The Ultimate Poe (audio story)

The Ultimate Poe
Doctor:	Sixth Doctor
Companion(s):	Mel
Key crew
Publisher:	Big Finish Productions
Writer:	Andrew Collins
Read by:	David Monteath
Release details
Number of parts:	1
Part of:	The Quin Dilemma
Release date:	26 April 2024
Format:	Download
Interludes
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The Ultimate Poe was the seventh audiobook released in the Interludes series. It was released as a bonus download with the audio anthology The Quin Dilemma. It was written by Andrew Collins and featured the Sixth Doctor.

Publisher's summary

The Doctor and Mel go in search of Edgar Allan Poe, after discovering someone has been changing the titles of his famous works.

Plot

Finding a series of Edgar Allan Poe books he has never heard of during a visit to a library with Mel, the Doctor deduces that somebody is affecting Edgar Allan Poe's timeline. He connects an e-reader to the TARDIS console using the port once used for the core to the Key to Time and traces the interference to Edgar Alien Poe, captain of a raven-shaped spaceship. Poe's robot raven, Lenore, attacks the Doctor and Mel and they leap into a portal they come across to escape, after which they find themselves in a carnival and meet Montresor, who addresses the Doctor as Fortunato and takes him into his family's catacombs to sample a cask of vonix.

Montresor does not register Mel's presence, however, and the Doctor notes that the character of Montresor in one of Poe's stories takes only Fortunato into the catacombs. Montresor chains the Doctor to a wall inside a niche, bricks him up and departs, allowing Mel to dismantle the wall and release the Doctor using a lockpick from one of his pockets. Another portal takes them back to the raven-shaped spaceship, now captained by Edgar Android Poe, but they are soon chased by Lenore back through a portal to a masquerade.

to be completed

Characters

• Sixth Doctor
• Melanie Bush
• Edgar Alien Poe
• Lenore
• Montresor
• Edgar Android Poe

Worldbuilding

• The Doctor finds copies of The Telltale Hearts, The Pit and the Penguin, The Fall of the House of Prydon and The Splinx.
• Mel mentions Monty Python.
• Montresor has a trowel.
• The Doctor is a fan of Roland Rat.
• In the Doctor's pockets are a cricket ball, jelly babies, a catapult and a lockpick.

Notes

• The title is a reference to the final story of Season 23, The Ultimate Foe ^[+]Loading...["The Ultimate Foe (TV story)"], broadcast 38 years prior in 1986.
• This Interlude replaced the original story meant to be featured with The Quin Dilemma, The Memory Eaters, written by Alison Lawson and read by Dan Starkey.
• Although meant to be released along with The Quin Dilemma, this Interlude was released a month after the anthology.

Continuity

• The titles of the altered Edgar Allan Poe works echo aspects of the Doctor's life in general and the Sixth Doctor in particular:
  • The plural The Telltale Hearts alludes to Time Lords' binary vascular systems, a plot point introduced in TV: Spearhead from Space ^[+]Loading...["Spearhead from Space (TV story)"] and made ubiquitous thereafter.
  • The Pit and the Penguin evokes Frobisher, a long-term shapeshifting companion of the Sixth Doctor well-known for defaulting to the form of a talking penguin, introduced in COMIC: The Shape Shifter ^[+]Loading...["The Shape Shifter (comic story)"].
  • The Fall of the House of Prydon references the Prydonian Chapter, one of the castes of Time Lord society as introduced in TV: The Deadly Assassin ^[+]Loading...["The Deadly Assassin (TV story)"], specifically being the Doctor's Chapter. Although PROSE: The Book of the War ^[+]Loading...["The Book of the War (novel)"] suggested that the castes corresponded to the spheres of influence of particularly powerful Ruling Houses, and another chapter (the Patrex Chapter) had been confirmed as having a ruling "House Patrex" in AUDIO: Neverland ^[+]Loading...["Neverland (audio story)"], this is technically the first mention of a House of Prydon.
  • The Splinx references Splinx, a robot cat who acted as a companion of the Sixth Doctor in GAME: Doctor Who and the Mines of Terror ^[+]Loading...["Doctor Who and the Mines of Terror (audio story)"]. Splinx had previously been referenced in Big Finish Doctor Who audio stories in AUDIO: The Key To The Key To Time ^[+]Loading...["The Key To The Key To Time (audio story)"] where an alternative version of her travelled with an alternate Doctor going by the Wanderer.