien's spacecraft. The Doctor explains the metal disk the alien creature took from him while disguised as Captain Freeman was an identification disk for the spacecraft. The Doctor manages to get it open and he, Ben and Jamie go inside to investigate while Gibbs and Jackson stand guard outside. The three discover inside the spaceship that their creature is called a Forsaken and its mission is to come to planets at war and feed off the fear induced by the circumstances. They deduce that the creature's plan was likely to disguise itself and board the evacuation crafts for Captain Freeman's men when they were to arrive soon and feast on larger civilization once it arrived in Europe. Immediately they realize the danger Polly is in and scramble back to the hotel. The creature corners Polly inside the hotel but she manages to evade it once again, and runs straight into Jamie accompanied by the Doctor, Ben and the soldiers. The Doctor realizes that because the creature induces fear, they can weaken it by being brave and abandoning their fear. The Doctor manages to distract the creature by standing up to it and it focuses all its attention on trying to make the Doctor afraid, allowing the others the opportunity to try and shoot the creature down. However, they cannot and the creature instead assumes the form of the Captain again, and Private Jackson cannot bring himself to shoot it. The Doctor, however, joined by the others once they catch on, manages to scare the creature into its own death. When they head back to the hotel to pick up Polly, the Doctor explains that the creature always attacked and feasted on the most scared member of the group, so when they made the creature the most scared, it "feasted on itself" Jamie finishes to which the Doctor replies "Something like that".
They arrive at the hotel and Ben and Jamie ask The Doctor about the ship and he explains that the creature and ship were genetically linked through the disk and when the creature died, so did the ship, after which they hear a loud explosion in the distance (the ship self-destructing). They then hear the arrival of the evacuation party boats and they convince Private Jackson, who is scared to go home as his wife wants to start a family but he can't fathom raising a child in this war-stricken world, that it is the best thing he can do and he'll be a great father. They then head down to the beach but the four reveal that they will be evacuating by a different route to a confused Private Jackson and Corporal Gibbs.
While they prepare to part ways, when asked about names, Private Jackson reveals that he wants to call the child 'Polly', much to the party's amusement.
Cast
- Polly Wright/Narrator - Anneke Wills
- Jamie McCrimmon/The Doctor - Frazer Hines
- Ben Jackson/Private Lawson/Andrews - Elliot Chapman
- Captain Freeman - Ben Nealon
- Corporal Gibbs - Michael Jibson
- Private James Jackson - Oliver Jackson
- Mrs Maggie Bishop - Gabrielle Glaister
References
- The Japanese invasion of Singapore began in February 1942.
- Polly comments that the creature takes on the visage of the Grim Reaper.
- The Doctor offers Polly some lemon sherbets.
- While searching his pockets, the Doctor finds his Five Hundred Year Diary and his sonic screwdriver.
- The Doctor says "et tu" when Jamie says he feels a horrible presence.
- This adventure occurs before the Doctor began using the sonic screwdriver, and therefore has to open the locked door by lock picking.
- The Doctor has a device that detects ionic emissions.
Notes
- This story was recorded at The Moat Studios.
- A free download of the first episode was offered to newsletter subscribers prior to release.
- The doctor says "et tu" when Jamie says he feels a horrible presence. This is a line from Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar.
- In keeping with the show's continuity that the Doctor doesn't start to use the sonic screwdriver until its introduction in TV: Fury from the Deep, the Doctor picks a locked door. Despite this, however, when later listing the contents of his pockets to Polly he mentions that he keeps the sonic screwdriver in one of them.
Continuity
- Ben compares the ship to the Mary Celeste, discovered abandoned and without its crew. He says what happened to it is a mystery, but the Doctor suggests he was there. (TV: The Chase)
- Ben says that he was born in December 1942. (PROSE: Invasion of the Cat-People)
- James says he could get a job on a ship after the war. (PROSE: Invasion of the Cat-People)
- The Doctor mentions the last time Ben doubted he was the Doctor. (TV: The Power of the Daleks)
- The Doctor likes pockets. (TV: The Woman Who Fell to Earth)
- The Doctor excitedly exclaims that he hopes that the bar serves ginger beer. (TV: The Android Invasion, AUDIO: The Eternal Summer et al.)
- The Doctor mentions the items in his pockets, including lemon sherbets, his 500 year diary and his sonic screwdriver. (TV: The Power of the Daleks, Fury from the Deep et al. )
- The Doctor convinces Ben and Jamie that it's him and not the creature by saying that "When it wasn't me you didn't believe it was me and now when it is me you still don't believe it's me!" (TV: The Tenth Planet, The Power of the Daleks et al. )
External links
- Official The Forsaken page at bigfinish.com
