The Beginning (audio story)

The Beginning
Doctor:	First Doctor
Companion(s):	Susan
Main enemy:	The Archaeons
Main setting:	The Moon
Key crew
Publisher:	[[publisher::Big Finish Productions]]
Writer:	Marc Platt
Director:	Lisa Bowerman
Music:	Toby Hrycek-Robinson
Sound:	Toby Hrycek-Robinson
Read by:	Carole Ann Ford, Terry Molloy
Release details
Release number:	8.05
Release date:	November 2013
Format:	2 Parts, 1 CD
Production code:	BFPDWCC73
The Companion Chronicles
← Previous	Ghost in the Machine

The Beginning was the seventy-third release in the Companion Chronicles audio range. It was the fifth story of season 8. It was written by Marc Platt and featured the First Doctor and Susan Foreman. Chronologically, it is the earliest Doctor Who story in any medium.

Publisher's summary

When the First Doctor and his grand-daughter Susan escape through the cloisters of Gallifrey to an old Type 40 Time Travel capsule, little do they realize the adventures that lie ahead… And little do they know, as the TARDIS dematerializes and they leave their home world behind, there is someone else aboard the ship. He is Quadrigger Stoyn, and he is very unhappy…

Plot

Part one: The First Flight

to be added

Part two: Red Lightning

to be added

Cast

• Susan Foreman - Carole Ann Ford
• Quadrigger Stoyn - Terry Molloy

References

• Susan claims that she was too young to understand the reasons why she and the Doctor from Gallifrey.
• The Doctor and Susan were being pursued by the Chancellery Guard.
• Susan describes Gallifrey as "a brown, green, snow-capped planet."
• Susan claims that the TARDIS was out of date and condemned to the junkyard while the Doctor believes that it has already been deregistered, explaining how they were able to escape through the transduction barriers.
• The Doctor was a controversial figure on Gallifrey due to his views on the Time Lords' non-interference policy. He made powerful enemies in the process.
• Stoyn says that there are no grandfathers on Gallifrey anymore.

Notes

The original cover.

• This story was recorded on 17 July 2012.
• The original cover of the audio put up on the Big Finish website illustrated the Doctor's TARDIS' original form as a pyramid. The image was altered after The Name of the Doctor, with the pyramid replaced with that episode's depiction of the ship's natural form.
• Given that the TARDIS' chameleon circuit is operational, this is one of the few Doctor Who stories in any medium in which the TARDIS appears in a form other than that of a police box.

Continuity

• Susan enters another time capsule but the Doctor does not follow. He briefly speaks with someone outside, before pulling Susan out and entering another parked alongside it. (TV: The Name of the Doctor)
• The Doctor finds a food machine in the TARDIS. (TV: The Daleks, The Edge of Destruction)
• Susan coins the term "TARDIS" from the principles on which the time capsule works: "Time and Relative Dimension in Space." (TV: An Unearthly Child)
• There are sentient chairs on Gallifrey. (PROSE: Lungbarrow)
• In his capacity as Lord Burner, Irving Braxiatel was ordered by Lord President Pandad VII to burn "an old man" and "his granddaughter", who are implied to be the Doctor and Susan, from history. He disobeyed this order and the intended victims stole a TARDIS and fled Gallifrey. The very same day, Pandad died when a power relay in his office overloaded. An inquiry headed by Braxiatel found that this was an accident. (AUDIO: Disassembled)
• The Fourth Doctor later told Adric that there were "pressing reasons" at the time of his departure from Gallifrey. (TV: Logopolis)

External links

• Official The Beginning page at bigfinish.com