Real Time (audio story)

Real Time
Adapted from:	Real Time
Doctor:	Sixth Doctor
Companion(s):	Evelyn
Main enemy:	Cyber-Controller
Main setting:	Earth, 1951 Chronos, 3286 Far future
Key crew
Publisher:	Big Finish Productions
Writer:	Gary Russell
Director:	Gary Russell
Producer:	Gary Russell and Jason Haigh-Ellery
Post production:	Alistair Lock
Cover by:	Lee Sullivan
Release details
Number of parts:	6
Release number:	I
Release date:	12 December 2002
Format:	2 CDs
Production code:	BFPDWBBCiCD01
ISBN:	ISBN 978-1-90365-478-1
Bonus Releases
Next →	Shada
The Sixth Doctor Adventures
← Previous	The Maltese Penguin
Next →	Her Final Flight

Real Time was Big Finish Productions' audio release of the Real Time webcast that they co-produced with BBCi. It was written by Gary Russell and featured Colin Baker as the Sixth Doctor and Maggie Stables as Evelyn Smythe.

This audio version of the webcast included extra scenes that were not included in the original webcast of the story. The final conclusions to this story and the consequences for Evelyn Smythe — namely her becoming the Cyberleader — were originally planned to be resolved in a sequel story. This story was never produced, and due to the actress's death, the continuity issues may never be resolved.

Publisher's summary

The Doctor is sent to Planet Chronos to find and bring back several survey mission teams that have vanished into thin air. Accompanied by his mature and loyal companion Dr Evelyn Smythe and a third survey crew, the team are close to solving the mystery, when a member of their gang mysteriously disappears. The Doctor realises that these disappearances are far more serious than they thought. The Cybermen couldn't possibly be behind these strange goings on... could they?

Plot

to be added

Cast

• The Doctor - Colin Baker
• Evelyn Smythe - Maggie Stables
• President - Robert Curbishley
• Dr Nicola Savage - Jane Goddard
• Fantham - Andrew Hair
• Taylor Renchard - Richard Herring
• Lieutenant Kreuger - William Johnston
• Ryan Carey - Stewart Lee
• Hoyer - Alistair Lock
• Administrator David Isherwood - Christopher Scott
• Dr Reece Goddard - Yee Jee Tso
• Dean - Mark Wright
• Cyber-Controller/Professor Osborn - Nicholas Briggs

Crew

• Cover Art - Lee Sullivan
• Writer & Director - Gary Russell
• Executive Producers - Martin Trickey and Jacqueline Rayner
• Music and Sound Design - Alistair Lock
• Producers - Gary Russell and Jason Haigh-Ellery
• Associate Producer - James Goss

Worldbuilding

Cybermen

• Goddard gives Evelyn a quick history of the Cybermen, mentioning their origins on Mondas, colonising, Mondas's destruction and the Orion Wars.

Notes

Art by Roger Langridge from DWM 324

• Central to this story is a temporal paradox of Goddard's making. It is also one which is obviously resolved as Evelyn ends her travels with the Doctor on the planet Világ.
• The CD includes interviews and various behind the scenes audio clips from the making of Real Time.
• The CD version of this story adds new material which was not included in the webcast. Two recorded scenes occur in Part One, set between Professor Osborn's disappearance and Evelyn's first scene with Isherwood on Chronos, and the script for an unrecorded missing sequence which would have immediately followed is presented in the CD booklet.
  • In the first extended scene immediately following Osborn's disappearance, a company president decides on the team to send to Chronos to investigate Osborn's disappearance. He orders the use of a space-time telegraph, left behind by the Doctor during a previous escapade involving the company, to secure his help with the investigation.
  • In the next scene immediately following, set in the console room aboard the Doctor's TARDIS, the Sixth Doctor and Evelyn Smythe have just attended a funeral in the Andromeda Galaxy and are discussing the service. Evelyn compliments the Doctor's new blue coat, which the Doctor has worn because he misunderstood Evelyn's request to see him in a morning suit and instead wore his * mourning* suit, appropriate for the funeral they just attended which, they realise, neither of them actually knew the deceased. They are interrupted by an incoming message on the Doctor's space-time telegraph, hidden behind one of the TARDIS roundels, and the Doctor is troubled by the mentions of time distortion and Cybermen.
  • In the missing sequence, this one unrecorded and presented only in script format, Nicola Savage is preparing to leave for the mission and is discussing it with fellow company employee Brian Swift. Swift expresses regret that he couldn't come along on the mission, as he has done field work with Savage in the past, and they discuss Savage's son who is nearly six years old. Swift and Savage part ways as she is contacted by Taylor Renchard who is making preparations for the journey.
• This audio drama was recorded on 19 March 2002 at the Moat Studios.
• It was released on 12 December 2002.
• After the 2019 redesign of the Big Finish website, this release was added to The Sixth Doctor Adventures.
• According to the Big Finish website, rights restrictions has prevented a download version of the story to be made available.

Continuity

• The events of AUDIO: Spare Parts, TV: The Tenth Planet, the Cyberman audio series and AUDIO: Sword of Orion are skimmed over during Goddard's quick history of the Cybermen.

External links

• Official Real Time page at bigfinish.com
• Real Time at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
• DisContinuity for Real Time at Tetrapyriarbus - The DisContinuity Guide