The Wrong Doctors (audio story)

With Evelyn gone, the Doctor sets course for his destiny... in the form of his first meeting with Miss Melanie Bush, a computer programmer from the village of Pease Pottage, currently busy rehearsing with the local Amateur Dramatic Society — and blissfully unaware that her future is on its way, in his TARDIS.

Make that two TARDISes. Because at that very moment, a slightly younger Doctor is flying into Pease Pottage, too — returning his future companion Melanie Bush to her rightful place and time, after they were flung together during the course of his Time Lord trial.

Time travel is a complicated business — the iguanadon terrorising Pease Pottage being a case in point. But how much more complicated could things possibly become, if the wrong Doctor were to bump into the wrong Mel?

Plot

Part one

The Doctor finishes the last piece of chocolate cake that Evelyn Smythe baked, noting that there won't be any more. Lonely, he thinks its time for Melanie Bush to enter his life. Meanwhile, Mel is auditioning with Mr. Petherbridge, who goes outside to deal with a driver, telling him he should have followed the detour signs as Pease Pottage is closed for heritage matters. The driver refuses to turn around and is attacked by a territorial iguanodon.

The TARDIS arrives in the village: the Doctor is dropping Mel off in her correct time and place, following her relocation to Space Station Zenobia during his trial. After he leaves, Mel notices a cat similar to one she recalls from prior to her travels with the Doctor, and realises that they are one and the same: the Doctor has brought her to the wrong time.

to be added

Part two

to be added

Part three

to be added

Part four

to be added

Cast

The Doctor - Colin Baker
Melanie Bush - Bonnie Langford
Stapleton Petherbridge - Tony Gardner
Jedediah Thurwell - James Joyce
Mrs Wilberforce - Patricia Leventon
Vaneesh / Millicent / Christine Bush - Beth Chalmers
Ksllak - John Banks

References

The younger Doctor is wearing his multi-coloured coat whereas the older Doctor is wearing his blue one.
When the older Doctor realises that he has crossed his timestream, he is relieved that it is not another incarnation with their scarves, frills or celery.
The younger Doctor describes Mel as "invisible and ineffectual."
When she first met the younger Doctor, the younger Mel believed that he was going to audition for Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.
At the age of eight, Mel committed the names of 150 different species of dinosaurs to memory and is therefore able to recognise an iguanodon on sight.
Stapleton Petherbridge was born in Pease Pottage in 1758. He was impressed into the Royal Navy in 1810 and was killed during the War of 1812. He was either possessed or his identity was taken by a time demon.
Jedediah Thurwell was born in 1812. He was deported to Victoria, Australia, where he met a woman named Patsy. They later married and had four children and fifteen grandchildren. He died on his farm in 1884 at the age of 71.
Muriel Wilberforce was born in 1884. She and her husband Francis Wilberforce were married in 1910 while their son Francis Wilberforce, Jr. was born in 1912. Her husband was killed in the First World War in 1914. After World War II, she continued working at the Pease Pottage Post Office until she was well past retirement age. She was the chairwoman of the Pease Pottage Women's Institute from 1922 to 1964, serving in that position for longer than anyone else. She died in 1964 at the age of 80. During the 1980s, her grandson Martin Wilberforce ran the post office.
After naming "Mel A" and "Mel B" the two versions of Melanie, jokes about the Spice Girls (which included Mel B and Mel C among its members) are made, including a pun to the title of the song Spice Up Your Life.
Pease Pottage is in a pocket of cauterised time, detached from the mainstream of time.
Mel was born in 1964.

Notes

This marks the first appearance of Bonnie Langford as Melanie Bush in a Big Finish audio drama since AUDIO: The Vanity Box in July 2007.
This audio drama was recorded on 1 and 2 May 2012
This story has some resemblance to the second serial of Sapphire and Steel, where an entity makes deals with deceased people and manipulates time.
Big Finish released the first episode of the story as a podcast prior to release.

Continuity

In the older Doctor's personal timeline, his companion Evelyn Smythe has recently left the TARDIS to marry Justice Rossiter on Világ. (AUDIO: Thicker Than Water)
Mel's address in Pease Pottage is 36 Downview Crescent. (PROSE: Business Unusual; AUDIO: The Juggernauts)
Mel tells the younger Doctor that she is supposed to be reunited with his future self on Oxyveguramosa. (PROSE: Business Unusual)
The younger Doctor thanks Mel for testifying on his behalf at his trial. (TV: The Ultimate Foe)
The younger Doctor mentions that his future self is wearing Necros mourning colours, namely blue. (TV: Revelation of the Daleks)
The younger Doctor uses K9 Mark II's dog whistle to control the Baryonyx. (TV: The Ribos Operation)
The older Doctor refers to his encounter with Harry Houdini. Prior to their arrival in 1963, his first incarnation and his granddaughter Susan Foreman met Houdini in the United States. Houdini taught the Doctor how to perform sleight-of-hand tricks. (PROSE: The Sorcerer's Apprentice)
The older Mel mentions taking dancing lessons from Miss Fairs (PROSE: Business Unusual) and visiting the museum with her uncle John Hallam (AUDIO: Catch-1782) during her childhood.
As the younger Mel dies, she tells the older Doctor that she prefers his multi-coloured coat. He promises to begin wearing it again. (TV: Terror of the Vervoids)
The older Doctor advises his younger self to brush up on his history and recommends that he take a trip to Sheffield Hallam University. (AUDIO: The Marian Conspiracy)
Petherbridge refers to the Vortisaurs, (AUDIO: Storm Warning) the Chronovores (TV: The Time Monster) and the Pantophagens. (AUDIO: The Foe from the Future)
When Petherbridge talks about wiping the Doctor from existence, he refers to his travels with the scholar, the thief and the girls you met and never met...or are they yet to come.
In an alternate timeline, Ace called the Sixth Doctor "Joseph" from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat too. (AUDIO: The Light at the End)
The older Doctor proves his identity to the younger by telepathic contact. (TV: The Three Doctors onwards)
Melanie has an eidetic memory. (TV: Terror of the Vervoids, AUDIO: Spaceport Fear)

External links

Official The Wrong Doctors page at bigfinish.com