The Queen of Clocks (audio story)
The Queen of Clocks was the second story in the audio anthology Broken Memories, produced by Big Finish Productions. It was written by Jacqueline Rayner and featured Colin Baker as the Sixth Doctor and Bonnie Langford as Mel
Publisher's summary
The Sixth Doctor and Mel come to the rescue when they find a castle under siege from Clockwork Droids. But in a kingdom run with painstaking precision, time is running out for the Queen of Guyenne...
Plot
On the planet of Guyenne, a castle is being attacked by Clockwork Droids. The Queen discusses the tardiness of Lady 11 O'Clock, or Annette, just as a droid breaks in, with the Doctor and Mel attacking it. The Doctor hits the droid with anti-oil, disabling it.
While Annette is thankful, the Queen accuses the Doctor and Mel of being "Droidspawn", and orders them to jail. Harbolt, the royal clockmaker, visits them and deduces that they aren’t droids, and asks if the Doctor can make them more anti-oil. The Doctor says he might be able to if he can have a look at the droid they disabled. Harbolt takes the Doctor and Mel to his workshop.
They are not long in the workshop than they hear Annette approaching, Harbolt tries to dissuade her from entering, but she disregards him and sees the Doctor and Mel out of the cell. Harbolt asks her not to mention this to the Queen, and Annette reluctantly agrees. The Doctor and Mel ask about the droids, and both Harbolt and Annette explain that they came with the colony ship that transported their people onto the planet. However, nothing on the planet worked, so the Queen’s son, Phillippe, has left to try and find a new planet.
Annette notices the time and leaves, with Mel joining her. The Doctor and Harbolt remain in the workshop, where Harbolt tells the Doctor that Phillippe’s ship is due to return in the early hours the following morning, so they only need to fight off droids until midnight, when they reset and go back to their stations. The Doctor asks why they don’t use this to their advantage, and Harbolt explains there is no use, since the droids repair themselves. The Doctor then remembers that he has resources for more anti-oil in the TARDIS.
Meanwhile, Mel and Annette discuss the master clock, which supposedly tells all other clocks what time to show, and Annette explains the clockmaiden’s job is to ensure all the clocks are listening. Mel asks where the master clock is, and Annette states it in the clock tower, but she can hear it all the time if she listens for it. Annette also states the droids were programmed to repair the ship, but now that there is no ship, they are trying to rebuild it completely, starting with the droids that went missing with the ship. This is why the droids are attacking humans, they want to use body parts to rebuild the droids.
In the workshop, the Doctor gets out his pocket watch to adjust to the local time, and Harbolt freaks out, not knowing you could change the time. The Doctor speculates if Harbolt did not know this, neither will the droids, and they use a test droid to see what will happen if it hears a twelfth chime early. The droid powers down for 20 seconds before rebooting. The Doctor and Harbolt hatch a plan to confuse the army of droids outside the gate, which would allow the Doctor to quickly run to the TARDIS and get the anti-oil resources.
However, as he does this, Mel realises the TARDIS has all the parts the droids want, and she sees the TARDIS has disappeared. She goes to warn the Doctor, but he has already left the castle. Running out of time, the Doctor pretends to be a droid as Harbolt refuses to let him back in, as doing so would allow other droids to enter the castle.
Mel goes to the Queen, and convinces her to tell Harbolt to let the Doctor in by telling her that he can get communications working with Phillippe’s ship. Harbolt refuses, but Mel saves him by throwing down rope from above. Back inside, the Doctor uses a battery taken out of the test droid to power the communications for a short time. The Queen is unable to contact Phillippe, but they hear his message, stating the ship will land at 01:37. As the battery dies, the Doctor has an idea and runs back to the droid in the workshop, checking if it is connected to the master clock, which is his theory. After confirming this is the case, the Doctor hatches a plan.
Later, everybody in Guyenne is in the throne room, the Doctor and Harbolt leave for the clock tower while the others let in the droids as a distraction. Mel asks the Queen whether they can break all the clocks in order to hear if the droids are coming, the Queen reluctantly agrees. After all the clocks are broken, Mel is confused that she can still hear so much ticking. Suddenly, she realises what this means, and she and Anette run to the Doctor in the tower.
The Doctor has just finished changing the signal, and as the clock strikes midnight, the droids power down, he goes to celebrate with Harbolt, who is unresponsive. Mel comes in, exclaiming that she’s too late. The Doctor realises what has happened, and asked her if all of the people were droidspawn, which Mel confirms. They have been the only two on the planet not to be droids this whole time.
The Doctor and Mel wait for Phillippe’s ship, which does not come. They use a battery from the TARDIS to power up the communications system again, and the same message from Phillippe plays. The Doctor realises the message is a recording, and the two go to New Guyenne to find Phillippe. They arrive in New Guyenne and find Phillippe, who is revealed to be an elderly man. He tells them that he piloted the Catherine de’ Medici sixty-seven years ago. Mel asks the Doctor if they travelled in time, and he responds they did not, the people on Guyenne were replaying the same day for the past sixty-seven years. Phillippe asks why they are talking about Guyenne, and asks if they know what happened to his mother, the Doctor apologises, and says the news is going to be painful.
Later, in the TARDIS, Mel says the Doctor was right not to give Phillippe all the details about the droids. The Doctor tells her their life is a privilege, but sometimes it’s hard to tell whether making a difference is wonderful or terrible. Mel moves the conversation on, and tells the Doctor they need to keep more fit and active. Since he has two hearts, he needs to do double the workout.
Cast
- The Doctor - Colin Baker
- Melanie Bush - Bonnie Langford
- Queen Catherine - Finty Williams
- Annette - Jennifer Saayeng
- Harbolt - Paterson Joseph
- Droid / Guard / Phillippe / Old Phillippe - Chris Lew Kum Hoi
Worldbuilding
to be added
Notes
to be added
Continuity
to be added
External links
- Official The Queen of Clocks page at bigfinish.com
