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Thicker Than Water was the seventy-third story in Big Finish's monthly range. It was written by Paul Sutton and featured Colin Baker as the Sixth Doctor, Bonnie Langford as Melanie Bush and Maggie Stables as Evelyn Smythe, Gabriel Woolf as Rossiter and Sylvester McCoy as the Seventh Doctor.
A sequel to Arrangements for War, this story is set following Evelyn's first departure from travelling with the Doctor, which is presented in flashbacks in this episode and was briefly alluded to in The Juggernauts.
Publisher's summary
Three years after Világ was all but laid waste by the Killorans, the Doctor is back alongside a different companion. And a lot has changed.
Now elected Principal Triumvir, head of a tripartite government, Rossiter is working to secure a peaceful future for the planet by researching the technology the Killorans left behind. But he has to contend with opposition from his daughter, Sofia, who heads a public campaign demanding the destruction of all alien artefacts.
Politics has caused a rift between father and daughter, and as if that weren't enough, Sofia doesn't approve of her new stepmother either. Emotions soon boil over into violence — violence that seems to have gripped the entire city.
Friendships bind people close, but they say that blood is...
Plot
Part one
After saving a colony's biodomes, Mel scolds the Doctor for his rudeness and mentions in passing that she would like to meet Evelyn, with whom the Doctor credits the softening of his temperament. The Doctor decides to take Mel to Világ and recounts how he took Evelyn back there to see the planet's rebuilding following the Killoran invasion, after which she chose to stay with Principal Triumvir Rossiter and the upset Doctor did not give her a proper goodbye.
Two years after Evelyn's return to Világ, she is the chairperson of a controversial committee researching Killoran technology, a mission which is opposed by her stepdaughter, Sofia. Evelyn suffers from frequent headaches and, after storming off of Galen Today in a debate with Sofia and her ally, Dr Lawrence, promises her husband that she will take time to relax. After giving a speech at Memorial Park, she is approached by the Doctor and Mel, but the meeting is interrupted when shots are fired and a gas is released. Mel and Evelyn are captured by the attackers.
Part two
The kidnappers, one of whom Evelyn recognises as Dr Lawrence, release a potentially untraceable message threatening Evelyn's life if the Killoran research is not ended. She talks about the Doctor with Mel and is disappointed when she suggests that the Doctor only came back to prove that he could, but she becomes aggressive when she suffers a migraine, the latest since receiving heart surgery from Dr Szabó. Later, she collapses.
The Doctor and Rossiter head to the TARDIS with a recording of the kidnappers' message and follow it to tunnel system beneath Galen, the existence of which Rossiter was unaware. Meanwhile, Sofia secretly attempts to contact Dr Lawrence, whom she suspects, and flies by blade shuttle to his little-used penthouse with Jenner when he fails to answer. There, she persuades Dr Lawrence, who is in love with her, to let Evelyn go, but he is shot when the authorities arrive.
Part three
Mel, Sofia and Jenner accompany Evelyn and the wounded Dr Lawrence on the flight to the hospital, during which Sofia calls in Dr Szabó to perform the necessary operation on Dr Lawrence. Mel learns from Jenner that the Doctor, Rossiter and the TARDIS have disappeared and, after Dr Lawrence's surgery, she apologises to Sofia for suspecting her and is hit for suggesting that Dr Szabó might be involved. Dr Lawrence then goes into cardiac arrest.
The Doctor and Rossiter find a makeshift hospital in the tunnels and barricade themselves against the patients whilst they search the records in the hopes of making a connection between the hospital and Evelyn, whom the Doctor learns wanted him to give her away at her wedding. The pair find a file on her as well as faked death certificates bearing Sofia's signature. Fighting off the patients with a fire extinguisher, they get out of the ward and find a room full of Killorans who have been the unwilling subjects of genetic experimentation. Evelyn, the Doctor realises from her file, has been given Killoran DNA.
Part four
The Doctor and Rossiter release the Killorans and leave, suspecting that Dr Lawrence could be responsible for Evelyn's condition as he assisted Dr Szabó during her surgery. Unbeknownst to them, they are being watched by Dr Szabó, who tells Mel that he killed Dr Lawrence upon learning of his attempts to cure coma patients with Killoran blood and takes her to the lift, only to push her down the shaft. She is caught by the Doctor and, once Jenner arrives, stays to help the Killorans whilst the Doctor and Rossiter take a lift to the main hospital.
