The Trials of a Time Lord (audio story)

The Trials of a Time Lord
Doctor:	Sixth Doctor
Companion(s):	Mel, Peri
Featuring:	The Master, Davros
Main enemy:	Grobolosh, Zurglemere
Main setting:	Cyberia, LudoSphere
Key crew
Publisher:	Big Finish Productions
Writers:	Rochana Patel, Katharine Armitage, Stewart Pringle
Director:	Jonathan S Powell
Producer:	Jonathan S Powell
Music:	Steve Foxon
Sound:	Steve Foxon
Release details
Number of parts:	6
Release date:	30 August 2024
Format:	3 CD Download 1 story
Production code:	BFPDWDR0606
ISBN:	ISBN 978-1-80240-177-6 (physical) ISBN 978-1-80240-178-3 (digital)
Official trailer
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The Sixth Doctor Adventures releases
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You may be looking for the television season of a similar name.

The Trials of a Time Lord was a single story in three sections in the anthology of the same name released on 30 August 2024 by Big Finish Productions. It was written by Rochana Patel, Katharine Armitage and Stewart Pringle, and featured Colin Baker as the Sixth Doctor, Nicola Bryant as Peri Brown, Bonnie Langford as Melanie Bush, David Banks as the Cyber Leader, Nicholas Briggs as the Daleks and the Cybermen and Terry Molloy as Davros.

This story/anthology continued the 40th anniversary of Baker's debut as the Sixth Doctor, started in The Quin Dilemma.

Publisher's summary

The Sixth Doctor's fortieth anniversary celebrations continue, courtesy of LudoSphere Incorporated, with the greatest adventure ever streamed...

Responding to a distress call from an old friend, the Doctor and Mel find themselves in 'Cyberia', a prison camp run by an even older foe. But this time, the Cyber Leader's machinations are just the tip of one very sinister iceberg, one that will test the Doctor to his very limit, and beyond...

We hope you're hiding behind the sofa, because 'The Trials of a Time Lord' are about to begin!

The Trials of a Time Lord Parts 1 and 2 by Rochana Patel
The Trials of a Time Lord Parts 3 and 4 by Katherine Armitage
The Trials of a Time Lord Parts 5 and 6 by Stewart Pringle

Plot

Part one

On the snowy Juvenile Prime in the 99th century, Tiff sends out a distress call for the Doctor, asking him to repay her favour and rescue her and Voss from the Cybermen. The TARDIS picks up the degraded message and the Doctor and Mel respond, despite the Doctor's initial concern that it could be a trap, and the ship's arrival in Cyberia Prison Camp is detected by the Cybermen, prompting the Cyber Leader to alert his guards and capture the pair. As the Cyber Leader awaits instruction from the Controller, Mel is evaluated for her usefulness and the Doctor taken to Tiff and Voss to be inducted on procedures in the camp, his compliance ensured by threatening the lives of fellow prisoners. Whilst Voss is left to educate the Doctor, Tiff is taken for conversion as a punishment for sending the distress call.

Voss explains that most of the 150 prisoners, himself not included, are from 20th century Earth and shows the Doctor a map so that they can rescue Tiff and liberate a significant portion of the prison population, which is managed by a total of only thirteen Cybermen. The Doctor is surprised by the small number of guards, as well as the rate of conversion being only one a day and several escape plans having been successful already. He uses his umbrella to connect the electrified fence to an earthing rod and kills a Cyber Sentry by getting him to shoot the fence, attracting the attention of the Cyber Leader who leaves the conversion area with the Cyber Lieutenant. Tiff, assessed as a candidate for Cyber Leader, is left in a state of partial-conversion.

