The Crimes of Thomas Brewster (audio story)

The Crimes of Thomas Brewster was the one hundred and forty-third monthly Doctor Who audio story produced by Big Finish Productions. Released in 2011, it was the first in a series of three Sixth Doctor audio stories from Big Finish released during that year.

It is notable for featuring the third appearance of DI Patricia Menzies, for featuring the first appearance of the Doctor's future companion Flip Jackson, for turning the Fifth Doctor's former companion Thomas Brewster into a companion of the Sixth Doctor and for retconning Evelyn Smythe's personal timeline to include a time where she shared the TARDIS with another companion.

Publisher's summary

Sent down south to assist the Metropolitan Police in their efforts to investigate the gangland kingpin known only as "the Doctor", Detective-Inspector Patricia Menzies finds herself up to her neck in laser-armed robot mosquitoes, gun-running criminal overlords, vanishing Tube trains... and not one, but two Doctors.

Meanwhile the real Doctor, and his academic assistant Professor Evelyn Smythe, have become ensnared in the machinations of an old acquaintance — time-travelling Victorian guttersnipe Thomas Brewster. But what's Brewster's connection to the rapacious robot Terravores? And can anyone contain the gathering swarm?

Plot

Part One

to be added

Part Two

to be added

Part Three

to be added

Part Four

to be added

Cast

The Doctor - Colin Baker
Evelyn Smythe - Maggie Stables
Thomas Brewster - John Pickard
DI Patricia Menzies - Anna Hope
Raymond Gallagher - David Troughton
Jared Ramon - Ashley Kumar
Phillipa "Flip" Jackson - Lisa Greenwood
Sergeant Bradshaw - Duncan Wisbey
The Terravore Queen - Helen Goldwyn

Uncredited cast

Ticket collector - Nicholas Briggs

References

Cultural references from the real world

After her previous encounters with the Doctor, Menzies decided to do some research into time travel. She did not read The Time Traveler's Wife but watched the first ten minutes of the film instead. The Doctor was not familiar with either.
Menzies compares the interior of the TARDIS to "Captain Kirk's ship." She asks why the TARDIS console room does not have any chairs. The Doctor responds: "Detective Inspector, may I tell you something and I can't stress this enough: I am not Captain Kirk."
Evelyn refers to Brewster's Edwardian garb as being reminiscent of the ITV drama series Brideshead Revisited whereas Jared refers to him as Caractacus Pott, the main character of the musical film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
Jared mentions Call of Duty and Avatar.
Flip's ringtone is Pokerface by Lady Gaga.

The Doctor

While being interviewed by Menzies, Evelyn tells her that the Doctor's name is "Dr. John Smith."
Upon being told that a gangster who calls himself "the Doctor" has been buying up heavy artillery, the Doctor briefly suspects that one of his future incarnations is responsible. He tells Evelyn that he would not put it past some of them, presumably referring to the Seventh Doctor, whom he previously encountered on Gallifrey. Evelyn's description of Brewster as a fair-haired young man in his twenties wearing an Edwardian coat leads him to believe that it is, in fact, his fifth incarnation. He is initially concerned as to why he does not remember visiting London in 2010 during his previous incarnation. He tells Menzies that he may be suffering from a form of temporal amnesia.
The Doctor is able to survive a three storey jump from a building practically unscathed.

Fashion and clothing

After the Doctor's coat is destroyed in the explosion of the Terravore which had been pursuing Evelyn and him, he is given a jumper and jeans from the police station's lost property. He tells Evelyn that he has twelve other identical coats in the TARDIS wardrobe.

Individuals

Menzies asks Evelyn what has become of Charley Pollard. Evelyn has never heard of her as the Sixth Doctor did not meet Charley until after Evelyn had left the TARDIS crew.
Menzies was recently seconded from the Greater Manchester Police to the Metropolitan Police Service due to her experience with mysterious individuals calling themselves "the Doctor."
When Evelyn attempts to test Brewster's claim that he is the Doctor, she mentions the Daleks. Having never heard of them, Brewster tries to bluff by claiming that they are pair of criminals named Billy and Terry Dalek.
When he meets Brewster, the Doctor uses the nom de plume "Norman de Plume." He later tells Brewster that he is one of the Doctor's companions and Menzies is the Doctor, having regenerated into a female incarnation.
Brewster tells the Doctor that his girlfriend Connie Winter was hit by a car and left in an irreversible coma. As the doctors told her that she had no chance of recovery, Brewster had her taken off of life support.