By creating antibodies in his own body, the Doctor saves Evelyn from dying in the operating room and goes after Dr Szabó with Mel, soon being joined by Sofia. Dr Szabó commits suicide by poisoning himself after admittig to manipulating Sofia to draw attention away from his experiments, which Dr Lawrence had been assisting with, getting Sofia to sign patients' death certificates to hide his involvement. Meanwhile, the next Doctor visits Evelyn in her room and tells her about how he is travelling with Cassandra Schofield's son, Hex, as he wants her forgiveness.
Weeks later, after learning that her heart condition was never really cured, Evelyn renews her wedding vows with Rossiter and is given away by the Doctor as she had wanted to be at her wedding. She tells the Doctor that she loves him and they share one final dance before he and Mel depart.
Cast
- The Doctor - Colin Baker
- Evelyn Smythe - Maggie Stables
- Melanie Bush - Bonnie Langford
- Principal Triumvir Rossiter - Gabriel Woolf
- Dr Sofia Rossiter - Rachel Pickup
- Dr Andrew Szabó - Patrick Romer
- Dr Sebastian Lawrence - Simon Watts
- Jenner - Matt Dineen
- Karnó - Ann Bryson
- TV Interviewer - James Parsons
Uncredited
Crew
- Cover Art - Lee Binding
- Director - Edward Salt
- Music - Andy Hardwick
- Producers - Gary Russell and Jason Haigh-Ellery
- Sound Design - Gareth Jenkins and Andy Hardwick
- Writer - Paul Sutton
Worldbuilding
- Evelyn and Sofia appear on Galen Today.
- Evelyn is chairperson of the Triennium Government's committee researching Killoran technology.
- Stafford is Sofia and Sebastian's driver.
- Sofia goes to Memorial Park.
- At some point during their travels together, the Doctor and Evelyn eventually visited the court of Elizabeth I.
- Szabó has Dr Molien take over from him.
- Mel has always been good with dogs.
Notes
- This account of Mel's first meeting with Evelyn, along with Evelyn's post-TARDIS life, is contradicted by that offered in the novel Instruments of Darkness.
- As in the audio story The Wormery, Sylvester McCoy makes an uncredited cameo appearance as the Seventh Doctor in the final episode.
- Along with the audio stories The Sirens of Time, Zagreus, The Wormery, Project: Lazarus, The Four Doctors, The Light at the End , The Brink of Death and The End of the Beginning, this is one of nine Big Finish audio dramas in which both Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy appear.
- Although the Seventh Doctor discovered that Hex was the son of Cassie Schofield in the audio story The Harvest, released in June 2004, this information was not revealed to either Evelyn or the audience until this story.
- This audio drama was recorded on 27 and 28 June 2005 at the Moat Studios.
- This story is set between The Trial of a Time Lord and Time and the Rani.
- This is a sequel to Arrangements for War, taking place three years afterwards.
- This story was originally released on CD. It is now available as a download only.
Continuity
- Sofia Rossiter was the best friend of Princess Krisztina. (AUDIO: Arrangements for War)
- Evelyn tells Mel about her encounters with the Daleks. (AUDIO: The Apocalypse Element, AUDIO: Jubilee), and mutant vampire hunters. (AUDIO: Project: Twilight, Project: Lazarus)
- The Sixth Doctor mentions his aggressive post-regenerative phase. (TV: The Twin Dilemma)
- Whereas Evelyn saw the Seventh Doctor from a distance in The 100 Days of the Doctor, she does not appear to recognise him in this story, though she correctly guesses from his manner that he is a future incarnation of the Doctor. They would later meet for a second and final time in A Death in the Family.
- The Seventh Doctor informs Evelyn that his companion Hex is in actuality "Little Tommy", the son of Cassandra Schofield, whom they previously met in AUDIO: Project: Twilight and saw die in AUDIO: Project: Lazarus. Having seen him from afar in AUDIO: The 100 Days of the Doctor, Evelyn would later meet Hex formally in AUDIO: A Death in the Family.
- The Seventh Doctor tells Evelyn that he stumbled across Hex, who chose to travel with him of his own volition. (AUDIO: The Harvest)
- Shortly before travelling to Világ, the Seventh Doctor dropped Ace and Hex off in Monte Carlo in 1966 and instructed them to steal the Veiled Leopard while the Fifth Doctor's companions Peri Brown and Erimem were simultaneously trying to prevent it from being stolen. He briefly conversed with his past self and was observed doing so by Peri and Erimem, who remained unaware of his identity. Peri described him "as a goofy little guy in a weird pullover." (AUDIO: The Veiled Leopard)
- The Sixth Doctor mentions using a fire extinguisher to repel enemies before. (TV: Inferno)
- While living on Világ, Evelyn discovered a temporal device which transported her to Pelachan billions of years in the past. (AUDIO: A Death in the Family)