The Oseidon Adventure (audio story)
The Oseidon Adventure was the sixth story in the first series of Fourth Doctor Adventures.
Publisher's summary
The first time the fearsome Kraals attempted to take over the Earth, with the help of their android agents, things didn't go quite according to plan — thanks to the time-travelling alien Doctor and his allies at UNIT.
This time, Marshal Grinmal and his belligerent cohorts are ready for them. This time, they'll make no mistakes. This time, Chief Scientist Tyngworg has not just one plan, but a back-up plan, and a back-up back-up plan worked out...
With the Doctor a prisoner on the Kraals' radiation-blasted home planet of Oseidon, only his companion Leela can save the day — alongside a most unlikely ally.
Plot
Part 1
Immediately following the events of Trail of the White Worm, the Doctor and Leela watch as the white worm transforms into a spatial wormhole, and the Master calls his allies through. Many tanks come through the wormhole, until the Master stops the rain, causing the procession to stop. The tanks are occupied by Kraals of the Second Kraal Army—and they are led by Marshal Grinmal, who remembers how the Doctor destroyed the first army. The Master offers the Doctor as a gift to the Kraals, who summon their deadly android servants. The Doctor sends Leela away as the Androids take him down; she promises to return with allies and weapons. The Master sends Spindleton in his own tank to recapture her. Grinmal wants to take the Doctor back to their homeworld of Oseidon, but the Master wants to kill him now; the androids intervene and disarm the Master, taking away his staser; they then send the Doctor back through the wormhole to their chief scientist, Tyngworg. Meanwhile, Spindleton loses Leela in the woods, and sends his helicopter to find her. The Kraals bring the Master back to the house with Spindleton. Grinmal negotiates with Spindleton, who wants to rule England when the Kraals conquer the rest of the world; Grinmal approves the plan, and imprisons the Master in the stables; he swears revenge.
Leela uses a horse from the stables to trample the androids guarding the Master. He tries to hypnotize her, but she slaps him, breaking the spell; she frees him, intending to make him fly the TARDIS to rescue the Doctor. Meanwhile, Spindleton and Grinmal confer about strategy, and Spindleton wants them to attack the local village, Dark Peak, as an example to the surrounding country. Spindleton wants to burn it, but Grinmal suggests a matter-dissolving bomb. On Oseidon, the Doctor is restrained by Tyngworg; he jokes about having been strapped to that table before. Tyngworg intends to drain off the Doctor’s knowledge with an analyzer device, as his predecessor once tried to do; it will take eight minutes. Outside Spindleton’s house, Spindleton and Grinmal see Leela and the Master race by on one of Spindleton’s prize horses; Spindleton prevents Grinmal from shooting them, for fear of hurting the horse, assuming that the army will hem them in. Grinmal dispatches the army toward Dark Peak. Leela gets the Master to the TARDIS, but the Kraals are guarding it; therefore Leela takes Master and the horse through the wormhole to Oseidon. Beholding the ruined landscape, the Master explains that the surface is radioactive; he suggests that the Doctor is in the nearest of the Kraals’ underground bunker. Unknown to them, Tyngworg is monitoring the area, and overhears the plan.
The Master and Leela find the Doctor, who is disoriented and calls Leela “Tilly”; he explains about the transfer (or rather, copy) of his knowledge. Tyngworg is monitoring the cell as well, and hears the Doctor tell Leela that the Master will be dropping in on Tyngworg, and that therefore they should go there as well. Moments later, the Master arrives, but Tyngworg is on his side; Tyngworg mentions that the Doctor in the cell is an android duplicate, which does not know it is a duplicate. Tyngworg insists he is aware of events on Earth. The Master tries to hypnotize him, but is unsuccessful, and finds that he himself is an android; Tyngworg is the real Master in disguise. He sheds the disguise and destroys the duplicate. The real Doctor is still on the table; he congratulates the Master on his success; however, the Master still intends to kill him. First, however, he resumes Tyngworg’s voice and calls Grinmal for an update; Grinmal reports that Spindleton has delivered a slightly-eccentric ultimatum to the British government. He also reveals that UNIT is approaching, and the Master orders him to detonate the bomb as soon as UNIT arrives, even if the ultimatum has not been answered. When Grinmal objects, he activates an override code for the androids, ordering them to return to Dark Peak and activate the bomb. The Doctor congratulates him again, but then says it may have been a mistake to leave him connected to the analyzer; his ongoing experiences are still being fed to the android duplicate, so that it knows everything now. The android arrives to attack, but is shot down at once; but the Doctor is not deterred. Instead, his duplicate had taken the opportunity to create a Tyngworg duplicate, which is even now ordering the androids to disarm the bomb and attack the Kraals. The Master loses contact with Grinmal, but in retaliation, he orders an autodestruct of the android Tyngworg. He then moves to attack the Doctor, but suddenly funds that again, he is an android—and as he ceases to function, the real Master has yet to be seen. Leela rejoins the real Doctor at the behest of the duplicate—and the Doctor wonders where the real Master is, and what he is doing, as the Kraal invasion seems to be a distraction.
