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Kiss of Death was the one hundred and forty-seventh story in Big Finish's monthly range. It was written by Stephen Cole and featured Peter Davison as the Fifth Doctor, Sarah Sutton as Nyssa, Janet Fielding as Tegan Jovanka and Mark Strickson as Turlough.
Released in May 2011, it was the second story in a series of three stories featuring the Fifth Doctor along with Tegan, Turlough and an older Nyssa who had re-joined them in 2010's previous series of three audio stories. This story notably features more information on Turlough's past and background, more so than in his departure story Planet of Fire.
Publisher's summary
The TARDIS travellers take a break on the beach world of Vektris. Hot sun, cold drinks and all the time in the worlds. What could possibly go wrong?
A kidnapping, a spaceship heist and a desperate chase to a distant galaxy later, Turlough finds himself in a strange winter palace... along with a face from his past. The Doctor, Tegan and Nyssa, meanwhile, fight to escape its frozen catacombs, guarded over by a vast and deadly alien Morass.
But what connects Turlough to the ancient treasure hidden somewhere in the palace? And how far will he go to acquire it?
Plot
Part one
Slippage in the TARDIS's physical vector generators has left the Doctor, Tegan, Turlough and Nyssa on Vektris for two days and nights and the Doctor tries reformatting the interior dimensions. Turlough answers the door of where Tegan and Nyssa are staying to Deela, an old Trion friend who tells him that she is being used by Hoss and Kanch to lure him out. Kanch sedates him and takes him to their warp jet where Deela explains how Calquin Rennol needs them both on the Winter Planet.
Turlough is followed by Tegan and Nyssa and spotted by the Doctor. They take a mining ship and reroute the gravity wells to boost the engines and allow them to keep up with the warp jet, which lands at the Winter Palace sequestered from Turlough's family by Deela's father when war broke out. Rennol orders Turlough and Deela to kiss to open a dimensional vault, but it does not work and the group are interrupted by an alert warning them of the mining ship's approach. Hoss shoots the ship and the Doctor, Tegan and Nyssa brace themselves for impact.
Part two
Turlough explains that he and Deela found the dimensional vault, apparently stolen by his great-grandfather, and he set it to be opened by a random mingling of his and Deela's DNA, hence why Rennol needed to bring them together to get inside it. Deela reveals the interface after Hoss shoots a warning shot and he is forced to repair it whilst Hoss and Kanch go to inspect the crashed ship, but he is unsuccessful and deduces that energy is being diverted elsewhere.
Having cushioned the ship's crash using its gravity wells, the Doctor, Tegan and Nyssa survive. However, the ship starts collapsing and Nyssa fails into a series of icy tunnels and the Doctor joins her in finding a way out through the catacombs, hearing mutterings about the Morass as they go and encountering a figure which escapes the ice. Tegan is found in the ship by Hoss and Kanch and, claiming that the Doctor and Nyssa are dead, taken to Rennol and threatens the three of them with a generator tube from the gravity wells, but, after destroying the vault controls, she is deemed inessential.
Part three
The Morass leaves the figure in the ice and enters the Doctor through an injury, shocking his synapses and making his blood boil. He sends Nyssa away in case he comes under the Morass's control and learns that it is a sentient security system which entered a war footing due to perceiving the crash of the mining ship as a bombardment. In the Winter Palace, Rennol works on repairing the circuits by following Turlough's ideas.
Tegan, Turlough and Deela take a secret passageway into the catacombs but are followed by Hoss and Kanch, who found Deela's scarf outside of the hidden door. The five of them are attacked by glassy-eyed duplicates of the Doctor and Nyssa and Tegan, Turlough, Nyssa and Deela run into the real Nyssa. Turlough and Nyssa save the Doctor from the ice and go ahead to find Deela when she disappears whilst the Doctor and Tegan are held at gunpoint by Hoss, who tells them that Kanch has been absorbed by the Morass. In the palace, Deela and Rennol kiss.
Part four
Turlough and Nyssa knock incapacitate Rennol to save Deela, but she reveals that she is engaged to Rennol and after the contents of the vault due to her father having cut her off over the relationship. Turlough and Deela kiss and open the portal to the vault where Rennol uses a mass detector to find the treasure, which has all been pulverised; Turlough and Nyssa realise that the Morass had been defending Turlough's great-grandfather, who was protecting the Trion Queen, but is now protecting Turlough and Deela due to their bond to the vault.
The Doctor decides that he, Tegan and Hoss will have to sever the connection between the Morass and the vault in order to disable it and save Kanch. He joins Turlough and Nyssa, the latter of whom knocks out Rennol with the generator tube, and gets Deela to shut down the vault so that he can rewire the system, having Turlough and Deela stand in the way of the Morass facsimiles and getting Tegan and Hoss to use a scrambling unit. Impatient, Rennol shoots Deela and enters the vault when she and Turlough open it, unaware that the Doctor's work means that he will become the Morass's new power source before it dies. Turlough decides never to share anything with anybody again and Nyssa and Tegan keep what they have learnt of his past on Trion a secret.
Cast
- The Doctor - Peter Davison
- Nyssa - Sarah Sutton
- Tegan Jovanka - Janet Fielding
- Vislor Turlough - Mark Strickson
- Deela - Lucy Adams
- Rennol - Michael Maloney
- Hoss - Lizzie Roper
- Kanch / The Morass - John Banks
Uncredited cast
- Security Robot - Mark Strickson (BFX: Kiss of Death)
Worldbuilding
- Turlough and Deela discuss Turlough's family.
- Turlough's father knew nothing of the vault.
- Turlough's great-grandfather was a black sheep who set up a smuggling operation using the catacombs. He was killed by pirates after double-crossing them.
- Turlough's great-great-great-grandfather made defence deals with aliens.
- Turlough's great-great-great-great-grandfather was part of Trion's royal court.
- The Doctor says he is rather good at 4-Dimensional chess.
- Tegan asks if Turlough's family inherited the planet of Enid Blyton.
- To hide that the Doctor and Nyssa survived the shuttle crash from Rennol, Hoss and Kanch, Tegan tells Turlough that they were killed and that they will "never see their native Earth again."
Notes
- This audio drama was recorded on 14 and 15 December 2010 at the Moat Studios.
- This story was originally released on CD and download on 19 May 2011.[1]
- This story is set between Enlightenment and The King's Demons.
- It can be inferred that this story is set in the 1980s, 1984 at the latest, as these events had to have taken place between Turlough's placement on Earth and his return to Trion in Planet of Fire.
Continuity
- Tegan refers to Heathrow Airport. (TV: Logopolis, The Visitation, Time-Flight), and Nyssa's departure on Terminus is alluded to, as well as her return 50 years later. (TV: Terminus, AUDIO: Cobwebs)
- The Doctor laments his lack of a sonic screwdriver, which was destroyed by the Terileptil leader in September 1666. (TV: The Visitation)
- Although the Doctor would later claim that Turlough had never mentioned his planet or his family, he discusses both of them at great length on this occasion, albeit not while the Doctor is present. (TV: Planet of Fire)