Dream Team (audio story)
Dream Team was the second and final story in the audio anthology The Dream Team, produced by Big Finish Productions. It was written by Lizzie Hopley and featured Peter Davison as the Fifth Doctor, Matthew Waterhouse as Adric, Sarah Sutton as Nyssa and Janet Fielding as Tegan Jovanka.
Publisher's summary
"Welcome to Concordium! The one stop destination for elite and effective corporate bonding."
A protected wonder of space is being exploited for 'company away days' but when the Doctor, Tegan, Nyssa and Adric land to challenge the organisers, they fall into a web of perfectly tailored nightmares. As the Doctor confronts one of the most dangerous monsters in existence, one that uses your own mind against you while it feeds, his companions fall deeper into the trap and a nasty truth is revealed – you can die in dreams.
Plot
Part one
The TARDIS is targeted by a hard sell virus from the protected Trine Archipelago which broadcasts an advertisement for corporate away days all over the ship, waking Nyssa up despite her sleeping in the delta wave augmenter. Even when the Doctor manages to stop it, he, Nyssa, Adric and Tegan continue to hear it due to the earworm technology and he flies the TARDIS to the archipelago due to it having been closed to tourists for years. The travellers are subject to what seems to be an antiseptic gas when they arrive at Concordium and the Doctor leaves his three companions in reception whilst he looks around, but they and the TARDIS are gone by the time he gives up on finding anybody. He finds Nyssa on the beach and wakes her up from a dream given to her by a Kantrofarri of Adric and Tegan killing animals.
Adric and Nyssa run from exploding hailstones after Adric attempts to operate a computer and run through a door into a rainforest which Tegan recognises as Cape Tribulation, somewhere she and her mother were once caught in a hailstorm. They deduce that their minds must be being read and attempt to return to the TARDIS, but the door has vanished and Tegan hears her mother, whom she refuses to leave behind. The Doctor and Nyssa search for them, only to realise that they are both dreaming and wake themselves up by slapping one another. They wake up to find that Adric and Nyssa, as well as numerous other visitors, have Kantrofarri on their faces and they use mathematics to distract themselves from thinking about and attracting the Kantrofarri.
To save Adric and Tegan, the Doctor allows himself to be attacked by a Kantrofarri to enter the same state and convinces them that they are dreaming. A boar runs at the three of them and the Doctor believes that they will wake up as a result of the near-death experience, but multiple Nyssas appear and claim that they can show them the way out. The Doctor assures Adric and Tegan that nobody can die in a dream when one of the Nyssas points a gun at them. Despite this claim, Nyssa fires at him.
Part two
The Nyssas all disappear and Tegan goes looking for the real one whilst Adric tries to wake up the Doctor, only for another Doctor to arrive and explain that one can die in a dream and Adric has subconsciously brought them to a dream-version of Alzarius. The pair wake up by focusing on reception and the Doctor finds Nyssa distracting herself with maths to avoid attracting the attention of Kantrofarri which, unlike the others he has encountered, have intact stingers allowing them to feed on brains. The Doctor and Nyssa learn from records that the Kantrofarri's victims are all being tested and that those who have been deemed failures have been made subject to the stinging Kantrofarri. Nyssa was deemed a failure due to her empathy.
Adric is attacked by a Kantrofarri and reunited with Tegan in a dream of a war-torn Brisbane where she is determined to save her mother and brothers. He manages to convince her after they get trapped in her burning house that they are in a dream but they have difficulty waking themselves up until the Doctor joins them, having activated a mind shield in reception which has freed all of the Kantrofarri's victims. The three of them wake up with Nyssa and head back to the TARDIS where they realise the hard sell technology is advertising different things to each of them and that they are still asleep as the TARDIS is supposed to be missing and the Doctor is perplexed by the supposed mind shield he activated.
The travellers were sedated by the gas when they arrived at the Trine Archipelago and have been dreaming ever since. They wake up in a filthy reception which smells of bacon and head back to the real TARDIS where the Doctor uses the delta wave augmenter and his sonic screwdriver to summon the Kantrofarri to him. He leads them away to attack the Porcians, their masters, and Adric uses the augmenter to wake everybody up, after which the Doctor ensures that the fleeing Porcians will be arrested by the Shadow Proclamation. The Doctor, Adric, Nyssa and Tegan leave the infested archipelago, uncertain as to whether or not they are still asleep.
Cast
Worldbuilding
- The Trine Archipelago is a planetary archipelago and a protected natural wonder.
- The facility uses hard sell technology.
- Tegan once walked into the web of a huntsman spider and got bitten.
- Adric does not know how to make an apple crumble.
- The TARDIS informs the Shadow Proclamation of the Porcians.
Notes
- Unusually for a Big Finish full-cast audio story, all speaking parts are played by the main cast: Peter Davison, Matthew Waterhouse, Sarah Sutton and Janet Fielding.
Continuity
- Nyssa has been sleeping in her TARDIS bedroom using the delta wave augmenter. (TV: Kinda [+]Loading...["Kinda (TV story)"], PROSE: The Sands of Time [+]Loading...["The Sands of Time (novel)"])
External links
- Official Dream Team page at bigfinish.com