Part 2
On Earth, UNIT is mopping up the Kraals and the androids, but they can’t find Spindleton, and astrange-colored blood trail leads into the woods. The duty officer at UNIT HQ hands the base over to the Master, and is killed for his trouble. Spindleton and the Master infiltrate the Doctor’s old lab at UNIT, where Spindleton begins to rebel; however, the Master hypnotizes him and sends him out to join the guards. On Oseidon, the Doctor and Leela create a new duplicate of the Master to interrogate. The duplicate doesn’t believe he is an android, so the Doctor has him try (and fail) to hypnotize Leela; he lacks the psychic empathy field that real Time Lords possess, and therefore cannot do it. Leela intends to melt him down, causing him to beg them to stop; the Doctor wants him to betray his original self, but he refuses. The Doctor realizes that the wormhole is an integral part of the Master’s plan, but how? He realizes the duplicates have the Master’s personality, but not his knowledge relevant to the current situation; therefore he looks at recently-deleted items in the Kraal computer. He finds a file indicating that two types of harmless radiation, Z-radiation and O-radiation, can combine to create deadly ZO-radiation, which has the power of a billion neutron stars. The Master duplicate realizes that the real Master wants this radiation to restart his regeneration cycle and become functionally immortal. If he does so inside the wormhole, he will survive the process. Oseidon is saturated with O-radiation; for the requisite Z-radiation, he turned to Earth, knowing that the Third Doctor once stashed a Z-radiation battery in UNIT HQ after failing to jump-start the TARDIS with it. The android breaks free of its restraints, forcing the Doctor and Leela to run away. The duplicate accesses the records to learn the real Master’s plan; but he finds a message from the real Master, who anticipated this possibility. Accessing the deleted files activated a matter dissolution bomb under the lab, which will detonate in seconds.
Outside, Leela recovers the horse, and uses it to get them back through the wormhole to Earth. There they meet Captain Clarke, who is acting commander of UNIT while the Brigadier is away on business in Canada; the Doctor has him contact HQ, but he gets no response. The Doctor realizes the Master must already be there, trying to steal the battery. The Doctor persuades Clarke to order the convoy back to HQ; he takes Leela to recover the TARDIS and get there ahead of the soldiers. He insists that if the Master has already succeeded, Clarke will meet him on the way back to the wormhole; the battery plays havoc with TARDIS navigation systems, forcing the Master to transport it by road. At the TARDIS, they encounter Grinmal, who alone survived the betrayal. Leela subdues him. However, the Doctor hears a helicopter, and realizes that the Master is sending the battery through the wormhole in that manner. As anyone aboard will die in the detonation, the Master can’t be there; and they only have until he arrives to recover the battery and seal the wormhole. Grinmal realizes his world is about to be destroyed, and volunteers to help stop the Master; he takes Leela and goes to recover the battery, while the Doctor wants to find out how to seal the wormhole. Meanwhile, Spindleton has arrived on Oseidon with one of his men and the battery; they set up in the mock village of Devesham that the Kraals use as a training center.
Using the TARDIS, the Doctor intercepts the Master, who admits to the plan. The Doctor tricks him into admitting that a temporal pulse will close the wormhole, as executable by any TARDIS. However, the Doctor reveals that the ZO radiation cannot be controlled; he suggests that this Master as well is a duplicate, and that the real Master is waiting in orbit. The Master draws a staser, and decides to kill the Doctor at once. On Oseidon, Leela and Grinmal kill Spindleton’s man, and intends to recover the battery, but Spindleton reveals that it is very unstable, and will trigger if he falls on it. He reveals his goal in the plan; the Master promised him a rebuilt country, filled with android duplicates which will obey him. Spindleton shoots Grinmal.
The Doctor demands proof that this Master is genuine before he dies; he suggests that the real Master intentionally withheld knowledge about the uncontrollable nature of the radiation. The Master insists he is real because he can sense a Time Lord in the vicinity (a function of the psychic empathy field), whereas the Doctor doesn’t sense one. The Doctor admits defeat. The Master contacts Spindleton and reasserts his control over him; Leela sees this and attacks Spindleton, dragging him away from the battery. The Master tells the Doctor he will activate the battery by remote; and he forces the Doctor toward the wormhole. However, the android from the exploding lab comes through the wormhole, having escaped the blast with only some damage; the real Master fires on him, but staser blasts can’t hurt an android, and the duplicate captures him, leaving the remote with the Doctor. The duplicate drags the real Master into his TARDIS, intending to force him to repair him and give him control of the TARDIS, as he now considers his android self to be the superior version of the Master. The Doctor bids them goodbye, and takes his own TARDIS to Oseidon’s Devesham. He finds Leela and Spindleton, and plans to take Spindleton to UNIT custody; but Spindleton intends to stay here, finding this mock village preferable to the real England. He sends them away, but asks them to take the horse home and set it free; though it’s a magnificent horse, history reports that it was a famous stolen horse, and therefore they can’t return it to its original owners. They depart in the TARDIS with the horse.
