Seasons of Fear (audio story)

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Seasons of Fear was the thirtieth story in Big Finish's monthly range. It was written by Paul Cornell and Caroline Symcox and featured Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor, India Fisher as Charlotte Pollard and introduced Don Warrington as Rassilon.

It was the third in a series of 6 audio stories featuring the Eighth Doctor. It was the first appearance of the Nimon since the 1979/1980 television story The Horns of Nimon.

Publisher's summary

On New Year's Eve, 1930, the Eighth Doctor lets Charley keep her appointment at the Raffles Hotel in Singapore. But his unease at what he's done to time by saving her life soon turns into fear. Sebastian Grayle: immortal, obsessed, ruthless, has come to the city to meet the Time Lord. To the Doctor, he's a complete stranger, but to Grayle, the Doctor is an old enemy.

An enemy that, many years ago, he finally succeeded in killing. And this is his only chance to gloat.

The Doctor and Charley desperately search human history for the secret of Grayle's power and immortality. Their quest takes in four different time periods, the Hellfire Club, the court of Edward the Confessor, and the Time Vortex itself. And when the monsters arrive, the stakes are raised from the life of one Time Lord to the existence of all humanity.

Plot

Part One

The Doctor recounts to a mysterious other as to how he met a man named Sebastian Grayle. Arriving with Charley in Singapore on the eve of December 31st, 1930, the pair separate so that Charley can meet with her friend, Alex. While he is relaxing on his own, the Doctor is approached by a man who introduces himself as Alex's grandfather, Sebastian, who claims to know the Doctor as his greatest enemy. He gloats that he is from a future where he has killed the Doctor - created by his 'masters', who have taken over the earth. As Grayle smugly walks away, Charley meets back up with the Doctor and they return to the TARDIS to figure out what is going on, hatching a plan to stop Grayle's alternative future by preventing him from ever meeting his so-called "masters".

Arriving at Grayle's old family home, they rummage through Grayle's possessions and find evidence that leads them to 305 AD during the Roman empire, on the advice that this was the first recorded instance of the surname Grayle throughout human history. They meet a man named Decurian Graylisle, who they assume to be related to Grayle. After questioning him, the Doctor decides to investigate the "temple" that he is so desperate to get to, and they depart. The Doctor discovers it is a cult, while Charley is contacted via a communication device in Graylisle's tent by a mysterious voice. She finds and informs the Doctor, and they investigate it, discovering in the process that they have arrived at a point before Graylisle became the man they met.

A ceremony begins in the temple and Charley and the Doctor discovers that Graylisle had made a deal with the voice from the device Charley heard earlier, commanding him to gather the people in the temple as a sacrifice to them in order for them to grant him immortality. The Doctor orders the men to leave while he attempts to talk Graylisle out of what he's doing by bargaining with him, but he refuses. Charley manages to save him but Graylisle escapes and the Doctor and Charley are seemingly trapped...

Part Two

The Doctor and Charley manage to get into the TARDIS and escape. The Doctor deduces that Grayle will attempt to gain immortality again, but seems to only be able to do so at certain times, surmising that the ones offering him this power must be inhibited by something. He finds that the beam attempting to get to Grayle originated in the Ordinand system, a system surrounded by black holes and planetary disturbances making it possible to only contact Earth every 750 years. They decide they need to stop his next attempt and next visit London in 1055 and visit the court of Edward the Confessor and his wife, Queen Edith, who the Doctor had been previously engaged to.

They find a radioactive source in the court and suspect it to be Grayle. After meeting the rulers, who were already acquainted with the Doctor, they quietly confront Grayle, who is now going by 'Leofric of Exeter'. But as they interrogate him, Charley is poisoned from a drink she was having and the Doctor rushes to treat her back in the TARDIS, but is followed in by Grayle, who had orchestrated it. However, Edward is tricked by Grayle into believing that they were assassins, and theyare thrown in the dungeons.

Grayle once again gloats to them, revealing his plan to poison the king and queen with 'holy metal' (which the Doctor identifies as plutonium), take over their throne, and bring his masters to Earth to gain immortality. However, Edward, who had been listening in, reveals that he and his wife were suspicious of Grayle from the beginning, and that the plutonium jewellery he believed them to be wearing were fakes. Grayle attempts to summon his masters using the plutonium prematurely. The Doctor manages to stop him again but they enter a physical scuffle atop the castle.

Part Three

The Doctor barely manages to beat Grayle, who falls into the river near the castle. As the Doctor and Charley watch him escape, the Doctor explains his suspicions to her and says they must go forward in time to stop him again. They have a heart-to-heart about his actions, wherein the Doctor confesses that it frightens him how viscerally angry Grayle makes him. The TARDIS lands in 19th century Buckinghamshire, having detected Grayle's presence. After doing some exploring, they find themselves in Wickham caves, home of the Hellfire club - a variant of whom they have encountered earlier in their time stream. They are discovered by Richard Martin, who takes the Doctor and Charley, who are masquerading as lost local nobility, to meet Sebastian - the founder of this club.

The Doctor, Charley and Grayle are reunited once more, but in a strange gesture of hospitality, Grayle invites them to stay as guests. The Doctor accepts, and once alone, explains to Charley that Grayle's good mood must come from a feeling of invulnerability, meaning his goal is probably close to fruition - which he explains is the perfect time to start asking questions, perhaps to find out who his masters are.

