Nevermore (audio story)
From Tardis Wiki, the free Doctor Who reference
Nevermore was the third release of the fourth series of The New Eighth Doctor Adventures.
Publisher's summary
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!
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 - Eric Loren
- Ravens - John Banks
References
- The TARDIS has a mile of Margate beach with seagulls, a laundry, a greenhouse and a sauna.
- After the cat appears in the console room, Tamsin refers to Bagpuss and Animals Do the Funniest Things.
- The Doctor quotes extensively from The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe. The robot-like ravens are modelled after the eponymous bird due to Senior Prosecutor Uglosi's obsessions with the works of Poe. 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.
- 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.
- Nevermore was previously called Corinth Minor located in Cassopeia, 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.
- Tamsin did a module on escapology in drama school.
- 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.
Notes
- Fenella Woolgar (Morella Wendigo) previously played Agatha Christie in DW: The Unicorn and the Wasp and Commander Hellan Femor in BFA: Fitz's Story.
- Emilia Fox (Berenice) would later play Lady Elizabeth Winters in VG: The Gunpowder Plot.
- Eric Loren (Pilot) previously played Mr Diagoras in DW: Daleks in Manhattan, Dalek Sec in DW: Evolution of the Daleks and John Parker in BFA: Assassin in the Limelight.
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. (DW: The Mark of the Rani)
- The Doctor mentions that he was the protégé of the American escapologist Harry "Handcuff Harry" Houdini. (DW: Planet of the Spiders)
- 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. (BFA: Mary's Story)
- The identity of the "strange little man" who set these events in motion is revealed in BFA: The Book of Kells.
- 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. (EDA: The Deadstone Memorial)
Timeline
- Nevermore occurs after BFA: Situation Vacant
- Nevermore occurs before BFA: The Book of Kells
External links
- Nevermore at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
- Official Nevermore page at bigfinish.com
