The Empty Man (audio story)
The Empty Man was the second story in the audio anthology In the Bleak Midwinter, produced by Big Finish Productions. It was written by Tim Foley and featured Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor, India Fisher as Charlotte Pollard and Jaye Griffiths as Lady Audacity Montague.
Publisher's summary
Good evening, faithful listener. It's time for Eldridge Brinkwood, that splendid scribe of scary stories, to tell another of his tales this Christmas Eve.
Except this is a horror like no other. The Doctor and his friends have stirred something in the dark, something ruthless and relentless. And the Empty Man must feast...
Plot
On Christmas Eve, writer Eldridge Brinkwood finishes broadcasting a ghost story for his radio series, Eldridge Brinkwood's Haunted Delights, and encounters a face-changing figure in the studio. The Doctor gets him away to a car where Charley and Audacity are waiting and drives away, giving him and his companions the opportunity to explain to Eldridge what has been going on since they finished their Christmas celebrations at 107 Baker Street.
Whilst showing Audacity around the TARDIS, Charley answers a telephone and, although she cannot hear anything on the line, she gets a strange feeling from it. The Cloister Bell rings and the two of them run to the Doctor in the control room when they see a double of Charley in the corridors. The TARDIS is being torn apart, so the Doctor materialises and rematerialises in 1940s London to shake the double loose, after which he uses a tracking device for temporal anomalies which leads the trio to the studio.
The car hits a post box near Hampstead Heath after something darts across the road. Charley, Audacity and Eldridge fail to find any tracks in the snow and the Doctor damages the car irreparably in his attempt to fix it, so they decide to head for the nearby home of Marcellus Strange, a painter and former romantic partner of Eldridge's, and run there when the creature arrives and gives chase. They barricade the empty house against the creature and the Doctor wonders if it has latched onto Eldridge because he is not meant to exist, which he believes is possible given that the Doctor has never heard of him or his work.
Using his sonic screwdriver, the Doctor erects an electric field around the house to keep out the creature, which speaks to them through a wireless and demands to be given Eldridge, who is soon to die. The Doctor deduces that Marci and everybody else that Eldridge was due to meet, including people in the road, has been pushed out of the timeline by the creature. Eldridge decides to sacrifice himself by going outside with the creature, but the Doctor goes with him after Audacity is pushed out of phase and the three find themselves transported to an icy landscape beyond time.
The creature drains so much of the Doctor's life that it begins to die itself and is haunted by another version of itself, which feeds on the original creature before being fed on by another double and so on. The Doctor, his youth restored, is returned to the house with Audacity and Eldridge, who is suffering from a pain in his chest and whom he, Charley and Audacity take into the TARDIS. Eldridge dies there, but the Doctor is able to take his final vestige of consciousness back in time to a pass where Marci was painting.
The Doctor decides to collect Eldridge's broadcasts for his listening library and waves off Charley's concern about why the creature took her form given that she was not close to death like Eldridge was. Audacity suspects that he is hiding something and promises to look after Charley, which the Doctor says that he will too.
Cast
- The Doctor - Paul McGann
- Charley Pollard - India Fisher
- Lady Audacity Montague - Jaye Griffiths
- Eldridge Brinkwood - Nickolas Grace
Worldbuilding
- Alfred Duckworth, also known as Ducky, is Eldridge's broadcast engineer.
- The Radio Chronicle is a magazine.
- Eldrige's show is called Eldridge Brinkwood's Haunted Delights.
- Appointment with Fear and The Man in Black are radio series.
- Charley shows Audacity the TARDIS swimming pool, which is frozen.
- The Cloister Bell rings.
- Brinkwood did not write The Signal-Man, Number 13 or The Empty House.
- Audacity made the people working at a shutter telegraph near Hampstead Heath teach her semaphore.
- Charley learns about the Second World War.
- Eldridge always wanted to see the Alps.
- Marcellus Strange is a surrealist painter.
- Charley mentions Peggy.
- Eldridge received a letter from nine-year-old Georgie Mortimer.
- Audacity's mother told her that lies could "hollow out" a man.
Notes
to be added
Continuity
- The Doctor was telling Charley and Audacity about ghost stories a week ago in Twenty-Four Doors in December [+]Loading...["Twenty-Four Doors in December (audio story)"].
- Charley says that bad things happen when the TARDIS doors are opened in the Time Vortex. This was first seen occurring in The Edge of Destruction [+]Loading...["The Edge of Destruction (TV story)"].
- Charley mentions Al Norton's ghosts from Twenty-Four Doors in December [+]Loading...["Twenty-Four Doors in December (audio story)"].
- Charley mentions trying to tame a creature from the Time Vortex, referencing Ramsay, whom they first met in Storm Warning [+]Loading...["Storm Warning (audio story)"] and released from the TARDIS in Minuet in Hell [+]Loading...["Minuet in Hell (audio story)"].
- The Doctor uses a tracking device still in his pocket from the Vanguard in Sword of Orion [+]Loading...["Sword of Orion (audio story)"].
- Audacity was robbing a ballroom at gunpoint when the Doctor first met her in The Devouring [+]Loading...["The Devouring (audio story)"].
- Audacity is reminded of the events aboard the Aurum in The Great Cyber-War [+]Loading...["The Great Cyber-War (audio story)"].
- The Doctor implies that he and his companions were recently involved in a car accident, which almost happened in Twenty-Four Doors in December [+]Loading...["Twenty-Four Doors in December (audio story)"].
- Audacity likens the creature to the Devouring, which she encountered in The Devouring [+]Loading...["The Devouring (audio story)"].
- Audacity mentions the Christmas party at 107 Baker Street in Twenty-Four Doors in December [+]Loading...["Twenty-Four Doors in December (audio story)"].
- The Doctor says that the TARDIS will not be landing on Christmas any time soon. It eventually will in The Chimes of Midnight [+]Loading...["The Chimes of Midnight (audio story)"].
- Charley does not understand why the Empty Man believed that she was going to die soon. According to the Web of Time, she was supposed to die in Storm Warning [+]Loading...["Storm Warning (audio story)"].
External links
- Official The Empty Man page at bigfinish.com
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