Apocrypha Bipedium (short story)
Apocrypha Bipedium was the fourth short story in the Short Trips anthology Short Trips: Companions. It was written by Ian Potter. Set after the audio story The Time of the Daleks [+]Loading...["The Time of the Daleks (audio story)"], it featured the unique TARDIS team of the Eighth Doctor, Charley Pollard and William Shakespeare, with the Doctor attempting to return the eight-year-old boy to Stratford-upon-Avon following the events of that story.
It saw the Doctor encountering his former companion Vicki Pallister for the first time since she left his company in the 1965 story The Myth Makers [+]Loading...["The Myth Makers (TV story)"]. Big Finish would produce a second story reuniting Vicki and the Doctor, this time in his first incarnation, in the form of 2024's Fugitive of the Daleks [+]Loading...["Fugitive of the Daleks (audio story)"].
Apocrypha Bipedium was also notable for its unusual format. Its narrative was told through several source documents as part of an essay written by a Historiographic Speculator, including the personal accounts of the Doctor, Charley, Vicki and Shakespeare, as well as a version of events recorded by the TARDIS logs and curated by Flavia for a children's book. Shakespeare's sections were written in iambic pentameter composed entirely in rhyming couplets while Charley's diary had been corrupted by damage, resulting in several intentional spelling mistakes in her parts.
Summary[[edit] | [edit source]]
Vicki and Troilus are on the move. Having escaped from the fall of Troy, they and their people have been wandering in search of a place to settle.
The Eighth Doctor is trying to get Wilf back home. The TARDIS dematerialises, and he thinks they've arrived in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1572, but it turns out they've arrived in ancient Asia Minor.
A herdsman sees them arrive, and they tell him they are sea travellers. He takes them to his encampment where, the Doctor learns, Vicki and Troilus have stopped. He realises he has to keep Wilf away from Vicki. If Wilf learns who Vicki and Troilus are, he might be influenced in his later writing of the play Troilus and Cressida.
However, the herdsman has seen the TARDIS and recognises it. He tells Vicki, who thinks that this Doctor is a younger version of the Doctor she knew. She soon suspects that this Doctor is a robot, like the robot Doctor she had previously encountered. She and the rest of her people make plans.
The Doctor is making plans too. He wants Charley to get Wilf drunk so that he won't remember anything the next day.
As they are all enjoying the wine, Vicki's people attack. Vicki in particular attacks the Doctor, trying to find the wires controlling him.
They all soon realise their mistakes, and the Doctor explains everything. He then learns, to his embarrassment, that, although Shakespeare wrote the play Troilus and Cressida, it was Geoffrey Chaucer who came up with their story. Vicki also tells the Doctor that, in Shakespeare's play, Cressida ends up with Diomede. The Doctor is then forced to admit he never read the play.
The TARDIS crew departs, with hopefully no harm done, and Troilus, Cressida and their people are on their way to ancient Britain, on the advice of Wilf, to settle there.
Characters[[edit] | [edit source]]
Worldbuilding[[edit] | [edit source]]
- The Doctor mentions Zodin.
- Flavia has written a book on the Doctor's exploits for Time Lord children.
- Geoffrey Chaucer invented the story of Troilus and Cressida.
- The Doctor mentions Walter Raleigh as one of the things Will is not allowed to talk about when he returns home.
- The Doctor has written a book under the name of Ka Faraq Gatri.
- The Doctor has never read the play Troilus and Cressida.
- The is a manuscript of Hamlet written by a hand other than Shakespeare's, relating to Scarlioni.
Notes[[edit] | [edit source]]
- This story followed on from The Time of the Daleks [+]Loading...["The Time of the Daleks (audio story)"]. Ian Potter, who wrote Apocrypha Bipedium, acted in three credited roles and provided the sound design for that story.
- It is never definitively stated which incarnation of the Doctor wrote the memoir which reminisces on the events of this story.
- This story was reprinted in Short Trips: Re:Collections.
- This story is a "pure historical" featuring no science fiction elements apart from the presence of the Doctor, Charley and the TARDIS.
Continuity[[edit] | [edit source]]
- Vicki writes in her diary about Agamemnon, Menelaus, Helen and Aeneas. (TV: The Myth Makers [+]Loading...["The Myth Makers (TV story)"])
- Vicki also mentions Dido (TV: The Rescue [+]Loading...["The Rescue (TV story)"]) and the Monk. (TV: The Time Meddler [+]Loading...["The Time Meddler (TV story)"])
- The Doctor worries about Vicki seeing Wilf because she had seen him on the TARDIS's Time-Space Visualiser. (TV: The Chase [+]Loading...["The Chase (TV story)"])
- Vicki reminds the Doctor that "Diomede" was the name Steven Taylor used in Troy. (TV: The Myth Makers [+]Loading...["The Myth Makers (TV story)"])
- The Doctor recalls that Vicki gave Steven the occasional haircut, as she did in TV: Galaxy 4 [+]Loading...["Galaxy 4 (TV story)"].
- Vicki worries the regenerated Doctor is a Dalek double of the kind she encountered in TV: The Chase [+]Loading...["The Chase (TV story)"]. She would later meet this Robot Doctor again in AUDIO: Fugitive of the Daleks [+]Loading...["Fugitive of the Daleks (audio story)"].
- Flavia refers to the events of AUDIO: Neverland [+]Loading...["Neverland (audio story)"] and AUDIO: Zagreus [+]Loading...["Zagreus (audio story)"] as being something which the Doctor deserved for his actions in this story.
External links[[edit] | [edit source]]
- Apocrypha Bipedium at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
- The Discontinuity Guide to: Apocrypha Bipedium at The Whoniverse
