Random Ghosts was the third full cast audio story in The New Adventures of Bernice Summerfield audio anthology released in 2014 by Big Finish Productions.
Publisher's summary
Welcome to the Forbidden World. This world has a secret. The problem is that no-one can remember what it is. Time is broken here. Those trapped here must live the same day over and over — forming alliances, lying to each other, trying to escape. Welcome to the Forbidden World.
Plot
On a planet where time is broken, Benny watches a recorded message from herself explaining that she is in a twenty-four-hour time loop and that memories can only be carried from one day to the next via video recordings stored in the Cloud. She meets Foster, who came to make a documentary, Klinus, an artist, and Varna, a scientist who believes that time was damaged by a time bomb. Following the bomb's detonation, Ace explains, the planet was time locked but failed to disappear from history.
The group encounter ghosts that vapourise everything they touch, whom Varna believes to be the rest of the population outside of reality. Despite the loop, those that are killed by the ghosts remain dead. Varna suggests that they find a way to use the exothermic reaction caused by the ghosts to enter the city, which many of them, aside from Ace, believe to be a safe place. Ace also tells Benny not to trust anybody as they are all lying to themselves in the recordings and deleting footage and tries to tell her a secret about Klinus, whom Benny is attracted to.
Klinus remembers fighting in a war before he was brought here and is grateful to whoever is behind it for giving him peace. Benny begins a sexual relationship with him. The group eventually manage to get into the city and, the next day, Varna decides to route power through the Cloud to bring the city to life and hopefully break the loop by proving the existence of their world. The plan works and the ghosts vanish. Klinus remembers his whole life and Ace reveals that they are on Skaro, the home of the Daleks.
Cast
References
- The Forbidden World, also known as the Ghost Planet, is trapped in a time loop, with each loop lasting for 24 hours.
- Benny describes Vince Foster as resembling "a badger in a spacesuit".
- Foster made documentaries for the Mystery Channel including The Spirit Ships of Tegeddon and The Beasts of the Fennal Cluster, the latter of which he won an award for.
- Benny claims that Klinus' name makes him sound like a dictator or a mad professor.
- Benny has seen paintings on Cephalus composed of planton and cuttlefish.
- Jaffa, Lyman, Cassius and Cade are killed.
- Klinus has never heard of ice cream.
- Ace reveals to Benny that the Forbidden World is, in actuality, Skaro.
- Skaro has been time locked.
Notes
- This is the first audio drama in which Ace appears but the Seventh Doctor does not since The Veiled Leopard in March 2006.
Continuity
- Benny came to Skaro in the hope of finding Ace. Her efforts were successful. (AUDIO: The Revolution, Good Night, Sweet Ladies)
External links
- Official Random Ghosts page at bigfinish.com