Smoke and Mirrors (audio story)

The Doctor answers a psionic distress call being sent from England in the 1920s. There, in the environs of a fairground, he is reunited with an old friend: Harry Houdini. To Adric and Nyssa the name means very little, but to the Doctor's companion Tegan he is a legend. Escape artist extraordinaire, Houdini's reputation will last for decades.

But how come Harry knows so much about Tegan herself? Is it really just guesswork, as he says? Is Harry right to be concerned about the fairground's fortune teller, who claims to have supernatural skills? Both he and the Doctor suspect an alien influence they know of old.

What neither the Doctor nor his friends realise is that, somewhere in the shadows, a far more sinister and familiar presence is lying in wait for them...

Plot

to be added

Cast

References

Nyssa and Adric consider the fairground carousel to be rather frivolous and silly.
Harry Houdini has met the Doctor on several previous occasions and is aware of regeneration. As he once met Jo Grant, one of these encounters took place during his third incarnation. He learned of the existence of the Bay City Rollers from Jo.
The Ovids are beings of pure thought who travel from world to world in crystal spheres. Four of them became trapped in New York City in the 1890s. They can give form to dreams and nightmares. Houdini helped the First Doctor, Ben Jackson and Polly Wright free the Ovids.
Houdini is the first historical figure that Tegan has met since beginning her travels with the Doctor.
There were no zoos on Traken.
There is a tiger and a leopard in the fairground menagerie.
The Doctor receives a message from his eleventh incarnation through an Ovid sphere. He realises that it is his future self.
The Tremas Master refers to Adric, Nyssa and Tegan as "the Doctor's whelps."

Notes

Excluding his brief off screen appearance in Circular Time: Winter, this is the first Fifth Doctor audio drama to feature the Master.
This audio drama was recorded on 17 December 2012.

Continuity

Tegan is still wearing her Air Australia uniform. (TV: Logopolos, Castrovalva, Four to Doomsday, Kinda, The Visitation)
The Doctor has once again failed to return Tegan to Heathrow Airport in 1981. (TV: Four to Doomsday, Kinda, The Visitation)
Houdini tells Tegan that her aunt Vanessa would be proud of her as she had always wanted to travel. (TV: Logopolis)
The Doctor also encountered Houdini in his first (PROSE: Houdini and The Space Cuckoos), eighth (PROSE: The Great Escapes) and eleventh (PROSE: Houdini and The Space Cuckoos) incarnations. From Houdini's point of view, the latter was the first encounter with the Doctor. However, he fails to recognise the Eleventh Doctor on this occasion.
The Doctor's sonic screwdriver was recently destroyed by the Terileptil leader in London in September 1666. (TV: The Visitation)
Nyssa refers to the Fourth Doctor's recent regeneration. (TV: Logopolis)
Tegan would later be cornered by another tiger on Lady Adela Forster's private train in Calcutta, British India on 31 December 1926. (AUDIO: The Emerald Tiger)
The Eleventh Doctor refers to spoilers. (TV: Silence in the Library, Let's Kill Hitler, The Name of the Doctor, The Day of the Doctor)
The Master refers to Traken's destruction. (TV: Logopolis)
Nyssa refers to the Master's apparent death on Castrovalva. (TV: Castrovalva)
Houdini refers to the fact that the Doctor and the Master attended the Time Lord Academy together. (TV: The Sea Devils, The Five Doctors)
Tegan tells the hypnotised Nyssa that she knows what it is like to be under someone else's control, having been controlled by the Mara on Deva Loka. (TV: Kinda)
Tegan refers to the Master killing Nyssa's father Tremas and stealing his body (TV: The Keeper of Traken) and killing her aunt Vanessa (TV: Logopolis).
The Master is trying to reconstitute his body after being trapped in a collapsing dimension on Castrovalva. (TV: Castrovalva)

External links

Official Smoke and Mirrors page at bigfinish.com