Dethras (audio story)

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Dethras was the fourth story in the sixth series of the Fourth Doctor Adventures, produced by Big Finish Productions. It was written by Adrian Poynton and featured Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor and Lalla Ward as Romana II.

Publisher's summary

In the control room of a World War 2 submarine something strange has started to happen. As the ship runs out of control, its crew begin to fall unconscious...

Finding the submarine in the last place they'd have expected, the Doctor and Romana are confronted by a mystery. Once fully populated, there are now only three men on board. And there's now also a chimpanzee.

What has happened to the rest of the crew? What are the strange noises they can hear outside the hull?

And most importantly, who, or what, is Dethras?

Plot

Part one

Applying the randomizer for the first time in several journeys, the TARDIS lands on a stricken WWII British submarine. On board are three naval soldiers, John, Philip and Robert, along with a chimpanzee called Franklin.

The panicked crew reveal they have no idea how Franklin got on board and the sub is near to collapse, but not because it has sunk to the bottom of the ocean - the submarine is adrift in space, just one more vessel in a vast spaceship graveyard in orbit around a desolate planet!

Meanwhile, on a spaceship elsewhere, Commander Flague is leading a mission to locate something, or someone, called Dethras...

The submarine is attacked by creatures living in the vacuum of space. The creatures gain access to the sub, ripping open the hold where the TARDIS landed, expelling the police box into the void.

When crewman Robert starts to mutate into one of the space creatures, the Doctor amplifies the submarine's comms system, which activates the closest working emergency transmat among the spaceships outside.

The Doctor and John appear on a nearby ship, while Romana, Philip and Franklin are transported to another ship. Franklin has begun to exhibit human speech and his vocal skills are rapidly improving.

Suspecting John is not who he says he is, the Doctor confronts the crewman, who admits that he isn't John at all, but none other than Dethras!

Part two

to be added

Cast

References

  • K9 has been analysing the time eddies in the power room.
  • The Stargazer's Halo is the site of many derilect spaceships, a vast junkyard in a ring around a dead planet in deep space, with a low level gravity field maintaining the orbit.
  • A Lodestar 27 with its original ion drive and a Xankari cargo ship are amoung the derelicts.
  • Submarines are built to withstand pressure and atmosphere.
  • Galactically speaking, the Xankari, pronounced "Zan-kar-I," were active in the first half of the 20th century, and were involved in a war.
  • Romana states that sound doesn't travel in a vacuum.
  • The Doctor uses sonar to send a message to a Xankari ship that can teleport them to safety.
  • Flague believes strongly in preemptive strikes.
  • Dethras is known as the "Einstein of Evolution" for his research into hyper-evolution. The Doctor's read all his books.
  • Philip remembers being given a lesson in "notable extinct races," which included information on TARDISes.

Notes

  • Philip was married only a year before the war broke out (being married in 1938, the war starting in 1939) but does not specifically state when he joined the service. Therefore, other than the fact the war ended in 1945, this story cannot have a more specific date other than "1940s."

Continuity

External links

v • e
Big Finish Fourth Doctor Adventures
Series 1
Series 2
Series 3
Series 4
Series 5
Series 6
Series 7
Series 8
Series 9
Series 10
Series 11
Series 12
Series 13
Dalek Universe
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