The Corruptions (audio story)
The Corruptions was the second story in the audio anthology Purity Unbound, produced by Big Finish Productions. It was written by Mark Wright and featured Colin Baker as the Sixth Doctor, Bonnie Langford as Melanie Bush, Ruth Madeley as Hebe Harrison, Cherylee Houston as Elise Kaplan and Imogen Stubbs as Purity.
Publisher's summary
Melanie Bush is a popular part of the Pease Pottage village community, and her best friend Hebe runs the local café where Elise the florist often drops by. Elsewhere, the Doctor is trapped in a nightmarish realm - Pease Pottage Services - unable to cross the boundary of the motorway where shadowy creatures drift amid the traffic.
Purity is watching, and if the Doctor attempts to rescue his friends...they will cease to exist.
Plot
Part one
In Pease Pottage, Mel joins Mrs Varley for coffee and notices a police box that she does not recognise being used as a village bulletin, but Mrs Varley and Mr Peabody, claim that it has always been there. She starts feeling unwell and, at Crazy Paving, Hebe, Elise, Mrs Varley and Mr Peabody all advise that she relax rather than get the train to work as she intended and Hebe invites her to have a curry in the evening. After she leaves with Elise, Mel, Mrs Varley and Mr Peabody argue about whether she works in London, in Brighton or at the radar station.
The Doctor is stuck at Pease Pottage Services on the M23. He manages to summon Purity, who has trapped him there to keep him from jeopardising her perect world and is surprised to find that, thanks to him being a Time Lord, he can remember Mel and Hebe. After Purity disappears, he tries to cross the road and encounters a wraith-like creature in Mel's form which electrocutes him.
Mel and Elise notice a mandarinfish in Hebe's fish tank and the colours gives Hebe déjà vu. As the Doctor is electrocuted by the wraith, Mel and Hebe fade away, but Mel afterwards suggests that they might have imagined the experience and has the feeling that she has been living the same day again and again. She heads home and sees Mr Peabody being attacked by a wraith. She tries to save him, but Mr Peabody is killed and she hears the Doctor's voice calling her name.
Part two
Mel is joined by Hebe and more wraiths appear as the Doctor tries to reach out to them, vanishing when he fails and returns to the services. They report Mr Peabody's death to the police, but his body has disappeared, the police have no record of him and Elise and Mrs Varley have no memory of him. Elise starts getting déjà vu, however, and joins Mel and Hebe in staking out the village green overnight in the hopes of finding answers. They encounter a wraith in Mel's form just before the Doctor arrives thanks to a device he has built; they immediately remember him.
The Doctor notices that the increasing number of wraiths, including Mr Peabody, are afraid of Mel and the group barricade themselves in Crazy Paving where he observes that Hebe's hand has aged because of exposure to temporal energy. He explains that Mel and Pease Pottage are temporally complex because of cauterised time and the Time Lords and that Purity has unwittingly created a fractured timeline haunted by corrupted potential Mels.
Purity arrives in Pease Pottage and kills Mrs Varley, but she finds that she does not control time in the village and the corruptions attack her for control of Vallon's suit. The timelines snap back together and restore the TARDIS, which the Doctor uses to separate Purity from causality so that they can talk. However, she instead tries to escape and causes fatal temporal feedback. She disappears and the Cloister Bell rings.
Cast
- The Doctor - Colin Baker
- Melanie Bush / Corruption - Bonnie Langford
- Hebe Harrison - Ruth Madeley
- Elise Kaplan - Cherylee Houston
- Purity - Imogen Stubbs
- Mrs Varley / Emerald Exerciser / Corruption / Quiz Machine Voice - Patricia England
- Mr Peabody / Mike / Arcade Machines / Corruption - Brad Shaw
Crew
to be added
Worldbuilding
- Oscar is Bob's dog.
- Crazy Paving is a café.
- Mrs Varley asks for tea.
- Mel asks for carrot juice.
- Mel eats curry with lentils.
- Elise is a florist.
- Mel's mother loves flowers.
- The Doctor does not like golf.
- The Doctor likes Space Invaders.
- Pease Pottage Services is on the M23. It was opened around 1992.
- The Doctor always wanted to be a barista.
- The Doctor mentions grotzits.
- The theme for The Archers is taken from "Barwick Green".
- Elise recites Emily Dickinson.
- The Doctor has been eating pasties.
Notes
to be added
Continuity
- Mel's professions from different continuities are referenced, including her working at radar base in Pease Pottage and an IT company in Brighton. (AUDIO: The Wrong Doctors, PROSE: Business Unusual)
- The removal of Mel from her timeline by the Master and the actions Stapleton Petherbridge and his creation of a pocket of cauterised time around Pease Pottage have put both the village and Mel at the heart of a conflicting knot of timelines. (TV: The Ultimate Foe, AUDIO: The Wrong Doctors)
External links
- Official The Corruptions page at bigfinish.com
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