The Doctor contacts Mel using the surveillance equipment and directs her on how to escape and access the security code for the camp's transmat, which he then uses to transmat all of the Cybermen into the caves beneath the camp. Voss celebrates the end of a "brain-dead horror show" and the Doctor is transmatted in front of a studio audience with presenter Brot Zirkussen, who reveals that the Doctor has been inside Cyberia: Escape the Cybermen, a popular LudoSphere reality show. The Cyber Leader joins them, aware of the truth and using the show for the steady stream of conversions, and Zirkussen informs the Doctor that the Channel Controller has decided that he will be partaking in his own series: The Trials of a Time Lord.

Part two

On the first episode of The Trials of a Time Lord, the Doctor is locked in a cell and joined by the partially-converted Tiff who is fighting the programming and feels betrayed by the Doctor's failure to rescue her, her emotional inhibitor having been disabled by Mel. Mel, meanwhile, is in a green room in the Studio Dome with twelve Androgums and learns that she is under contract as a cast member. Despite this, she escapes using a transmat in the Androgums' kitchen and is taken to the Black Hole bar by Voss, who is part of the Anti-LudoSphere Protest League. Shortly after, the Doctor and Tiff are welcomed to the kitchen where they are to be cooked by the celebrity chef Stunrib.

Having had the opportunity to read through The Androgum Cookbook in his cell, the Doctor points out that Stunrib is not cooking gumblejack according to the proper karam practice and gets away to a savannah set with Tiff. They return to the kitchen after losing the Androgums and attempts to escape using the transmat terminal, but he lacks production's permission and brings Tiff back from the increasing cyber control by feeding her gumblejack. Mel and Voss watch on the screen at the bar as Stunrib and the Androgums corner the Doctor and Tiff and Tiff activates a distress beacon, calling Cybermen to her to wipe out the attackers, after which they take Tiff back to Cyberia and complete her conversion. The Doctor warns the show's producers that he will make them sorry and the Cyber Leader prepares to destroy him.

Part three

Peri, brought onto the show by Vurglemere to replace Tiff and boost ratings, saves the Doctor from the Cybermen using gold goo, but the Doctor does not initially believe that she is real given that she is a skilled warrior and she carries him away. They reach the sixth trial, "Betrayal in Plain Sight", where a group of people in a pit are tasked with expelling the one amongst them who has the Winkman virus. Peri advises them to look for a cure instead, but they do not listen and the Doctor claims to be the infected one. He is thrown into the expulsion pit with Peri, who saves them from the fall with a cable shooter, and they are attacked by fire monsters which she destroys with an ice grenade. Given how close he was to death, the Doctor accepts that the show is real, that Tiff is really dead and that Peri is real.

Voss is knocked out by Val, a former actor who starred as a rebel in a show for eighteen seasons until a boy died, after which she began a real rebellion, and taken to her group's headquarters with Mel. When he awakens, Mel suggests that they kidnap Brot to demand an audience with the Muskoids and they succeed in getting him into a van where they force him to read a message in which he confesses to his crimes and professes a newfound devotion to the rebellion. They send the message to Vurglemere and Grobolosh, who are annoyed that the Doctor has seen through their harmless Pseudomats and instead orders them and various androids to kill Peri to provide motivation. When the Muskoids transmat to the rebels, Voss tries to kill them to avenge Tiff, but they absorb his fire and release it to kill him before transmatting away.

Although the Doctor is able to shut down the androids, the Pseudomats continue to attack until Peri finds and deactivates their control relay by reflecting their kill-shot with a handheld mirror. They reach the door to Control, behind which Brot, who claims to be a true rebel now free from the Muskoids' control, tells Mel is the big bad who is in charge of the LudoSphere. The Doctor and Peri enter and encounter Davros.

Part four

Davros claims that he set up the LudoSphere to lure the Doctor to him, but the Doctor correctly deduces that he is simply part of the show and Davros fires his electricity, destroying his laboratory but doing no actual harm to the Doctor or Peri. He agrees to work with the pair to get away from the LudoSphere, after which the Doctor and Peri are time scooped back to the Androgum kitchen to start series 2 of The Trials of a Time Lord. They remain in contact with Davros and meet him in the lizard dungeon, on the way to which they find the Claudia Cure for the Winkman virus to stop the killing in the pit. Learning that the sets are restored by nanobots, the Doctor suggests that Davros work out a way to use the nanobots against the LudoSphere.

