Zagreus (audio story)
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Zagreus was the fiftieth monthly Doctor Who audio story produced by Big Finish Productions. To celebrate this story being Big Finish's fiftieth release and the 40th anniversary, the cast includes every single performer of a Doctor Who companion and Doctor to have worked with Big Finish at the time of production. Most perform roles different from their usual ones. As a result, this was the first audio story where Peter Davison, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy and Paul McGann all appear together. To date, the only other audio drama in which all four actors appear is AUDIO: The Four Doctors, which was released in 2010.
Publisher's summary
FOUR DOCTORS - ONE DESTINY
Zagreus sits inside your head.
Zagreus lives among the dead…
Zagreus sees you in your bed
And eats you when you're sleeping.
Plot
to be added
Cast
- The Eighth Doctor / Zagreus - Paul McGann
- The Doctor (disembodied voice) - Jon Pertwee
- Charley Pollard - India Fisher
- The Brigadier/The TARDIS - Nicholas Courtney
Charley and her mother (Projection)
- Lady Louisa Pollard – Anneke Wills
- The Cat - Conrad Westmaas
- Receptionist – Stephen Perring
- Miss Lime - Elisabeth Sladen
On Earth - Incidence of the Divergence (Projection)
- Reverend Matthew Townsend – Peter Davison
- Captain Neil McDonnell - Mark Strickson
- Miss Foster – Sarah Sutton
- Professor Stone – Nicola Bryant
- Mary Elson - Caroline Morris
On Gallifrey - Rassilon's Foundry (Projection)
- Lord Tepesh – Colin Baker
- The Great Mother – Maggie Stables
- Ouida – Nicola Bryant
- Cassandra- Bonnie Langford
- The Recorder - Robert Jezek
End of the Universe (Projection)
- Captain Duck – Sophie Aldred
- Walton Winkle (Uncle Winkie) – Sylvester McCoy
- Sergeant Gazelle – Lisa Bowerman
- Goldilocks – Bonnie Langford
- Corporal Heron – Stephen Fewell
On Gallifrey
- Romana – Lalla Ward
- Rassilon - Don Warrington
- K9 – John Leeson
- Leela – Louise Jameson
- Cardinal Braxiatel – Miles Richardson
References
Culture
- Charley encounters a Jabberwock, and quotes long passages of Jabberwocky.
- The background of Zagreus is explored.
Species
- The Divergence are a race that Rassilon locked away.
Individuals
Locations
- Romana and Leela journey to the Dark Tower in the Death Zone on Gallifrey.
TARDIS
- The TARDIS is jealous of the Doctor and Charley's friendship.
Timeline
- When the TARDIS "disappears", K9 scans for its presence in the Humanian Era, Peon Era, Morestran Era and Sumaran Era.
Notes
- This is Doctor Who's 40th anniversary story and Big Finish's 50th regular release. To celebrate, the cast includes every single performer of a Doctor Who companion and Doctor to have worked with Big Finish at the time of production. Most perform roles different to their usual ones.
- Jon Pertwee's voice is taken from a fan production, Devious, which featured Pertwee in a regeneration sequence. A twelve-minute excerpt from the unfinished film was released on DVD by BBC Video in 2009 as a bonus feature with TV: The War Games.
- To date, this story marks the only full appearances of Leela, K9 and Irving Braxiatel in the main range of Doctor Who audio dramas, notwithstanding Braxiatel's brief "off-screen" cameo in AUDIO: The 100 Days of the Doctor. Furthermore, it marks the first appearances of both Leela and K9 in a Big Finish audio drama.
- Along with AUDIO: The Four Doctors, this is one of only two Big Finish audio dramas in which Peter Davison, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy and Paul McGann all appear. Davison, Baker and McCoy all previously appeared in AUDIO: The Sirens of Time. Baker and McCoy also appear in AUDIO: Project: Lazarus, AUDIO: The Wormery and AUDIO: Thicker than Water together. McCoy and McGann appear in AUDIO: Klein's Story.
- Peter Davison, Paul McGann, Nicholas Courtney and India Fisher are the only actors to appear in all three segments of the story (Wonderland, Heartland and Wasteland).
