The Beginning (audio story)

The Beginning
Doctor:	First Doctor
Companion(s):	Susan
Main enemy:	The First Propagator Archaeons Quadrigger Stoyn
Main setting:	Gallifrey The Moon, the distant past
Key crew
Publisher:	Big Finish Productions
Writer:	Marc Platt
Director:	Lisa Bowerman
Music:	Toby Hrycek-Robinson
Sound:	Toby Hrycek-Robinson
Read by:	Carole Ann Ford, Terry Molloy
Release details
Release number:	8.05
Release date:	November 2013
Format:	2 Parts, 1 CD
Production code:	BFPDWCC73
The Companion Chronicles
← Previous	Ghost in the Machine
Next →	The Dying Light

The Beginning was the seventy-third release in the Companion Chronicles audio range. It was the fifth story of season 8. It was written by Marc Platt and featured the First Doctor and Susan Foreman. Chronologically, it is the earliest Doctor Who story in any medium.

Publisher's summary

When the First Doctor and his grand-daughter Susan escape through the cloisters of Gallifrey to an old Type 40 Time Travel capsule, little do they realise the adventures that lie ahead… And little do they know, as the TARDIS dematerialises and they leave their home world behind, there is someone else aboard the ship. He is Quadrigger Stoyn, and he is very unhappy…

Plot

The First Flight (1)

to be added

Red Lightning (2)

to be added

Cast

• Susan Foreman - Carole Ann Ford
• Quadrigger Stoyn / The First Propagator - Terry Molloy

Uncredited cast

• Greta - Lisa Bowerman

Characters

• The Doctor
• Susan Foreman
• Quadrigger Stoyn
• First Propagator
• Greta
• Maguire

References

• Susan claims that she was too young to understand the reasons why she and the Doctor left Gallifrey.
• The Doctor and Susan were being pursued by the Chancellery Guard.
• Susan describes the Doctor's luggage as a large, bronze trunk that floated in the air.
• Susan describes Gallifrey as "a brown, green, snow-capped planet."
• Susan claims that the TARDIS was out of date and condemned to the junkyard while the Doctor believes that it has already been deregistered, explaining how they were able to escape through the transduction barriers.
• The Doctor was a controversial figure on Gallifrey due to his views on the Time Lords' non-interference policy. He made powerful enemies in the process and was accused of being a meddler.
• The Doctor was unfamiliar with Sol prior to his departure from Gallifrey. However, Susan learned of the existence of the solar system and Earth in her spatial cartography classes.
• Stoyn tells the Doctor and Susan that the TARDIS was scheduled for incineration before they took it.
• On the Moon, the TARDIS uses its chameleon circuit to disguise itself as a tall boulder.
• The Doctor removes the TARDIS' dematerialisation circuit to prevent Stoyn from returning it and them to Gallifrey.
• Stoyn claims that there are no grandfathers on Gallifrey anymore.
• Stoyn describes the Doctor as "a crafty old shell snacker."
• On a planet orbiting a blue sun, the TARDIS assumes the form of a giant mushroom.

Notes

The original cover.

• This story was recorded on 17 July 2012.
• The original cover of the audio put up on the Big Finish website illustrated the Doctor's TARDIS' original form as a pyramid. The image was altered after The Name of the Doctor, with the pyramid replaced with that episode's depiction of the ship's natural form.
• Given that the TARDIS' chameleon circuit is operational, this is one of the few Doctor Who stories in any medium in which the TARDIS appears in a form other than that of a police box.
• Along with AUDIO: Quinnis and AUDIO: The Alchemists, this is one of only three First Doctor Companion Chronicles not to feature Ian Chesterton, Barbara Wright or Steven Taylor.
• Susan refers to herself as "Susan" and her grandfather as "the Doctor", which contradicts PROSE: Frayed, that establishes them assuming those aliases.

Continuity

• Before the Doctor departed Gallifrey, he possessed a Type 50 TARDIS but abandoned it. His first TARDIS eventually escaped Gallifrey on its own and made its way to Valderon in the 36th century, where it again encountered the Doctor, who was by then in his fifth incarnation. (AUDIO: Prisoners of Fate)
• Susan enters another time capsule but the Doctor does not follow. He briefly speaks with someone outside, before pulling Susan out and entering another parked alongside it. (TV: The Name of the Doctor)
• The Doctor finds a food machine in the TARDIS. (TV: The Daleks, The Edge of Destruction)
• Susan coins the term "TARDIS" from the principles on which the time capsule works: "Time and Relative Dimension in Space." The Doctor tells her that the term already existed but she did not believe him. (TV: An Unearthly Child)
• There are sentient chairs on Gallifrey. (PROSE: Lungbarrow)
• The TARDIS again assumed the form of a boulder on Iwa. (PROSE: Frayed)
• In his capacity as Lord Burner, Irving Braxiatel was ordered by Lord President Pandad VII to burn "an old man" and "his granddaughter," who are implied to be the Doctor and Susan, from history. He disobeyed this order and the intended victims stole a TARDIS and fled Gallifrey. The very same day, Pandad died when a power relay in his office overloaded. An inquiry headed by Braxiatel found that this was an accident. (AUDIO: Disassembled)
• The Fourth Doctor later told Adric that there were "pressing reasons" for his departure from Gallifrey. (TV: Logopolis)

External links

• Official The Beginning page at bigfinish.com