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Publisher's summary
Hallowe'en 1938.
A month after a mysterious meteorite lit up the skies of New York State, Martian invaders laid waste to the nation. At least, according to soon-to-be infamous Orson Welles they did. But what if some of the panicked listeners to the legendary The War of the Worlds broadcast weren’t just imagining things?
Attempting to deliver Charley to her rendezvous in Singapore 1930, the Eighth Doctor overshoots a little, arriving in Manhattan just in time to find a dead private detective. Indulging his gumshoe fantasies, the Doctor is soon embroiled in the hunt for a missing Russian scientist whilst Charley finds herself at the mercy of a very dubious Fifth Columnist.
With some genuinely out of this world 'merchandise' at stake, the TARDIS crew are forced into an alliance with a sultry dame called Glory Bee, Orson Welles himself and a mobster with half a nose known as 'The Phantom'.
And slowly and surely, something is drawing plans against them. Just not very good ones...
Cast
- The Doctor - Paul McGann
- Charley Pollard - India Fisher
- Orson Welles - David Benson
- Glory Bee - Jessica Stevenson
- Cosmo Devine - John Arthur
- Don Chaney - Simon Pegg
- John Houseman - Jonathan Rigby
- Mouse / Winkler - Ian Hallard
- Ellis - Mark Benton
- Bix Biro - Paul Putner
References
- H. G. Wells's novel The War of the Worlds is mentioned and referenced several times.
- The Doctor is astonished that Orson Welles is ignorant of William Shakespeare's identity.
- The Laiderplacker are the invaders.
Notes
- Simon Pegg (Don Chaney) would later play the Editor in DW: The Long Game and and narrate the first series of Doctor Who Confidential.
- Jessica Hynes (née Stevenson) (Glory Bee) would later play Joan Redfern in DW: Human Nature / The Family of Blood, and her great-granddaughter Verity Newman in DW: The End of Time, Part Two.
- Mark Benton (Ellis) would later play Clive Finch in DW: Rose and Jack Coulson in BFA: Energy of the Daleks.
- The first episode was specially released as a bonus on the original CD of The Ratings War.
- The title references the 1953 science fiction film Invaders from Mars.
- One of Houseman's lines - "George, what are you doing with those keys?"- is aimed at George Coulouris, who appeared in Welles' broadcast as well as Citizen Kane and later starred as Arbitan in DW: The Keys of Marinus.
- The headline on the Invaders from Mars cover is from a real newspaper reporting the War of the Worlds panic. The imitation poster on the CD booklet was drawn by Mark Gatiss.
- This audio drama was recorded on 16 and 17 January 2001.
Continuity
- The Sixth Doctor previously met H. G. Wells, the author of The War of the Worlds, in Scotland during the summer of 1885 and subsequently took him on a trip to the planet Karfel. (DW: Timelash) Many years later in his personal timeline, the Tenth Doctor would meet Wells once again in 1889. He intimated that they would have a third encounter later in Wells' personal timeline which occurred earlier in his own. (IDW: The Time Machination)
- The reason for Welles' ignorance of Shakespeare is revealed in BFA: The Time of the Daleks.
- In BFA: Neverland, it is revealed why there are forty-nine states in the USA (instead of forty-eight in 1938) and how the CIA, which was actually founded in 1947, can exist in 1938.
Timeline
- Invaders from Mars occurs after ST: Second Chances
- Invaders from Mars occurs before BFA: The Chimes of Midnight