- This story marks the only appearance of Elisabeth Sladen in the main range prior to her death on 19 April 2011, and her only audio appearance with a Doctor for Big Finish.
- Conrad Westmaas (The Cheshire Cat) previously played Tarpov in AUDIO: Omega and would later play the Eighth Doctor's companion C'rizz, beginning in AUDIO: The Creed of the Kromon.
- This audio drama was recorded on 15, 22, 26 and 28 August, and 2 and 5 September 2003 at The Moat Studios.
Continuity
- Zagreus was first mentioned in AUDIO: Project: Twilight.
- Charley recognises Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart from their encounter in Malebolgia in 2003. (AUDIO: Minuet in Hell)
- Romana has met the Brigadier before. (PROSE: Heart of TARDIS)
- When he is trying to remember the name of the TARDIS, the Doctor calls it "Bessie." (TV: Doctor Who and the Silurians, et. al)
- Ace read the copy of Through the Looking Glass in the TARDIS. (PROSE: Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible)
- The simulation depicting the 1950s shows Project Dionysus, strongly implying it is a project of the Forge, since Professor Stone used the phrase, "For King and Country." (AUDIO: Project: Twilight, AUDIO: Project: Lazarus, AUDIO: Project: Destiny)
- The Brigadier mentions that "we're little more than a product of a lifetime's memories, Time Lords even more so." This is similar to the expression that the Fifth Doctor used on the Eye of Orion. (TV: The Five Doctors)
- When the Doctor is looking for Charley, he says "Yssgaroth curse you." (PROSE: The Pit)
- Charley mentions that the Doctor escaped from Colditz Castle in October 1944. (AUDIO: Colditz)
- In her personal timeline, Leela's next encounter with the Doctor would occur in London in the 1890s during his sixth incarnation. (AUDIO: Chronoclasm to AUDIO: The Hourglass Killers) In the interim, however, she encountered an alternative version of the Sixth Doctor known as the Burner Doctor on the Gallifrey of an alternative timeline. (AUDIO: Disassembled)
- Leela says she "knows all the words to 'Daisy, Daisy'." Presumably, she learned the song during her visit to the Palace Theatre in London in 1889. (TV: The Talons of Weng-Chiang)
- The Doctor mentions a timeline where he stood on the planet Oblivion (COMIC: Oblivion) and one where he plucked out one of his hearts (PROSE: The Adventuress of Henrietta Street).
- Reverend Townsend's successor as the Cardington airbase's chaplain was Simon Murchford, who decided to become an Anglican minister to assuage the survivor's guilt which he suffered after the crash of the British airship R101 on 5 October 1930. The R101 had been launched from Cardington. (AUDIO: Storm Warning, AUDIO: The Next Life)
- The Doctor mentions that he has met Grigori Rasputin. He encountered him for the first time in Zarechny, Siberia in 1903 during his first incarnation in the company of his granddaughter Susan Foreman, Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright. (AUDIO: The Wanderer) Subsequently, during his third incarnation, he, Liz Shaw and Jo Grant became involved in the events surrounding Rasputin's murder at the hands of Prince Felix Yusupov and his co-conspirators Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich and Vladimir Purishkevich in the Moika Palacein St. Petersburg in December 1916. (PROSE: The Wages of Sin)
- The Doctor claims that he was once accused of the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy on 22 November 1963. During his ninth incarnation, he would witness the assassination in person. (TV: Rose)
- The Doctor recalls his encounter with Dr. John Polidori in the Villa Diodati near Lake Geneva in Switzerland in June 1816. On that occasion, he also met his future companion Mary Shelley for the first time. (AUDIO: Mary's Story)
- The Sixth Doctor mentions that he never got to Blackpool. This is a reference to a planned but ultimately unmade televised story TV: The Nightmare Fair, At the time, Big Finish Productions did not consider either that lost story or its novelisation to be canonical. Howwever, they would eventually produce an audio adaption of that story in 2009.
External links
- Official Zagreus page at bigfinish.com
- Zagreus at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
- The Discontinuity Guide Zagreus page
- Doctor Who - Devious
