Klein's Story (audio story)

Klein's Story (audio story)

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Klein's Story
Doctor:	[[doctor::Seventh Doctor (Frame story) Johann Schmidt (alternative timeline) (Flashbacks)]]
Companion(s):	Elizabeth Klein
Main setting:	Inside the TARDIS (Frame story) Nazi Germany, 1962-1965 (alternative timeline) (Flashbacks)
Key crew
Publisher:	[[publisher::Big Finish Productions]]
Writer:	John Ainsworth & Lee Mansfield
Director:	John Ainsworth
Producer:	Simon Robinson
Release details
Release date:	28th February, 2010
Format:	1 part, 32 minutes

Publisher's summary

Elizabeth Klein is an anomaly. A renegade from an alternate future in which the Nazis won World War II, In an attempt to get to know his latest companion, the Doctor invites Klein to tell him how exactly she came to be in possession of his TARDIS and of the events that led to her trip into the past to Colditz Castle.

Cast

• The Doctor - Sylvester McCoy
• Elizabeth Klein - Tracey Childs
• Johann Schmidt - Paul McGann
• Faber - Rupert Wickham

References

Individuals

• In Klein's timeline, Adolf Hitler died in 1961 at the age of either 71 or 72.

Technology

• Klein has been studying a Drahvinan power drive.

Television series

• The Doctor mentions the science fiction series Professor X.

Notes

• Paul McGann stars as an alternative version of the Eighth Doctor from Klein's timeline in this story.

• Unlike previous Big Finish releases of three part/one part story combinations, Klein's Story precedes Survival of the Fittest in this release.

• The Doctor's reference to Professor X is a reference to an episode of Steven Moffatt's children's television programme Press Gang, which revolved around one character's relationship with a creaky old television show that he watched as a boy; the show, Professor X, was very clearly patterned on Doctor Who. Coincidentally, Professor X himself was played in this episode by Michael Jayston, who had already appeared in Doctor Who as the character of the Valeyard. Moffatt has joked in interviews that after the end of his series Coupling, the main character, Steve Taylor, is a scriptwriter who now works on a modern revival of Professor X.

• The reference also functions as a good-natured poke at the lower quality of earlier Doctor Who episodes, since he says that he thought the show was better in the 1960s until he went back and actually watched the episodes. The title Vault of the Cyborgs is a reference to DW: Tomb of the Cybermen. Lost for many years, all four episodes of The Tomb of the Cybermen were recovered and rushed onto video in the early 1990s, at which point its reputation as a classic underwent radical, albeit temporary, reappraisal.

• Along with BFA: Zagreus and BFA: The Four Doctors, this is one of three Big Finish audio dramas in which both Sylvester McCoy and Paul McGann appear.

• The name Johann Schmidt is a possible reference to the alter ego of the Captain America villain, the Red Skull.

Continuity

• The TARDIS' design in this story is the same as what is seen in the DW: Doctor Who (1996), since Klein mentions that the Doctor has "redecorated" the ship since she last saw it (when the Doctor was travelling with Ace).
• The scene from DW: The Three Doctors in which the Second Doctor voices his displeasure with the new design of the TARDIS is echoed in a similar remark from Klein.
• The TARDIS' "leopard skin" desktop theme is mentioned, first referenced in DW: Time Crash.
• In the alternate timeline, the Seventh Doctor regenerated for the same reason as in DW: Doctor Who (1996).

External links

• Klein's Story at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
• Official Survival of the Fittest / Klein's Story page at bigfinish.com