The Hidden Realm (audio story)

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The Hidden Realm was the second and final story in the audio anthology The Third Doctor Adventures: Volume 2, produced by Big Finish Productions. It was written by David Llewellyn and featured Tim Treloar as the Third Doctor and Katy Manning as Jo Grant.

Publisher's summary

The Doctor and Jo journey to Bramfield New Town when the husband of Jo's cousin vanishes mysteriously. As magpies circle overhead, the Doctor discovers a terrifying alien plot...

Plot

Part one

Whilst walking his dog, Laddie, Peter Andrews is surrounded by magpies and disappears, shortly after which he receives a transfer of £100,000 from an account in Buenos Aires registered to a Hugo Martinez. His wife, Steph, tells Jo, her cousin, about the disappearance and the Doctor drives her to Bramfield New Town in Bessie to investigate, detecting several anomalies in the area with his quantum field manipulator on the way. Steph returns to her job at St Martin's Primary after being questioned by DCI Finch and DS Joseph of Scotland Yard, who are staying at Miss Barnett's bed and breakfast, Sunny Glade, and have to share a room because of the Doctor and Jo making a booking.

The Doctor and Jo visit Steph before looking into the anomalies, which are strongest at the town's outskirts, and meet DS Joseph when they check in with Miss Barnett. When the quantum field manipulator detects a spike a mile away, the Doctor and Jo hurry to Bramfield Abbey, to which DCI Finch has returned after misplacing his notebook there, and DS Joseph follows upon learning that Jo is Steph's cousin. The Doctor informs Jo during the drive that Peter is only the latest of several people who have disappeared in Bramfield in the past five decades and that, in most of the previous cases, those who disappeared eventually returned, albeit with amnesia. One such person was Arthur Kemp, who went on to transform Bramfield into a new town.

At the abbey, DCI Finch gets in radio contact with DS Joseph as he is surrounded by magpies and disappears, transported elsewhere. The Doctor and Jo arrive soon after, by which point the anomaly has faded, and are similarly surrounded by magpies before a portal opens and starts to pull them in. As DS Joseph continues to the abbey on foot, Jo's grip loosens and the Doctor tells her to hold on.

Part two

The Doctor and Jo direct DS Joseph to use the quantum field manipulator to close the portal and the Doctor's examination of one of the now-inert magpies reveals that it is mechanical. On the other side of the portal, Gruppenführer Hans Vogel is placed into DCI Finch's body by Overseer Zim and tasked with neutralising the forces posing a threat to Zim's operations, after which Vogel will be moved into a younger body. Whilst Jo speaks with Steph, who tells her about a pupil who was frightened to go home because he believed his parents were with Peter and had been replaced, the Doctor and DS Joseph check for Finch in Sunny Glade, where they discuss the payment made to Peter by Martinez, a diamond smuggler who disappeared as Interpol closed in on him.

Miss Barnett overhears the Doctor telling DS Joseph about the six locations, which she calls "witchings", from which people tend to go missing around Bramfield and marks them on a map, each equidistant from the six-sided bandstand in Bedford Square. The Doctor goes to Bedford Square with her, discussing Arthur Kemp's disappearance on the way, and sends Jo and DS Joseph back to Bramfield Abbey with the quantum field manipulator. Upon arriving at the bandstand, the Doctor radios Jo to compare her readings with those of his sonic screwdrivers and finds that the quantum field is active. Meanwhile, Vogel takes Steph to Gillswood, one of the other witchings, and where she finds Peter, only for him to reveal that he is actually Martinez. Steph screams as the magpies surround her.

Part three

Jo and DS Joseph head to Gillswood to investigate the quantum field and are surprised to find Vogel, who pretends to be DCI Finch and claims that Peter has been found and taken to Bramfield Infirmary. The Doctor, meanwhile, follows a trans-spatial induction cable connected to the bandstand through a manhole to an underground canal and takes Miss Barnett with him, telling her that he believes that the people of Bramsfield are being transformed by Acridians, who use a base 7 number system. In truth, he has deduced that Miss Barnett is likely an accomplice to the Acridians given her unique position in Bramfield's community, a belief which she confirms after they pass through a door into extra-dimensional space beyond the quantum field.

