The Perfect Prisoners (audio story)

After contending with killer robots and dangerous aliens, the clues lead straight to a machine that can literally make your dreams come true. A device that in the wrong hands could lead to misery for billions.

But who's the real villain here? And what exactly is their master plan?

Part Two[[edit] | [edit source]]

Secrets have been revealed, and the Doctor and his friends at last know who they're fighting.

An epic journey across space leads them to the true mastermind of the Syndicate conspiracy.

Alliances will shift. Friends will die. Can even the Doctor come out of this alive?

Plot[[edit] | [edit source]]

Part one[[edit] | [edit source]]

to be added

Part two[[edit] | [edit source]]

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Part three[[edit] | [edit source]]

Having been unaware of her mission, Colwyn has Anya explain how she used a sleeper personality to hide herself whilst she protected Trenix in 1978 and that she joined the Doctor so she could learn to fly the TARDIS and track down the Syndicate. He intends to take her and the Doctor to Earth to extract their memories to find out where she truly is guilty of murder, but Anya insists that they first capture Malpha from a space station in the Voltaris system and they head off with K9, who has freed the workers from the Dream Machines.

On the journey, Colwyn privately shares with the Doctor that he is suspicious of how Anya has been able to track the Syndicate down. Celation, in her nebula form, reveals that the Syndicate has come to an end and starts to crush the ship to kill the Doctor and save herself from the same fate as her former colleagues, leading the Doctor, Anya, K9 and Colwyn to flee to the TARDIS. Anya, however, has set Colwyn's ship's generator to explode and Celation is killed.

The Doctor has K9 stun Anya before they arrive at the space station, aboard which K9 can detect only one life sign despite its size, and orders him to stun her again should she try anything. Malpha invites the Doctor and Colwyn to join him at the top deck where the Doctor explains that he has no memory of how he got to Robarus and the two of them realise that Zaal is responsible for Anya, putting her with the Doctor to divert attention away from him and using her to kill his fellow Syndicate members. Zaal has been using Dream Machines to control them as well as the Doctor and Anya, who disables K9 and kills Malpha. She then tries to kill the Doctor, but he and Colwyn escape her by releasing themselves into space.

Part four[[edit] | [edit source]]

K9 hears the Doctor blowing his dog whistle and materialises the TARDIS around him and Colwyn. He burns out the perception chips that the Doctor has deduced he and Colwyn both have and isolates the one within himself, after which the three of them travel to the perception chip factories of Europe where the people of Earth are working without realising it. Following the central control signal to SSS headquarters in the Atlantic Ocean, K9 tries to shut it down but has little time as Anya and a group of SSS troopers force their way in. The Doctor knocks the SSS troopers by sending a pulse through their earpieces, but Anya is not wearing one.

Anya destroys K9 and brings the Doctor before Zaal, who reveals that the Doctor has forgotten their first encounter and admits that Anya's mind has indeed been manipulated. He explains that he set up the Syndicate following the downfall of the Galactic Council and used them to create the perception chips, the memory of which he erased from them but which led to them building the Dream Machines instead, after which he sent Anya to kill them. He shoots the Doctor and Anya, unaware that K9 has been altering everybody's perceptions, through the chips and Zaal's Technix brain, on the Doctor's orders since Anya and the troopers' attack.

The Doctor calls for an evacuation before the base is blown up by the flaw K9 introduced to the systems and returns to the TARDIS with Anya, K9, Colwyn and Zaal, but Zaal refuses to go and is killed, believing until shortly before the explosion that he has been victorious. Colwyn intends on setting up an interim government and Anya assumes that the Doctor will take her with him since she chose not to kill him, but the Doctor rejects her as she would always be a reminder of his lost friend Ann Kelso. He leaves with K9 to continue exploring the universe, although both admit that they will miss Ann.

Cast[[edit] | [edit source]]

The Doctor - Tom Baker
Anya Kingdom - Jane Slavin
K9 - John Leeson
Zaal - Ronan Vibert
Jodor Colwyn - Simon Bubb
Malpha / Sentreal / Trooper / Worker - Christopher Naylor
Trantis / Beaus - Timothy Speyer
Celation / Gearar / Drarn - Francesca Hunt

Crew[[edit] | [edit source]]

Cover Art - Anthony Lamb
Director - Nicholas Briggs
Executive Producers - Jason Haigh-Ellery and Nicholas Briggs
Music and Sound Design - Jamie Robertson
Producer - David Richardson
Script Editor - Guy Adams
Writer - John Dorney
Galactic Council created by Terry Nation

Worldbuilding[[edit] | [edit source]]

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Notes[[edit] | [edit source]]

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Continuity[[edit] | [edit source]]

The Doctor identifies the Syndicate as the heirs to the members of the Daleks' planned Galactic Council. (TV: The Daleks' Master Plan)
The Doctor decides for the first time that K9 Mark II is his foremost best friend, a sentiment he would later affirm to K9. (TV: The Pirate Planet)