Mel, Val, Vic and a hesitant Brot break into the studio in the van and find that Brot's set has been repurposed for a show which is cancelled, leading to it being burnt down and the actors fleeing outside. The group escape thanks to Mel accessing the transmat and they order Grobolosh and Zurglemere to cease programming and release the Doctor, but the Muskoids inform them that the time scoop can only be used by Command. Mel proceeds to contact Sticklefen to pass on the message to the Producer, which only results in Command turning Grobolosh and Zurglemere's power off, and learns from Brot that the Muskoids feed on the ratings. She too learns about the nanobots.

Davros discovers that the nanobots are nanoborgs containing Muskoid ooze and he and the Doctor agree to replace it with Peri's DNA so that she can take control of them, with neither trusting the other. They attract some by causing damage to the set and capture them, after which Mel manages to contact them using the speaker system and informs them that she too is adapting the nanoborgs. Peri relinquishes her control over the nanoborgs upon using them to escape the LudoSphere, only to find that they are still in a television show, that they are within another dome and that Val has been acting all along. The Muskoids congratulate the group on the ratings and Brot removes his disguise to reveal that he is actually the Master.

Part five

The Master decided after the Doctor's trial that he would humiliate his rival on television to destroy his status as a legendary hero, leading him to ally himself with Vurglemere. He commands the nanoborgs to kill the Doctor and his friends, but Vurglemere uses the time scoop to transport everybody away and the Master to her and Grobolosh, explaining that they do not want to kill a character as popular as the Doctor yet. The Doctor, Peri and Davros are transported to a set designed to resemble Skaro and told to fight to the death; Peri is willing to fight and Davros attacks the two of them with his electricity until he confirms that he is not really on Skaro. Mel and Val, meanwhile, target the telepathic relay mast gathering the appreciation index for the Muskoids.

By doing nothing and ensuring that the appreciation index plummets, the Doctor, Peri and Davros have Battle for Skaro cancelled and the nanoborgs attack. The Doctor and Peri jump onto Davros's chair to be protected by his force field and Davros adapts Peri's grenade so that they can blast their way out of the set. The Master has the Muskoids resume transmission and Mel finds that the signal she is trying to send through the telepathic relay is being blocked from the Doctor's location; the Daleks blast their way into the LudoSphere, summoned by Davros's distress signal, and they prepare to rescue their creator and exterminate everybody else that they come across.

Part six

The Daleks launch an assault upon the LudoSphere, although the Muskoids are unconcerned and welcome the imminent spike in viewership. Davros rejects the Doctor's surrender, which he offers to save Peri, and has the Daleks use the telepathic relay to transmit the Alignment Wave to reconfigure the cerebral cortexes of the viewers and turn them into loyal Robomen. The Doctor hears Mel's apparent execution and the Muskoids, cut off from the ratings by the hijacking of the telepathic relay, use the time scoop to summon the Cybermen to fight the Daleks, but the Doctor suggests that Davros and the Cyber Leader form an alliance against the Muskoids instead of fighting. The suggestion is ignored and the Cybermen stop the Alignment Wave, after which the Master has the Muskoids time scoop him to meet the Producer.

Mel, who survived a Dalek attack thanks to Val, contacts the Doctor and Peri goes to protect her. The Doctor challenges the various factions on the LudoSphere to kill him and the Master interrupts to reveal that the Producer is simply an algorithm extracted from the minds of the LudoSphere's viewers. The Daleks and Cybermen capture the Doctor and, thanks to the Muskoids, the Master, but the Doctor reminds the Cyber Leader of the taste of gumblejack and Tiff's personality returns. She breaks the truce between the Cybermen and Daleks and is exterminated, prompting the designation of a new Cyber Leader. Mel and Peri, meanwhile, are surrounded and the Muskoids celebrate a 98% approval rating.

