Bloodtide (audio story)

Bloodtide
Doctor:	Sixth Doctor
Companion(s):	Evelyn
Featuring:	Charles Darwin
Main enemy:	Tulok, Myrka
Main setting:	Baquerizo Moreno, 19 September 1835
Key crew
Publisher:	Big Finish Productions
Writer:	Jonathan Morris
Director:	Gary Russell
Producer:	Jason Haigh-Ellery and Gary Russell
Music:	Alistair Lock
Sound:	Alistair Lock
Cover by:	Clayton Hickman
Release details
Number of parts:	4
Release number:	22
Release date:	23 July 2001
Format:	2 CDs Download
Production code:	7C/D
ISBN:	ISBN 978-1-90365-432-3 (physical); ISBN 978-1-84435-716-1 (digital)
Main Range
← Previous	Dust Breeding
Next →	Project: Twilight
Production order
← Previous	Neverland
Next →	Dust Breeding

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Bloodtide was the twenty-second story in Big Finish's monthly range. It was written by Jonathan Morris and featured Colin Baker as the Sixth Doctor and Maggie Stables as Evelyn Smythe.

A pseudo-historical story, it dramatised a portion of the studies made by Charles Darwin on the Galápagos Islands. It also marked the first appearance of the Silurians on audio.

Publisher's summary

The prehistoric Earth is dying. Thunderclouds roll across the skies, cloaking the land in darkness. The seas crash and boil as the rain turns to acid. The remnants of the Silurian race place themselves in suspended animation, deep below the surface.

One day they will awaken and reclaim their world...

The TARDIS has landed on the Galápagos Islands, a desolate outcrop of rocks shrouded in mist and fear.

In the settlement of Baquerizo Moreno, there are rumours that prisoners have been mysteriously disappearing from the gaolhouse. A fisherman has been driven insane by something he saw in the caves. And the Sixth Doctor and Eveyln are not the only new arrivals; there is also a young natural philosopher by the name of Charles Darwin...

Plot

Part One

Millions of years ago, a Silurian scientist named Tulok is on trial for experimenting on apes; his sentence is banishment to the planet's surface. On his way there, he encounters a female Silurian named Sh'vak, who offers to sneak him into a stasis pod. He refuses and goes out onto the surface.

In 1835, The Doctor and Evelyn are unsure of where they are until they encounter a giant tortoise, which tells them that they are on the Galapagos Islands. A little later, they meet up with Charles Darwin, who seems to know The Doctor, though it soons turns out that he thinks The Doctor is Albert Einstein. The Doctor, Evelyn and Charles visit the prison on the island. A man named Emilio is on trial because he claims to have seen devils in a cave by the river; his sister, Greta, pleads with the Judge that Emilio is a good man and is just unwell, but the judge refuses to listen to her and gives Emilio the death sentence.

The Doctor Evelyn and Charles have dinner. Later, The Doctor meets up with Greta and they go to the cell block. They discover that all the cells are empty. They go into one of the cells and the door closes and locks behind them. After a few minutes, a wall opens and Silurians come to take them away.

Part Two

to be added

Part Three

to be added

Part Four

to be added

Cast

• The Doctor - Colin Baker
• Evelyn Smythe - Maggie Stables
• Charles Darwin - Miles Richardson
• Captain Fitzroy - George Telfer
• Tulok - Daniel Hogarth
• Governor Lawson - Julian Harries
• Sh'vak - Helen Goldwyn
• Greta Rodrigues - Jane Goddard
• Emilio / Lokan - Jez Fielder
• The Myrka - Rob Shearman & William Johnson

References

Scientists

• The Doctor goes by the pseudonym "Albert Einstein".

Ships

• The Doctor and Evelyn meet Darwin while he is on the HMS Beagle.

Theories and concepts

• Monkton's Theorem states that no intelligent species is likely to leave behind fossils.

Gallery

• 

  Original CD cover

• 

  Illustration by Lee Sullivan from DWM 305

• 

  Textless version of the DWM preview art

• 

  Review illustration by Roger Langridge in DWM 308

Notes

• This story marks the first appearance of the Silurians and the Myrka in an audio drama.
• Clayton Hickman's CD cover won the Doctor Who Magazine Best Cover Poll in 2001.
• This audio drama was recorded on 31 March and 1 April 2001 at the Moat Studios.
• An illustrated preview featured in DWM 305 illustrated by Lee Sullivan.
• Alistair Lock's score to this story and Project: Twilight, alongside the score to The One Doctor, was released on the CD Music from the Sixth Doctor Audio Adventures.
• This story is set between The Trial of a Time Lord and Time and the Rani.
• This story was originally released on CD and download. It is now available as a download only.

Continuity

• The Silurians appear. (TV: Doctor Who and the Silurians, et al.)
• The Myrka previously appeared in TV: Warriors of the Deep and PROSE: The Scales of Injustice.
• The Third Doctor previously claimed to have met Darwin. (PROSE: Island of Death)
• Many years later, the Seventh Doctor and Evelyn would reminisce about meeting Darwin. (AUDIO: A Death in the Family)
• The Eighth Doctor later told his companion Charley Pollard that this experience "put [Darwin] off reptiles for life. Well, almost." (AUDIO: The Creed of the Kromon)
• In a parallel universe in which the Valeyard killed the Sixth Doctor and acquired his seven remaining regenerations, the Valeyard and his companion Ellie Martin visited a Silurian bunker in the Galápagos Islands. This incident was observed by the Time Lord Vansell, Coordinator of the CIA. (AUDIO: He Jests at Scars...)

External links

• Official Bloodtide page at bigfinish.com
• Bloodtide at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
• DisContinuity for Bloodtide at Tetrapyriarbus - The DisContinuity Guide