Bad Day in Tinseltown (audio story)
Bad Day in Tinseltown was the first story in the audio anthology Silver and Ice, produced by Big Finish Productions. It was written by Dan Starkey and featured Sylvester McCoy as the Seventh Doctor and Bonnie Langford as Melanie Bush.
Publisher's summary
The Doctor and Mel drop in on the frontier town of Brightedge - dubbed ‘Tinseltown’ after the curious by-products from its depleted mine. The Mayor thinks the future lies in entertainment, but as the locals start behaving oddly, a hidden force of Cybermen has other plans...
Plot
Part one
Carol Protraxus of Galactic Central goes with Big Gerald into the caves used for mining, inspecting the machinery and such, when there is a cave-in.
Despite having just been renovated, the TARDIS stutters as it materialises near the mining colony of Brightedge. The Doctor and Mel go to Mitzi's Place and see a fight between Big Gerald and Quazor the Unapologetic, the first of whom has silver arms which attract the Doctor's notice. He claims that he is a magician and Mel an entertainment journalist, encouraging Mel to find out about Big Gerald's arms whilst he is gone. Looking around, she finds Nelson, a damaged Cyberman, in a cupboard, who used to be used by Mitzi for arm-wrestling contests.
Carol and Mayor Derek discuss the sustainability of Brightedge, with Carol insisting that the colony continues with the plan to be regenerated as a centre of leisure and tourism, and eventually getting him to agree to provide more energy for Mitzi's Place's grand reopening for the sake of publicity. They ride through Brightedge, which is decorated with the otherwise useless mining byproduct tinsel, to the mine and briefly meet the Doctor. The Doctor steals Derek's key card and access his computer at his palace.
Mel tries to interview the various performers lined up for the grand reopening, but none are forthcoming. She tells the Doctor that they seemed odd and mentions the robot that she found before going off with Mitzi for the show. Carol interrupts Mitzi's speech and toasts Brightedge's future, which is met with silence, before there is a blackout. The tinsel that everybody is wearing gets brighter in the dark and transforms; Carol reveals that she is actually General Polly Juno and begins converting everybody into Cybermen.
Part two
Juno dragged the real Carol Protraxus's ship off-course and threw her overboard to take her place and redirect the energy intended for Mitzi's Place's reopening to phase a Cyber-Warship into reality. The Doctor, after giving Mel and Mitzi the key card and telling them to run, finds that Juno does not recognise the escaped Nelson as a Cyberman. Ten other original Cybermen like Nelson arrive and begin to convert Juno into a Cyber-Leader through her augmentations.
Mel and Mitzi head to Derek's palace and are attacked by streetlamps and other objects which have come alive thanks to the tinsel, which starts flying towards the Warship to rebuild it. Mitzi reroutes the power back to her bar, weakening the original Cybermen and causing the tinsel to fall back down.
Without the power, Juno stops becoming a Cyber-Leader and, persuaded by the Doctor, has her forces stand down until energy has been restored. Derek is deemed unsuitable for conversion and killed whilst the Doctor is taken aboard the Warship, which he realises is what caused the TARDIS to materialise here, and ordered to repair it to save the people of Brightedge. He activates the self-destruct after Mel and Mitzi send out electromagnetic radiation to repulse the ship and jumps to safety. Juno, in the process of being converted, attempts to follow but falls.
Mel and Mitzi save the Doctor from falling into the mineshaft using Nelson to hold onto a cage to catch him and Juno crawls back into the Warship, which detonates in orbit and creates a wormhole connecting Brightedge to the inner galaxy. The converted people of Brightedge are restored to normal thanks to the loss of the tinsel and Mitzi takes on the role of mayor.
Cast
- The Doctor – Sylvester McCoy
- Mel – Bonnie Langford
- Mungo Derek – Dan Starkey
- Carol Protraxus / General Polly Juno – Jeany Spark
- Mitzi Cinque – Jasmin Hinds
- Nelson / Cybermen / Big Gerald – Nicholas Briggs
Worldbuilding
- Gerald works with Calath.
- The Doctor has renovated the TARDIS, giving it a brand new dimensional stabiliser and soup dispenser.
- Mel says that the planet is dingy enough to be the Arctic Circle.
- The Doctor states it's "the wrong side of the 30th century."
- Mitzi owns Mitzi's Place, a saloon on Cliff Street.
- Quazor the Unapologetic is a crocodilian being from Protragus Prime.
- Belcronians are "small but nasty" according to Mitzi.
- The Battle Janets of Cattermole V have tempers as fiery as their hair.
- Derek mentions Varga plants.
- Florana is a resort planet.
- The Doctor refers to himself as a "jack of all spades."
- Torvil works for Mitzi.
- The Cybermen located a dimensional phase shifter weapon after the Last Great Cyberwar.
- The Doctor states that cyber-technology has "a mind of its own."
- The Cybermen have passed into myth.
- The Colonial Wars are said to be over, and apparently occurred after the Cyber-Wars.
- Everything covered in tinsel comes alive and Mel remarks that they move like sea anemones.
- Before Brightedge became independent, it was run by the Tangerine Corporation. In those days, the mayor was the head engineer and was tasked with allocating power.
- The Cyber-Warship's destruction by the phase shifter, with co-ordinates programmed to the Inner Worlds, leaves a "scar in hyperspace" that is essentially a wormhole shortcut.
Notes
- Bad Day in Tinseltown was recorded at the Soundhouse in October 2021.
- This story was written to match the Season 24 feel of the Silver and Ice boxset.
Continuity
- The Doctor still speaks in malapropisms. (TV: Time and the Rani)
- Carol is, and Mel pretends to be, from Galactic Central. (TV: The Happiness Patrol)
- The Cybermen tried using a new weapon and ended up phasing out of reality and being stuck, similar to the Philadelphia Experiment. (AUDIO: The Macros)
External links
- Official Bad Day in Tinseltown page at bigfinish.com
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