Planets

Sarcasm is a capital offence on Literatos II.

Species

The Locus tells the Doctor that all life on Symbios exist in symbiosis, hence the name of the planet.
A future incarnation of the Doctor saved Symbios from the Drahvins at a considerably earlier point in the planet's history.
While in possession of Evelyn, the Locus tells the Doctor that it infuses every living thing on Symbios with life and therefore nothing ever dies on the planet.

Technology

Menzies mentions iPhones and Twitter.

Theories and concepts

The Doctor tells Menzies that, due to the Blinovitch Limitation Effect, he experiences a prickling sensation on the back of his hand when one of his past or future incarnations is in the vicinity.

Time travel

Seeking to return to his own time, Brewster reactivated the time machine which he had built while under the influence of the alien posing as his mother in 1867. This allowed the Locus to make contact with him under the mistaken impression that he was the Doctor.

Transport technology

Brewster sends a Great Portland Street tube train to the planet Symbios on the other side of Mutter's Spiral through a space-time wormhole.

Vehicles

The Doctor claims to know how to drive a speedboat, though his efforts are less than successful.

Notes

This audio story was recorded at The Moat Studios.

Continuity

The Doctor and Evelyn were previously imprisoned in the Tower of London in 1554 (AUDIO: The Marian Conspiray) as well as visiting it in 2003 in an alternative timeline (AUDIO: Jubilee).
Brewster becoming a companion of the Sixth Doctor was foreshadowed in AUDIO: A Death in the Family as Evelyn reminisced with the Seventh Doctor about each of them spending time "in a spacesuit bouncing about Axos with that poor boy Brewster." This remark also foreshadowed the events of the following audio drama AUDIO: The Feast of Axos.
The Doctor tells Evelyn that he once passed under the original London Bridge in a boat with King James II (AUDIO: The Glorious Revolution) and that mudlarks used to scavenge for goods in the River Thames (AUDIO: The Haunting of Thomas Brewster).
This is the Doctor's first meeting with DI Menzies in his personal timeline. However, it is their third meeting from her perspective, following AUDIO: The Condemned and AUDIO: The Raincloud Man. Menzies elects not to inform the Doctor but he correctly guesses that this is the case. He promises to return the favour when they meet for the first time in her personal timeline.
DI Menzies refers to the Ackley House incident in Manchester in February 2008. (AUDIO: The Condemned)
Brewster once again poses as the Doctor, as he did while the TARDIS was in his possession. (AUDIO: Time Reef)
Menzies comments that the Doctor looks about five years younger than he did during her two previous encounters with him. (AUDIO: The Condemned, AUDIO: The Raincloud Man)
Menzies tells Evelyn of the time that Charley Pollard claimed to have met the Doctor out of order. (AUDIO: The Raincloud Man)
In AUDIO: The Raincloud Man, the Doctor politely refuses Menzies' request to travel with him, citing the growing mystery surrounding Charley's true identity, though he states that one day he may return and take her up on the offer. As his encounter with her in The Raincloud Man takes place later in his personal timeline than the events of this story, he would have been aware at that time that Menzies had never become his companion when they met in 2010. Consequently, granting her request in 2008 would have altered history and damaged the Web of Time. It is possible that the Doctor's grounds for refusal, namely the mystery surrounding Charley, may have simply been an excuse to avoid revealing to Menzies that he had already met her future self.
The Doctor recalls visiting the then newly opened Great Portland Street Tube in the company of Brewster and Nyssa in 1867 during his fifth incarnation. (AUDIO: The Haunting of Thomas Brewster)
Menzies compares Brewster to the Artful Dodger from Charles Dickens' novel Oliver Twist. Later in his sixth incarnation, the Doctor would meet a 23-year-old version of the Artful Dodger in the Land of Fiction (AUDIO: Legend of the Cybermen) whereas the Ninth Doctor and his companion Rose Tyler would later meet Dickens himself in Cardiff on 24 December 1869 (TV: The Unquiet Dead).
Captain Ruth Matheson would later tell Warrant Officer Charlie Sato about the 2010 Terravore incursion in the London Underground and that a deactivated Terravore was stored in UNIT's Vault. (AUDIO: Tales from the Vault) In 2014, Rees would use his mind to control this Terravore to help him search for his music box. (AUDIO: The Screaming Skull)

External links