At dinner, the Doctor accidentally insults Grayle's latest fiancee, Lucy, and Grayle challenges him to a duel. The Doctor wins by dint of an alien sword that is able to suck out the energy keeping Grayle young and immortal, actually wounding him. Disgraced in loss, Grayle kidnaps Lucy and makes a getaway, planning to use her as a sacrifice for his masters - who require organic matter to feed on, as passing through the black hole starves them. The Doctor, Charley and Richard give chase and find Grayle, but it is too late as the gate to his 'masters' has opened. A giant metal egg appears and the Doctor recognises it for what it is. As Grayle frees them, hsi masters are revealed to be the Nimon, come to feast on the Earth.

Part Four

The Nimon reveal that in order for them to be truly freed, they require a device called the psyionic oscillator; a horned goblet that Grayle cannot find. Lucy reveals that she and Martin were thieves, and that they had used their marriage as a ruse to steal Grayle's fortune. Grayle runs back to the house and captures Lucy's father, who had made away with the oscillator. Meanwhile in the lair, the Doctor realises the entrapped Nimon's plan and escapes to the TARDIS with Charley, Lucy and her father, while Grayle finds the oscillator and frees the Nimon. Grayle manages to get inside and the Doctor seemingly sacrifices himself by flinging himself and the Nimon into the time vortex. Grayle continues his plan, but Lucy delivers a message that the Doctor had whispered to her to Charley: 'Fast return switch, three times fast.' Knowing what to do, Charley instructs Lucy to distract Grayle.

The Doctor is flung via the time vortex into the 3rd century again, telling the same Roman cult that he and Charley met earlier that the demon bulls of Mithras that they had sworn to destroy would be arriving shortly, and to prepare for battle. He then finds Graylisle again, and discovers that all the man really wanted was money for an inheritance, so that he could marry his beloved Julia. Sympathetic, the Doctor provides him with one. The TARDIS then arrives and Grayle steps out, confronting the Doctor and his past self. The Nimon arrive soon after, but are immediately killed by the Romans after the Doctor provided them with weapons able to harm the aliens. Grayle attempts to kill the Doctor but Graylisle strikes first and kills his alternate self, disgusted at he had become.

The Doctor gives Graylisle quick instructions on how to finish off the machine, as to stop the Nimon from landing ever again. He then explains to Charley that the timeline will soon be corrected, and they will drop off Lucy soon enough. They return to Singapore on New Year's Eve 1930, but the Doctor is still plagued by a strange feeling that something isn't right. Back in the present, the Doctor explains everything that happened to the mysterious other, claiming that the Nimon were only the beginning.

Elsewhere, Lucy returns home and finds her father alive, despite him dying in the altercation with the Nimon. Suddenly, she sees a spectral image of what appears to be Charley, but it reveals itself to be something else entirely. It then feeds upon her and her father, before declaring its intent to find the Doctor and Charley.

Cast

Crew

Worldbuilding

The Doctor

  • According to Charley, the Doctor smells of honey.
  • The Doctor acquires various aliases such as Ambrosius Clemensis and Sir Peter Pollard.
  • Charley thinks that the Doctor lets her win when they play Scrabble.
  • The Doctor's mother used to read him the Zagreus rhyme.

Minerals

Literature

Time lords

  • When questioned by Sebastian Grayle, the Doctor wonders whether Sebastian has mixed him up with another Time Lord, as he doesn't say "You will obey me" (a reference to the Master), he doesn't meddle (a reference to the Monk) and that he's "not a glamorous woman" (a reference to the Rani).

Technology

  • The Doctor uses a genetic sampler to get a sample of Alex Grayle's DNA out of Charley's mouth after she had been kissing him in order to trace him back to his family home.
  • The Nimons use psyionic technology.

Individuals

  • The Abott of Felsicar is the greatest expert on human genealogy in the milky way.
  • A man named "Jesus" is mentioned as being hanged on a cross a few days ago although his fate is unknown.

Temporal theory

  • Charley is able to recall both versions of history, one where Gralae became immortal and one where he did not. She wasn't sure how this worked due to the paradox, but the Doctor explained that the latter version of history was able to overwrite the original due to the temporal disruption caused by the Nimons.
    • The Doctor also explained that her memories would settle the next time she slept, with some remaining memories, some as stories and some as dreams.

Gallery

Notes

  • This story marks the first — and only — appearance of the Nimon in an audio drama.
  • This audio drama was recorded on 19 and 20 January 2001 and 27 February 2002 in Bristol and London.
  • Although the publisher's summary states that the story begins at the Raffles Hotel in Singapore, this is incorrect, as the Doctor's opening monologue in Part 1 states that he had taken Charley to the Singapore Hilton hotel.
  • When discussing Grayle's immortality with Charley, the Doctor notes that he considers his ability to regenerate superior to Grayle just living forever as regeneration allows him to change where Grayle remains stuck in his existing viewpoint; this is in sharp contrast to the Doctor's attitude towards regeneration in his tenth and twelfth incarnations, with these later Doctors initially reluctant to change out of fear of losing the men they were.
  • Charlie jokes about the Doctor "always playing the fool to keep his enemies talking", a technique commonly used by the Doctor's other incarnations as well, for example, the Fourth Doctor, in order to find out people's (often evil) plans.
  • When Grayle attempts to sacrifice the men in the temple to appease the Nimons and gain immortality at the end of episode 1, Dalek voices can be heard in the background.
  • This is one of the few main range Doctor Who audios in which a curse word is verbally spoken. When Charley and the Doctor arrive in Edward the Confessor's court and spot Grayle, the Doctor mentions seeing tension patterns on his head and says it's only something one picks up on when "you're used to the bitchiness of Time Lord society". As Doctor Who is primarily a franchise aimed at children, cursing and rude words have typically not been a part of the program (although this has been relaxed somewhat in the revived series due to a shift in the demographic). Note that this does not include spinoffs such as "Torchwood" which are aimed at a more mature audience and do include the use of such words.

Continuity

External links

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