The Monkey House (audio story)

The Monkey House was the twenty-seventh Subscriber Short Trips audio story. It was read by Stephen Critchlow. It was released as a subscriber-exclusive download, available with subscriptions that included The Two Masters.

Plot[[edit] | [edit source]]

At the Hegemonic State Menagerie, the Thrand child Milan runs away from her nurse and visits the monkey house where she sees Nyssa, Turlough, Tegan and the Doctor in their cages, pretending to plead for mercy. The nurse finds her and hurries her out, the Doctor raising his cup of tea and saying goodbye to Milan as she is made to leave.

Years later, Milan slips away from her school group and returns to the monkey house to find out how the Doctor knew her name. She ignores Nyssa, Turlough and Tegan and goes straight to the Doctor, who explains that he has a friend who met her in her future, and interrogates him about Earth's defences. He instead suggests that she visit the planet and condemns her people for committing genocide on multiple worlds.

Milan, now a captain-in-waiting of the Cultural Exchange Force, prepares to invade Earth and pays another visit to the monkey house. She confesses to the Doctor that she is now unsure of her people's way of life and breaks down, wanting to put an end to the plans, before realising that he is not human but a Time Lord. Believing Time Lords to be meddlers, she soon storms out.

Milan spends several years in cold sleep travelling to Earth to decimate humanity with modified snatch dragons and enters into an impasse with UNIT. She surrenders to Jo and returns to her planet where she becomes a scholar following the end of the Hegemon's rule, visiting the monkey house again and being congratulated by the Doctor for changing her people's ways. He leaves with his companions in the TARDIS.