Miss Barnett introduces the Doctor to Zim, who has been transferring the minds of clients into younger bodies to make them effectively immortal. Whilst his usual clients pay in gold, Miss Barnett has been helping him kidnap people since she walked through a portal to his dimension as a child, a job which became easier after Zim placed a Russian aristocrat in Arthur Kemp's body and had him build the new town. Zim sends Miss Barnett to distract the others whilst he harvests the Doctor's mind, adding its energy to that he has already built up using the mindthresher and allowing him to sell his body. An injured Vogel returns to him after being caught out by a suspicious DS Joseph, who caught him out by asking about the name of a missing girl and caused him to crash his car, and demands to be put into the Doctor's body.

With the quantum field manipulator having been inadvertently broken in the car crash, Jo and DS Joseph go looking for the Doctor in Bramfield and attempt to get in contact with him over the radio. They flee from the bandstand upon realising that the townspeople are looking at them and magpies surrounding them, however. Meanwhile, Zim opens the mindthresher and scans the Doctor's brain, confirming that the Doctor is gone. He informs Vogel that they may begin the procedure.

Part four

Jo and DS Joseph return to the inn and are greeted by Miss Barnett who sits them down and Peter and Stephanie arrive at the inn just as Miss Barnett breaks the news that Peter has returned but Jo works out the truth, that Miss Barnett is responsible and the "Peter" and "Stephanie" they see are really imposters. They leave, trying to figure out what to do when Jo is contacted by the Doctor over DS Joseph's radio, but she discreetly tricks him into giving away that he's not the real Doctor and rolling with it they make a plan to meet the Doctor at the abbey. She confronts the "Doctor" at the abbey who reveals himself to be Hans Vogel, but Jo spurns him on and the Doctor, not completely destroyed by Zim, manages to gain back control of his mind for a few moments and instructs the two on how to stop Zim and Vogel. However, Vogel takes back control and he captures Jo and DS Joseph and takes them to Zim who instructs him to prepare their bodies for Zim's next customers. The Doctor, inside the mind chamber, contacts the imprisoned mind of DCI Finch and explains the catastrophe that will befall if Vogel continues to occupy the Doctor's mind and gives him instructions to save Jo and DS Joseph by getting them away from the area before the Doctor collapses the core. DCI Finch returns his mind to his body and frees and rescues Jo and DS Joseph but they are blocked by "Peter" and "Stephanie". However, their minds are sucked back into the machine thanks to the Doctor and they are returned to normal.

The Doctor confronts Zim and prepares to sacrifice himself, however, DCI Finch arrives on the scene, knocks Zim out and pushes the Doctor through a portal, sacrificing himself in the end instead much to the Doctor's upset. Reunited, the Doctor assures them all that the threat has passed and Zim is no more. When asked about Miss Barnett, the Doctor explains that she sacrificed her life and youth in service to Zim on the promise that she would get her youth back, however, as he is no more, she will likely live in bitterness now as she never will, having now wasted it all in service to Zim. He believes that is punishment enough. He and Jo then drive back to UNIT HQ, where Jo tests him on the drive back to make sure it really is the Doctor and they have a laugh.

Cast

Crew

Worldbuilding

Technology

Individuals

Places

Songs

Television

Aliens

Notes

  • During her time with UNIT, Liz Shaw created an archive of mysterious events in Britain over the last fifty years.
  • Vogel, possessing the Doctor and capturing Jo and DS Joseph, jokes that it's almost like "Invasion of the Body Snatchers".

Continuity

  • Zim knows the Doctor is a Time Lord and is able to regenerate. (TV: The Tenth Planet, The War Games et al.)
  • When the Doctor tries to fight Vogel for control of his mind, the Doctor says "Oh, my giddy aunt" and "Chesterfield" and Jo comments that they are not something her Doctor would say and must therefore be from one of his other lives. The Second Doctor often used the phrase "Oh, my giddy aunt". (TV: The Krotons et al) The First Doctor sometimes mistakenly called his companion Ian Chesterton by the name "Chesterfield". (TV: Planet of Giants )
  • The Doctor continually reiterates that a human and a Time Lord cannot share a mind as it leads to disastrous consequences and what the Doctor dubs a "meta-crisis". Some of the disaster is observed in the Doctor-Donna when Donna absorbs the meta-crisis Doctor's DNA and becomes part Time lord. (TV: Journey's End)
  • The Doctor releases the imprisoned minds, even though some no longer have bodies to return to, in order to end their suffering. (TV: The Bells of Saint John)

External links

v • e
The Third Doctor Adventures
Volume 1
Volume 2
Volume 3
Volume 4
Volume 5
Volume 6
Volume 7
Volume 8
Volume 9
Volume 10
The Return
of Jo Jones
Volume 12
Volume 13
Volume 14
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