Cast
- The Doctor - Tom Baker
- Leela - Louise Jameson
- The Decayed Master - Geoffrey Beevers
- Colonel Hugh Spindleton - Michael Cochrane
- Marshal Grinmal / Captain Clarke - Dan Starkey
- Tyngworg / Warner / UNIT R/T Operator - John Banks
References
- The Decayed Master has allied himself with the Kraals, who invade Earth through the space-time wormhole created by the Great White Worm which is linked to their home planet Oseidon. Marshal Grinmal is the commander of the invasion force which it composed of the second Kraal army.
- Leela describes the Kraals as resembling "a pig who has mated with a rhino." The Doctor tells her that twelve centuries of living on a planet which has been ravaged by nuclear radiation will not result in a species which is "easy on the eye."
- Marshal Grinmal forges an alliance with Colonel Spindleton, who agrees to offer any and all assistance to the Kraal invasion force on the condition that he be allowed to rule England once the Kraals have conquered.
- Marshal Grinmal has the Master chained up in Colonel Spindleton's stables. Leela rescues him as she requires him to pilot the TARDIS so she can retrieve him from Oseidon.
- Leela refers to the Master as "charcoal face."
- Colonel Spindleton tells Marshal Grinmal that James Callaghan is the current Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
- After his arrival on Oseidon, the Kraal Chief Scientist Tyngworg continues the transposition of all the Doctor's knowledge and experience into a databank in the Disorientation Centre, a process which his predecessor Styggron had begun years earlier. Tyngworg creates an android duplicate of the Doctor, who does not realise that he is not the genuine article. It is the android that Leela rescues from the Disorientation Centre.
- It is revealed that Tyngworg is in fact the Master in disguise while the version of the Master which the Doctor and Leela met in Dark Peak and who travelled with the latter to Oseidon was an android duplicate. The Master destroys him as he has outlived his usefulness.
- As is still connected to Tyngworg's analyser, the Doctor programmes his own android duplicate to create an android duplicate of Tyngworg who turns the androids against the Kraals.
- The Master who had disguised himself as Tyngworg is revealed to be another android duplicate. The Doctor determines that the entire Kraal invasion was intended as a distraction which would allow the real Master to carry out his plans undisturbed.
- Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart is in Canada investigating sentient electricity pylons which are stalking the Canadian countryside while Colonel Faraday is in Switzerland.
- On Oseidon, the Doctor and Leela create a third android duplicate of the Master, which likewise believes himself to be the actual Master.
- Using Colonel Spindleton's forces, the Master captures UNIT HQ in order to gain access to the Doctor's former laboratory.
- Prink's Theorem states that ZO-radiation is formed when Z-radiation and O-Radiation, both of which are harmless on their own, meet. ZO radiation is able to emit the same level of energy as a billion neutron stars. The Master intends to absorb this energy, which will not only provide him with a new regenerative cycle but make him effectively immortal.
- The Master foresaw that one of his android duplicates would learn his plan and set an explosive device to detonate in 30 seconds if the deleted files concerning the ZO radiation were accessed.
- During his third incarnation's exile on Earth, the Doctor attempted to use a Z-battery to jump start his TARDIS. His attempt failed and, after his exile ended, he left the Z-battery behind him in his lab.
- In order to hypnotise others, Time Lords possess a psychic empathy field.
- While the Brigadier and Colonel Faraday are out of the country, Captain Clarke is the acting commander of the British division of UNIT.
- The third android duplicate of the Master survived the destruction of the base and betrays the real Master as he determines that, as an android, he is now the superior version of the Master.
- Rather than returning to Earth, Colonel Spindleton decides to stay in the duplicate of Devesham on Oseidon.
- Colonel Spindleton's horse Pink Gin, which was provided by the Master as a down payment, is in fact Shergar, a race horse which was stolen from Ireland in 1983.
Notes
- This story marks the first appearance of the Kraals in an audio drama and their first appearance in Doctor Who since their introduction in TV: The Android Invasion in 1975.
- Tyngworg mentions code Quadruple J. The production code of The Android Invasion was 4J.
- This audio drama was recorded on 18 August 2011.
Continuity
- The Doctor previously encountered the Kraals in the company of Sarah Jane Smith. The Kraals have records of the Doctor's appearance from this encounter. (TV: The Android Invasion)
- The Decayed Master tells Leela that the last time that he met the Doctor was on Gallifrey. (TV: The Deadly Assassin)
- The Kraals have created a second duplicate of Devesham on Oseidon. (TV: The Deadly Assassin)
- The Master's TARDIS appears in the form of a grandfather clock. (TV: The Deadly Assassin, The Keeper of Traken)
- The Brigadier is still working for UNIT, and still remembers the Doctor. Therefore, it may be prior to or during 1976 rather than 1979 as he has not retired yet and has not lost his memory of the Doctor. However, given the UNIT dating controversy, it is far from clear. (TV: Mawdryn Undead)
External links
- Official The Oseidon Adventure page at bigfinish.com
- DisContinuity for The Oseidon Adventure at Tetrapyriarbus - The DisContinuity Guide
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