A Full Life (audio story)
A Full Life was the ninth story of the sixth season of Big Finish Productions' Short Trips series.
Like the previous short trip Damascus, it was done in the style of a Companion Chronicle with Matthew Waterhouse playing an elderly Adric recounting the story into a tape recorder. An uncredited actress briefly plays Adric's granddaughter at the end of the story, making this the first Short Trip to use multiple actors.
Publisher's summary
Adric's life is full of death. His parents died when he was a child. His brother died a few months ago. Now, travelling with the Doctor and Romana, everywhere he visits, people die. But now they have arrived on Veridis. And on Veridis, the dead come back...
Plot
In an alternate timeline, an aged Adric records a story for his grandson.
On the planet of Veridis, the brilliant Tivorg has invented a machine to bring the dead back to life. His first "patient" is Asun. The people are in awe, and begin to ask for their loved ones to be brought back... all of them. Overpopulation leads lack of resources which leads to riots, but Tivorg still brings people back to life. Although he has tried, he cannot shut the machine down.
While the Doctor and Romana investigate the machine, Tivorg explain the machine to Adric, who understands the complex explanation.
The Doctor and Romana figure out how to stop the machine, and Adric is terrified; rightfully so.
Did the Doctor and Romana do the right thing?
Can he do the right thing?
After several weeks, Adric leaves a dying TARDIS with K9, pictures, crystals, and books, and goes off to an isolated house. The TARDIS eventually disintegrates and K9 looses power, leaving Adric completely alone, only going in to town to acquire necessities.
After years of morning his friends in solitude, Adric meets Asun again. They marry and have children; Varsh, named after his brother, and Neegat. When his children are older, Adric and Asun travel Veridis helping people... but he knows what he must do.
Varsh then has a son; providing Adric's beloved grandson. After Adric's wife, Asun, passes, Adric finds love again with Reebac... but he knows what he must do.
He hopes that everything will be as it is; that the people he loves will still be here... but he knows what he must do.
Adric has led a full and happy life... but he knows what he must do.
Looking at the TARDIS crystal in his hand, the last component for his time machine, the tape ends... Adric knows what he must do.
Characters
Crew
- Narrator - Matthew Waterhouse
- Cover Art - Anthony Lamb
- Director - Lisa Bowerman
- Executive Producers - Nicholas Briggs and Jason Haigh-Ellery
- Music and Sound Design - Rob Harvey
- Producer & Script Editor - Ian Atkins
- Writer - Joseph Lidster
Worldbuilding
- Adric's parents died in a fire.
- He remembers learning a poem about Mistfall.
- The TARDIS travellers spend months looking for a Charged Vacuum Emboitement.
- The machine Tivorg builds takes something from the people it brings back to life. Tivorg explains how it works and Adric understands.
- The Doctor warns that awareness of the machine would spread through E-space into N-Space, with everyone bringing their dead to be reborn, and the universe would stop.
- Eventually the Doctor and Romana communicate with the machine and become part of it to shut it down, dying in the process. They don't scream despite the pain.
- The Doctor's TARDIS knows when the Doctor and Romana died, and Adric stays in the ship for weeks. After about three weeks the food machine stops working, the roundels begin to crack, and rooms start disappearing.
- Adric salvages pictures, crystals, and books from the TARDIS library.
Notes
- This story was recorded at The Moat Studios on 19 January 2016.
- Performed in the style of The Companion Chronicles, this story was told from Adric's perspective in the form of a recording he's making for his grandson.
Continuity
- Adric mentions meeting the Doctor, (TV: Full Circle) the Great Vampires, (TV: State of Decay) having a long conversation with Romana during the time they were kept as prisoners on Letrus, (AUDIO: The Invasion of E-Space) and being trapped with the Doctor and Romana in the Structure. (PROSE: O, Darkness)
- Adric dreams about a man laughing as the stars go out. He also sees two women crying, one in a gorgeous purple outfit and one wearing velvet. (TV: Logopolis)
- Adric determines that the universe needs the Doctor. (TV: The Curse of Fatal Death)
- Adric uses green crystals from the TARDIS as part of his time machine. (TV: Rise of the Cybermen)
- Before entering his time machine, Adric says that he "will never know if he was right". (TV: Earthshock)
- The Doctor's dying request to Adric is to stop saying "pass the sodium chloride." (TV: Four to Doomsday)
- Adric recites the first verse of a poem about Mistfall. (PROSE: Full Circle)
External links
- Official A Full Life page at bigfinish.com
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