He Jests at Scars... (audio story)
Publisher's Summary
The thing about meddling with time is that one moment something is real, the next, it’s been erased. Probability becomes just a possibility. Established truth becomes a theoretical falsehood. Like dominoes, as one timeline falls, the others come cascading down around it. You can engineer new timelines, new possibilities, but before long, the distinction between what is, what was, what might be and what never can be becomes blurred.
Out of this grow myths, lies and legends. The Doctor was one such legend, but no one knows whether he truly ever existed. Well, not now they don’t. The Mighty One, ruling the multiverses from the eternal city of Chronopolis, has made sure of that.
Cast & Characters
The Valeyard - Michael Jayston
Melanie Bush - Bonnie Langford
- Had Mel not left Earth she would have died of a brain tumour aged 48 in 2012.
Coordinator Vansell - Anthony Keetch
The President - Tim Preece
Ellie Martin - Juliet Warner
Nula - Jane McFarlane
Gerrof - Mark Donovan
References
- Megabyte Modem is mentioned twice.
- The following companions (that might have travelled with the Doctor) are mentioned: Peri, Evelyn, Ace, Hex, Charley, C'rizz.
Notes
to be added
Continuity
- Vansell, introduced in The Sirens of Time, also appeared in Divided Loyalties, The Apocalypse Element and Neverland. An alternate version of Ellie Martin appeared in the Sarah Jane Smith spin-off series of audios.
- Time Rings first appeared in Genesis of the Daleks, and a Time Ram first occurred in The Time Monster.
- The Valeyard implies that he’s picked up a weapon which belonged to Jack the Ripper, a probable reference to the the BBC novel Matrix.
- Vansell compares the Valeyard to the inchoate form of the Watcher from Logopolis, but claims that it’s unprecedented for such a being to achieve independent sentience, implying either that the Time Lords are unaware of the existence of Cho-Je from Planet of the Spiders or that he was something else entirely.
- The Matrix’s projection of the Sixth Doctor’s missed encounter with Mel doesn’t jibe with their actual first encounter in Business Unusual; they didn’t meet at the police station, but the previous day, when the Doctor took her friend Trey Korte back home before realising that he was staying with Mel Bush. However, this story does take place in an alternate timeline, and it’s possible that the Valeyard had already changed history in some other way, perhaps erasing Trey or the Nestenes from history.
- The Valeyard lists a number of companions he may have had in alternate universes -- including Hex, the first reference to a new companion who will be appearing in the Big Finish audio The Harvest.
Timeline
to be added
