The Juggernauts (audio story)

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The Juggernauts was the sixty-fifth story in Big Finish's monthly range. It was written by Scott Alan Woodard and featured Colin Baker as the Sixth Doctor, Bonnie Langford as Melanie Bush and Terry Molloy as Davros.

It was the first appearance of the Mechanoids in a performed story since The Chase in 1965. This was Bonnie Langford's second audio story with Colin Baker, the first being The One Doctor.

Publisher's summary[[edit] | [edit source]]

In a small mining colony on the dark and distant planet of Lethe, strange events are occurring — the results of which could dramatically affect things on a universal scale. For within the dingy corridors of the artificial biosphere, the lone survivor of a devastating crash has expertly wormed his way into the lives of the colony's personnel.

A scientist known as Davros.

Separated from one another across space and time, the Doctor and Mel find themselves in very different predicaments: Mel has been employed on Lethe, while the Doctor has been imprisoned aboard an alien spacecraft. Both situations are inexorably linked, however, and at the apex of the two sits Davros and the terrifying possibility of a new threat even more powerful than the Daleks!

Rescuing Mel and stopping Davros should be the Doctor's primary goals, but could it be that this time, Mel does not wish to be rescued? And might Davros actually be working on something for the benefit of the civilised galaxies...?

Plot[[edit] | [edit source]]

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

A Nazzian freighter carrying medical supplies in the Beta Orianus system comes under heavy fire and the Doctor sends Mel to safety in an escape module whilst he locates the TARDIS. Mel crash-lands on Lethe, sets up a homing beacon and waits for the Doctor for three months, spending her time repairing unearthed Mechanoids for Professor Vaso, a scientist who also survived a crash-landing and who takes an interest in the Doctor.

The Doctor is Time Scooped and held in a molecular disintegration cage by the Renegade Daleks, who hold the TARDIS and intend to recruit him to stop the creation of a rival race on Lethe, a planet with an atmosphere that is potentially lethal to the Daleks. They inform him that Mel is on Lethe and use a visualiser to show her with Professor Vaso, whom she is telling stories about her adventures; the Doctor immediately recognises him as Davros.

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

The Black Dalek explains that Davros crash-landed on Lethe en route to his trial on Skaro and agrees to give the Doctor and Mel their freedom following Davros's capture. After a successful demonstration of the Juggernauts adapted from the Mechanoids for investors from Outreach, Mel returns to her bedroom and is reunited with the Doctor, who has been transmatted down by the Daleks. Mel has difficulty believing the truth about Professor Vaso and rests whilst the Doctor looks around the colony.

In the morning, Mr Brauer informs the staff that work on the Juggernauts will be taken over by one of Outreach's own product development team for a month or two, angering Davros. He deduces that Mr Kryson is an addict immune to the virus masking his true appearance and blackmails him into recommending that his superiors suspend their plan. Afterwards, the Doctor enters and, as they discuss how Davros has taken a new identity and plans to leave a new legacy, three damaged Imperial Daleks arrive.

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

Davros summons his Daleks to exterminate Mr Brauer when he interrupts his demonstration of the Juggernauts to confront him about his blackmail of Kryson and orders a colony lockdown. He summons Mel, confirms that the Doctor is right about his true identity and explains that the Juggernauts are the perfect Dalek killers, but the Doctor does not believe that they are a valid solution. Giving the Doctor some time to reconsider, Davros has his Daleks kill Mr Brauer's colleagues and tells Kryson that they will claim that it was an accident.

Mel puts the Juggernaut escorting her and the Doctor into idle mode using a backdoor she included in its programming and they find a living organism inside. Hacking the colony's medical records, she finds evidence that Davros has been harvesting organs from dead colonists and proceeds to erase any information on the Juggernaut programme on the Doctor's orders. The Doctor calls for the Renegade Daleks to capture Davros and a battle breaks out. The Doctor and Mel run, but more Juggernauts emerge from the section of the base damaged by Davros's crash-landing.

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

The Juggernauts are held back by a back-up energy barrier, allowing the Doctor and Mel to get to an access panel and sabotage the Juggernaut manufactory in the damaged section of the base whilst Davros offers to upgrade the Renegade Daleks as he has the Mechanoids. The Black Dalek reveals to the Doctor that the Dalek Supreme has manoeuvred both him and Mel as part of his scheme to defeat Davros, with the supposedly lethal atmosphere being a fiction. The Doctor is to be taken to Skaro so that knowledge of how to fly his TARDIS can be extracted, but the Juggernauts destroy the Black Dalek and kill Kryson on Davros's orders.

Mel's friend Geoff locks up Davros's Daleks as Sonali evacuates their colleagues to the Outreach spaceship and sacrifices himself to kill him by opening the airlock. Having learnt that another colleague, Loewen, was placed inside a Juggernaut, Mel takes control of the Juggernauts and has them attack Davros, an act which the Doctor disapproves of. Davros's self-destruct system has been activated by the attack and, after the Doctor and Mel use the transmat to escape to the TARDIS on the Dalek mothership, the resulting explosion destroys the base. Mel apologises for her actions and leaves a music box given to her by Geoff on the Dalek ship.

Cast[[edit] | [edit source]]

Uncredited cast[[edit] | [edit source]]

Crew[[edit] | [edit source]]

Worldbuilding[[edit] | [edit source]]

The Doctor[[edit] | [edit source]]

Individuals[[edit] | [edit source]]

The Daleks[[edit] | [edit source]]

  • A Supreme Dalek is in charge of the Daleks who inform the Doctor of Davros' presence.

The TARDIS[[edit] | [edit source]]

Cultural references[[edit] | [edit source]]

Notes[[edit] | [edit source]]

Continuity[[edit] | [edit source]]

Gallery[[edit] | [edit source]]

External links[[edit] | [edit source]]