The Daleks' and Cybermen's weapons are rendered inoperable thanks to the Producer harvesting stories across the universe in which the Doctor wins at the end. The nanoborgs attack the Master, Davros, the Daleks, the Cybermen and the Muskoids, the latter of whom die ecstatic that their ratings have reached 100%, and the Producer is overloaded and destroyed. Mel sends out a message given to her by the Doctor ("Why Don't You Just Switch Off Your Television Set and Go and Do Something Less Boring Instead?") which she hopes will give the rebellion enough time to fix things. She celebrates Val's bravery and the Doctor shares his hope that Tiff's consciousness might have survived before taking Mel and Peri for food.

Cast

• The Doctor - Colin Baker
• Peri Brown - Nicola Bryant
• Melanie Bush - Bonnie Langford
• Cyber Leader - David Banks
• Cybermen / The Daleks / Cyber-Lieutenant - Nicholas Briggs
• The Master / Sticklefen / Stunrib - Jon Culshaw
• Tiffany Jenkins / Marjie - Aruhan Galieva
• Val / Vurglemere - Holly Jackson Walters
• Grobolosh / Chaz - Samuel James
• Brot Zirkussen - Rufus Jones
• Davros - Terry Molloy
• Voss Nim - George Naylor

Stories

#	Title	Author	Director	Featuring	Released
1	Parts 1 and 2	Rochana Patel	Jonathan S Powell	Mel, Tremas Master	30 August 2024
2	Parts 3 and 4	Katharine Armitage		Mel, Tremas Master, Peri, Davros
3	Parts 5 and 6	Stewart Pringle

Crew

• Cover Art - Sean Longmore
• Director - Jonathan S Powell
• Executive Producers - Nicholas Briggs and Jason Haigh-Ellery
• Music and Sound Design - Steve Foxon
• Producer - Jonathan S Powell
• Script Editor - Robert Valentine
• Senior Producer - John Ainsworth
• Writers - Rochana Patel, Katherine Armitage, and Stewart Pringle

Worldbuilding

• Juvenile Prime is the capital of the Barnum Cluster.
• The Doctor met Tiff in London in 1985 when he was travelling with Evelyn Smythe. They fought the Autons.
• The Cybermen use surveillance spheres.
• The Doctor uses his umbrella.
• Dying Cybermen scream if their emotional inhibitor is damaged.
• Ollie was a prisoner who became a Cyber Sentry.
• The Doctor finds a travel guide to Marinus and a copy of The Androgum Cookbook in his cell.
• Vurglemere is Head of Talent.
• Stunrib compares Mel's eyebrows to Jeznox worms.
• The law of the Androgums is that gratification of pleasure is the sole motive of action.
• Mel is accused by Broodmore o' the Franzine Grig of casual speciesism.
• Stunrib cooks gumblejack.
• Karam cooking practices dictate that animals are to be taken fresh from the hunt.
• Voss is part of the Anti-LudoSphere Protest League.
• The Muskoids run the LudoSphere.
• "Hangry" is a portmanteau of "hungry" and "angry".
• Vic works with Val.
• LudoSphere uses Time Scoops.
• The Winkman virus has no visible symptoms.
• Monster Dungeon was rebranded as part of The Trials of a Time Lord.
• Bobby is a director.
• Davros has heard of the Master and the legends of his "incompetence".
• Peri quotes William Shakespeare.
• The Ribos Razorbacks partake in disfigure skating.
• As a child, Mel was an enthusiastic viewer of Why Don't You Just Switch Off Your Television Set and Go and Do Something Less Boring Instead? and watched it whilst eating peanut butter and crisp sandwiches.

