Klein's Story (audio story)
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Publisher's summary
Elizabeth Klein is an anomaly, a renegade from an alternate future in which the Nazis won World War II. In an attempt to get to know his latest companion, the Doctor invites Klein to tell him how exactly she came to be in possession of his TARDIS and of the events that led to her trip into the past to Colditz Castle.
Cast
- The Doctor - Sylvester McCoy
- Elizabeth Klein - Tracey Childs
- Johann Schmidt - Paul McGann
- Faber - Rupert Wickham
References
Individuals
- In Klein's timeline, Adolf Hitler died in 1961. aged seventy-one or seventy-two.
Technology
- Klein has been studying a Drahvinan power drive.
Television series
- The Doctor mentions the science fiction series Professor X.
Notes
- Paul McGann stars as an alternative version of the Eighth Doctor from Klein's timeline in this story.
- Unlike previous Big Finish releases of three part/one part story combinations, Klein's Story precedes Survival of the Fittest in this release.
- The Doctor's reference to Professor X is a reference to an episode of Steven Moffatt's children's television programme Press Gang, which revolved around one character's relationship with a creaky old television show that he watched as a boy; the show, Professor X, was very clearly patterned on Doctor Who. Coincidentally, Professor X himself was played in this episode by Michael Jayston, who had already appeared in Doctor Who as the character of the Valeyard. Moffatt has joked in interviews that after the end of his series Coupling, the main character, Steve Taylor, is a scriptwriter who now works on a modern revival of Professor X.
- The reference also functions as a good-natured poke at the lower quality of earlier Doctor Who episodes, since he says that he thought the show was better in the 1960s until he went back and actually watched the episodes. The title Vault of the Cyborgs is a reference to DW: Tomb of the Cybermen. Lost for many years, all four episodes of The Tomb of the Cybermen were recovered and rushed onto video in the early 1990s, at which point its reputation as a classic underwent radical, albeit temporary, reappraisal.
- Along with BFA: Zagreus and BFA: The Four Doctors, this is one of three Big Finish audio dramas in which both Sylvester McCoy and Paul McGann appear.
- The name Johann Schmidt is a possible reference to the alter ego of the Captain America villain, the Red Skull.
Continuity
- The TARDIS' design in this story is the same as in the DW: Doctor Who (1996), since Klein mentions that the Doctor has "redecorated" the ship since she last saw it (when the Doctor was travelling with Ace).
- The scene from DW: The Three Doctors in which the Second Doctor voices his displeasure with the new design of the TARDIS is echoed in a similar remark from Klein.
- The Doctor mentions the TARDIS' "leopard skin" desktop theme. (DW: Time Crash)
- In the alternative timeline, the Seventh Doctor regenerated for the same reason as in DW: Doctor Who (1996).
- "Johann Schmidt" is a German variation of the Doctor's usual alias "John Smith". The Seventh Doctor had previously referred to himself as "Johann Schmidt" while impersonating a Nazi Reichsinspektor in May 1951 in another alternative timeline (NA: Timewyrm: Exodus). In the proper timeline, the Eighth Doctor would later use the name while posing as a German spy aboard the British airship R101 in October 1930. (BFA: Storm Warning)
- Klein claims that she was unaware of the proper name of the TARDIS until she learned it from the Seventh Doctor in Colditz Castle in October 1944. However, she referred to it as such in BFA: Colditz before the Doctor ever used the name.
External links
- Klein's Story at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
- Official Survival of the Fittest / Klein's Story page at bigfinish.com
