The Ultimate Poe (audio story)

The Ultimate Poe was the seventh audiobook released in the Interludes series. It was released as a bonus download with the audio anthology The Quin Dilemma. It was written by Andrew Collins and featured the Sixth Doctor.

	Sixth Doctor
	Mel
	Edgar Allan Poe
	The Master
	The Matrix
	Big Finish Productions
	Andrew Collins
	David Monteath
	1
	The Quin Dilemma
	26 April 2024
	Download
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Publisher's summary

The Doctor and Mel go in search of Edgar Allan Poe, after discovering someone has been changing the titles of his famous works.

Plot

Finding a series of Edgar Allan Poe books he has never heard of during a visit to a library with Mel, the Doctor deduces that somebody is affecting Edgar Allan Poe's timeline. He connects an e-reader to the TARDIS console using the port once used for the core to the Key to Time and traces the interference to Edgar Alien Poe, captain of a raven-shaped spaceship. Poe's robot raven attacks the Doctor and Mel and they leap into a portal they come across to escape, after which they find themselves in a carnival and meet Montresor, who addresses the Doctor as Fortunato and takes him into his family's catacombs to sample a cask of vonix.

Montresor does not register Mel's presence, however, and the Doctor notes that the character of Montresor in one of Poe's stories takes only Fortunato into the catacombs. Montresor chains the Doctor to a wall inside a niche, bricks him up and departs, allowing Mel to dismantle the wall and release the Doctor using a lockpick from one of his pockets. Another portal takes them back to the spaceship, now captained by Edgar Android Poe, but they are soon chased by the raven back through a portal to the world of The Masque of the Red Death. A cloaked figure interrupts Prince Prospero's masquerade and is torn apart by the revellers after the prince, chasing the figure, falls dead. The figure is without form, however, and the revellers begin to die of the Red Death.

Another portal returns the Doctor and Mel to the spaceship, now staffed by hologrammatic figures and captained by Edgar AI Poe, who is unsure why the two travellers are not yet dead and has the raven chase them towards a portal once again. This time, the Doctor arrives alone with the ailing Roderick Usher as the House of Usher starts to fall apart whilst Mel takes on the role of Madeline, Roderick's prematurely entombed sister, and frightens Roderick to death. As the house crumbles, the Doctor carries the now unconscious Mel outside and through another portal which transports them to a bedroom. They share a hug and the Doctor determines that they are in The Telltale Heart, standing above a body hidden under the floorboards.

As the Doctor struggles to remove the floorboards with a crowbar, he bemoans the loss of his sonic screwdriver, only for Mel to find it nearby. They find the real Edgar Allan Poe and the world fades away, confirming the Doctor's suspicion that they were in the Matrix beneath the Capitol and that Poe had been plugged into its heart. The Master claims responsibility and explains that he has been trying to use Poe's imagination to kill the Doctor. Poe has been helping the Doctor, however, and the Doctor reverses the polarity of the neuron flow to take control of the Matrix. He initiates contact with the Master and he and Mel trap him in miniature form on a picnic blanket as insects approach.

The Doctor and Mel take Poe into the TARDIS before the robot raven can shoot them and return him to Baltimore at the end of his life, although Mel is upset to leave him to his death given how he helped them. They watch on the TARDIS scanner as Poe is found by Joseph Walker and asks after "Reynolds", the alias used by the Master when he captured him. Mel asks to go somewhere happier and the Doctor decides that he will take her to Blackpool.

Characters

• Sixth Doctor
• Melanie Bush
• Edgar Alien Poe
• Robot raven
• Montresor
• Edgar Android Poe
• Prospero
• Edgar AI Poe
• Roderick Usher
• Edgar Allan Poe
• The Master
• Joseph Walker

Worldbuilding

• The Doctor finds copies of The Telltale Hearts, The Pit and the Penguin, The Fall of the House of Prydon and The Splinx.
• Mel mentions Monty Python.
• Montresor has a trowel.
• The Doctor is a fan of Roland Rat.
• In the Doctor's pockets are a cricket ball, jelly babies, a catapult and a lockpick.
• Mel eats something which looks and smells like spiced meat.
• The Red Death in The Masque of the Red Death emulates consumption, of which a number of people Poe knew died.
• Poe dies on 7 October.

Notes

• The title is a reference to the final story of Season 23, The Ultimate Foe ^[+]Loading...["The Ultimate Foe (TV story)"], broadcast 38 years prior in 1986.
• This Interlude replaced the original story meant to be featured with The Quin Dilemma, The Memory Eaters, written by Alison Lawson and read by Dan Starkey.
• Although meant to be released along with The Quin Dilemma, this Interlude was released a month after the anthology.

Continuity

• The titles of the altered Edgar Allan Poe works echo aspects of the Doctor's life in general and the Sixth Doctor in particular:
  • The plural The Telltale Hearts alludes to Time Lords' binary vascular systems, a plot point introduced in TV: Spearhead from Space ^[+]Loading...["Spearhead from Space (TV story)"] and made ubiquitous thereafter.
  • The Pit and the Penguin evokes Frobisher, a long-term shapeshifting companion of the Sixth Doctor well-known for defaulting to the form of a talking penguin, introduced in COMIC: The Shape Shifter ^[+]Loading...["The Shape Shifter (comic story)"].
  • The Fall of the House of Prydon references the Prydonian Chapter, one of the castes of Time Lord society as introduced in TV: The Deadly Assassin ^[+]Loading...["The Deadly Assassin (TV story)"], specifically being the Doctor's Chapter. Although PROSE: The Book of the War ^[+]Loading...["The Book of the War (novel)"] suggested that the castes corresponded to the spheres of influence of particularly powerful Ruling Houses, and another chapter (the Patrex Chapter) had been confirmed as having a ruling "House Patrex" in AUDIO: Neverland ^[+]Loading...["Neverland (audio story)"], this is technically the first mention of a House of Prydon.
  • The Splinx references Splinx, a robot cat who acted as a companion of the Sixth Doctor in GAME: Doctor Who and the Mines of Terror ^[+]Loading...["Doctor Who and the Mines of Terror (video game)"]. Splinx had previously been referenced in Big Finish Doctor Who audio stories in AUDIO: The Key To Key To Time ^[+]Loading...["The Key To Key To Time (audio story)"] where an alternative version of her travelled with an alternate Doctor going by the Wanderer.
• Mel recognises the Master, whom she first encountered in TV: The Ultimate Foe ^[+]Loading...["The Ultimate Foe (TV story)"].