Notes

• 

  Davros (Early Imperial) closer look.
  This story was said to be "following later in the year" with the announcement of The Quin Dilemma on 31 January 2024, but was untitled. It was mentioned again in the article announcing the release of The Quin Dilemma on 22 March 2024, though remained untitled.
  • It was on 23 April 2024 that the title, release month, and cast and story details were revealed.
• This story was recorded on 27 and 29 February, and on 1 March 2024 at the Soundhouse.
• The cover for this story was revealed on 28 May 2024.
• This story's promotional video trailer was uploaded to Big Finish's social media on 30 August and 31 August 2024, and is included in the 'Video' tab of the official The Trials of a Time Lord page. Animation was done by Oliver Chenery, with music by Howard Carter. It was written and directed by Jonathan S Powell.
• The Dalek renders were provided by James Johnson.
  • Both Sean Longmore and Johnson make a distinct connection between Davros' chair featured on this release and the one featured on the cover of 2005's The Juggernauts ^[+]Loading...["The Juggernauts (audio story)"], even so far as to mention that this new chair has been reconstructed from the remains of the one used on Lethe. Whilst the chair seen in The Juggernauts was intended to be a regular Dalek base, this iteration is styled more like his original chair. Furthermore, it takes design cues from the Necros Daleks featured in Revelation of the Daleks ^[+]Loading...["Revelation of the Daleks (TV story)"], including the lower black base and cream colours, whilst also incorporating two small interface discs to the front, reminiscent of the ones featured on Davros' Emperor Dalek chair as seen in Remembrance of the Daleks ^[+]Loading...["Remembrance of the Daleks (TV story)"]. Davros is also featured with a new robotic hand, similar in design to the one see in The Juggernauts.
  • 

    Corgi die cast release with Imperial Davros toy.
    The concept of Davros in a white and gold chair was also used for a toy created by Corgi in 2004, which featured Davros in Imperial Dalek colours opposed to his traditional black and silver.
• This release comes with Behind the Scenes Interviews extras. They are after every two parts of this story on both the CDs and in the Big Finish app.

Continuity

• Peri and Mel previously met on Arunopal in AUDIO: The Firstborn ^[+]Loading...["The Firstborn (audio story)"].
• Peri first met Androgums in TV: The Two Doctors ^[+]Loading...["The Two Doctors (TV story)"].
• Peri first met Davros, the Renegade Daleks, and precursors to the Imperial Daleks on Necros in TV: Revelation of the Daleks ^[+]Loading...["Revelation of the Daleks (TV story)"] while Mel first encountered Davros and said precursors on Lethe in AUDIO: The Juggernauts ^[+]Loading...["The Juggernauts (audio story)"].
• The Doctor apologises to Peri for the events of Thoros Beta as seen in TV: Mindwarp ^[+]Loading...["Mindwarp (TV story)"] and never coming back for her.
  • This is contrary to AUDIO: The Widow's Assassin ^[+]Loading...["The Widow's Assassin (audio story)"], where it is shown he did indeed come back for Peri. They also resume travelling together afterwards, as shown in several other stories.
• The Tremas Master previously set up the Fifth Doctor, Tegan Jovanka, and Vislor Turlough in a disguise for his sadistic entertainment in TV: The King's Demons ^[+]Loading...["The King's Demons (TV story)"].
• Davros knows Dalek legends of the Master's 'incompetence'; a reference to how one of the latter's previous incarnations worked with the Dalek Empire by co-operating with a gold member of the Supreme Council during their campaign to deceive Earth and Draconia into war, only to be foiled by the Third Doctor and Jo Grant in TV: Frontier in Space ^[+]Loading...["Frontier in Space (TV story)"].
  • A future incarnation of the Master would later meet Davros in TV: The Witch's Familiar ^[+]Loading...["The Witch's Familiar (TV story)"], but claimed it was their first meeting.

Cover gallery

• 

  Textless cover

• 

  Alternate cover

External links

• Official The Trials of a Time Lord page at bigfinish.com