Nevermore (audio story)

A bizarre manifestation in the Control Room forces the TARDIS onto the Plutonian shores of the irradiated world Nevermore, whose sole inhabitant is the war criminal Morella Wendigo — a prisoner of this devastated planet. But the Doctor and his new companion aren’t Morella’s only visitors. Senior Prosecutor Uglosi fears the arrival of an assassin, after the blood of his prize prisoner. An assassin with claws…

There’s no escape from Nevermore, whose raven-like robot jailers serve to demonstrate Uglosi’s macabre obsession with the works of the 19th century horror writer Edgar Allan Poe. An obsession that might yet lead to the premature burial of everyone on the planet’s surface — wreathed in the mist they call the Red Death!

Plot

to be added

Cast

The Doctor - Paul McGann
Tamsin Drew - Niky Wardley
Morella Wendigo - Fenella Woolgar
Senior Prosecutor Uglosi - Michael J. Shannon
Dr. Berenice Ward - Emilia Fox
Pilot / Edgar Allan Poe - Eric Loren
Ravens - John Banks

References

Astronomical objects

Nevermore was previously called Corinth Minor located in Cassiopeia, which contained volcanoes that showered semi-precious gemstones instead of lava. It became a playground for the rich and famous including General Verdagast. The general was involved in what the Doctor describes as a "particularly nasty factional war" against one of the rival Cassopeian colonies. His rival, General Morella Wendigo, detonated a biological weapon in Corinth Minor's troposphere. Faced with the outbreak of a previously unknown flesh-eating plague, the Galactic Authority sought the help of the Time Lords. The Time Lords passed the planet through a belt of ultraviolet radiation, killing almost the entire population of the planet through the Red Death. The authorities renamed it "Nevermore" as a reminder of the folly of war. Wendigo was sentenced by a war crimes tribunal to a lifetime of exile to Nevermore so that she could contemplate her crimes.

Culture

During her childhood, Uglosi read Poe's works to Berenice every night including The Murders in the Rue Morgue, The Tell-Tale Heart, The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar and The Mystery of Marie Rogêt.
Protocol Roderick is a reference to Poe's short story The Fall of the House of Usher.
A part from "A Dream Within a Dream" is also recited by Uglosi.

The Doctor

The Doctor quotes extensively from The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe.
The Doctor met Poe in the autumn of 1849 in Baltimore where his title was mistaken for a medical qualification. He was asked to attend to Poe who was in a bar sitting among a crowd of drunks but was completely sober.

Individuals

The pilot of the ship which flew Senior Prosecutor Uglosi and Dr. Berenice Ward to Nevermore lost his eyes by looking into a sunburst several years earlier. He was then fitted with bionic eyes.
Tamsin did a module on escapology in drama school.
Uglosi tells the Doctor that a "strange little man" was brought before his court on a vagrancy charge twenty years earlier. In private, he told Uglosi that he was a time traveller and that that General Verdagast would land on Corinth Minor three months later to broker a secret deal with the enemy side. This acquiescence would become infamous as the Corinth Compact. When the two forces came together, they would create an empire which would be a blight on the region. Uglosi released him but could not help wondering if he was telling the truth. When Verdagast travelled to Corinth Minor at the predicted time, he informed Wendigo of the secret deal. With this information, which had been confirmed by her agents on Corinth Minor, she released the biological weapon into the troposphere to ensure that no compact could ever be signed on the planet.
Berenice was a survivor of the Red Death, whom Uglosi adopted due to his guilt. She is a mutant who leeches psychic energy from those around her, feeding a shadow entity which the Doctor believes to be composed of supraviolet radiation.

Robots

The robot-like ravens are modelled after the relevant bird because of Senior Prosecutor Uglosi's obsession with Poe's works. Uglosi later quotes from Poe's The Black Cat and The Pit and the Pendulum whereas Berenice Ward quotes from The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket.

TARDIS

The TARDIS has a mile of Margate beach with seagulls, a laundry, a greenhouse and a sauna.
After the black cat appears in the console room, Tamsin refers to Bagpuss and Animals Do the Funniest Things.
The Doctor has a colony of Fledershrews in the TARDIS.

Time Lords

The black cat is a messenger from the Time Lords and is far more intelligent than she appears. She tells the Doctor that he must apprehend the renegade Time Lord who told Uglosi of the Corinth Compact twenty years earlier.

Notes

The story has numerous influences from Poe's canon of work. 'Nevermore' is also the word the Raven caws in The Raven, whilst the robotic ravens derive from the same story; a black cat is the focus of The Black Cat; the mist of the Red Death is a reference to the titular plague of The Masque of the Red Death.
The story was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 Extra on 9 January 2013.

Continuity

The Doctor tells Tamsin that cats are very popular on Gallifrey and that it was standard for Lord Presidents to have cats until the incident with the giant mice. (TV: The Mark of the Rani)
The Doctor mentions that he was the protégé of the American escapologist Harry "Handcuff Harry" Houdini. (TV: Planet of the Spiders) His fourth incarnation had previously told the Iceni cook Bragnar that Houdini kept numerous lock picks on his person. (AUDIO: The Wrath of the Iceni)
After regaining consciousness, the Doctor refers to the temporal storm in which his future self was caught and his subsequent arrival at the Villa Diodati near Lake Geneva in Switzerland in June 1816, where he met his former companion Mary Shelley for the first time. (AUDIO: Mary's Story)
The Doctor mentions that he met Edgar Allan Poe three days prior to his death during his second exile on Earth earlier in his eighth incarnation. (PROSE: The Deadstone Memorial)
The Doctor tells Uglosi that he believes that there is only one renegade Time Lord who would manipulate others into wiping out the population of an entire planet and that he is "no longer around." This is a presumably a reference to the Bruce Master, who met his death when he fell into the Eye of Harmony shortly after the Doctor's most recent regeneration. (TV: Doctor Who) The Eighth Doctor would later encounter a Master resurrected by the Time Lords. (AUDIO: Eyes of the Master)
The Doctor would later learn the identity of the "strange little man" who was responsible for the destruction of Corinth Minor on his visit to Ireland in 1006. (AUDIO: The Book of Kells)

External links

Nevermore at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
Official Nevermore page at bigfinish.com
DisContinuity for Nevermore at Tetrapyriarbus - The DisContinuity Guide