The War Valeyard (audio story)
The War Valeyard was the fourth and final story in the audio anthology The Eighth Doctor: Time War: Volume Three, produced by Big Finish Productions. It was written by John Dorney and featured Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor, Rakhee Thakrar as Bliss, Adèle Anderson as Major Tamasan and Michael Jayston as the Valeyard.
Publisher's summary[[edit] | [edit source]]
The Valeyard has returned to the universe amid the Time War – and the Time Lords see his potential to end the conflict for good.
When the Doctor discovers that his twisted future self has been conscripted, he sets out with Bliss to find him, braving a planet ravaged by Daleks.
But in a world where he can finally be a hero, will the Valeyard want to leave?
Plot[[edit] | [edit source]]
On Grahv, Nim is cornered by the Daleks when she is saved by the Valeyard, who explains that he has placed land mines around the planet to kill Daleks and introduces himself as the saviour of time and last hope of the universe. For brevity, he asks her to call him "the Doctor".
In the TARDIS, the Doctor has a nightmare in which the Dalek Time Strategist threatens vengeance against somebody whose voice he recognises. He falls to the floor and Bliss comes running; he tells her that his dream seemed more like a premonition or a memory and realises that the voice that he recognised belonged to the Valeyard.
The Valeyard promises to take Nim home to her family safely if she does as he says. He suddenly hears laughter in his mind and demands to know whose side the person it belongs to is on. Once the episode is over, he tells Nim that he is here to stop the Daleks forever and to end the Time War.
The Doctor explains to Bliss who the Valeyard is, describing him as his dark side from his own future who dresses up as a lawyer and sometimes tries to kill him. The Valeyard's history is complex, however, and the Doctor does not fully understand how the Valeyard will come about. He thought that he had been erased from the timelines, but his visions make him think that the Valeyard could still be alive somehow and uses the telepathic circuits to try to find him.
The Valeyard calls Nim his companion and reminisces about those who travelled with him before and made him a better person. They are stopped by a Dalek, but the Valeyard uses his sonic screwdriver to seriously damage it. As it dies, the Dalek insists that it is the Doctor.
The Doctor and Bliss find that Grahv is partially-time locked and meet Major Tamasan at an outpost. There, she explains that the Valeyard came from Thellian, reformed thanks to the Doctor having used the transmat whilst carrying a genetic modifier, and that the High Council had considered executing him before realising his potential in the Time War. He was installed in a military outpost and stabilised by scientists in return for fighting. After learning of a Dalek plan, the Valeyard was sent to Grahv to eliminate them once and for all.
The Valeyard tells Nim about his visions of himself laughing at a world in flames, revelling in the destruction, and worries that that is the person that he truly is.
The Time Lords found that there was a temporal fault on Grahv emitting artron energy, used by the Daleks to create a weapon which could rip the Time Lords from history. They did not use it, however, so the Time Lords sent the Valeyard to use it against them despite the fact that it would also wipe out the Grahvians. Tamasan warns the Doctor not to go to Grahv, but he does not listen and, to get through the time lock, steals her TARDIS.
The Valeyard and Nim find that her family has been exterminated. Nim blames the Valeyard, but he believes that he might be able to bring them back if he completes his task. She insists on joining him and, when he asks about where the break in reality might be, she says that it could be at the Grallian Hills, the location of a Dalek fortress. He has a vision on the way, this time of revelling in the pain of the Daleks, and another at the fortress where he hears the Time Strategist call him "Valeyard". He destroys two Daleks, who believe that they are the Doctor, after Nim jumps in the way to protect him from being exterminated. Before she dies, she says that he is not the Doctor and that he has failed.
The Doctor and Bliss arrive in the Dalek fortress, but Tamasan has rescinded the TARDIS's authorisation and left them stranded there. They meet the Valeyard, dressed in his court attire, who threatens to kill them with his screwdriver unless they help him find the weapon for him to use against both the Daleks and the Time Lords, seeing both as his enemy. The Valeyard in the Doctor's dress arrives and saves the Doctor from his other self, a self which the Doctor believes was generated from his own memory based on what he was expecting to find.
At the temporal fault, the trio find a portal to another dimension, one through which the Time Strategist escaped in the Valeyard's premonitions. The Valeyard operates the machine and finds that it causes recollection and reality to become one; by erasing the Daleks from all memory, they will cease to exist. As the Valeyard prepares to use it, the Doctor and Bliss tell him that there is no need as he used it two centuries ago and ended the Time War.
When the Doctor had his dream of the Valeyard, he and Bliss wondered how he could be fighting the Daleks when the war had ended long ago, although nobody quite knew how. They decided to go to Grahv to make sure that there were no Dalek survivors and were later informed by Tamasan that the weapon had gone off when the Daleks tried to use it and erased their memory of creating it. The Valeyard used the weapon himself to erase the Daleks, but the Time Strategist escaped through the portal.
In truth, the Valeyard is the last living thing on Grahv and has been interacting with his own memories in an endless cycle. The Doctor and Bliss have come to rescue him and take him through the portal, but the Valeyard refuses and instead chooses to remain in his cycle as the Doctor to keep his true self from being reasserted. The Doctor accepts his decision and leaves with Bliss whilst the Valeyard uses the machine once more to wipe out the Daleks, rebooting his memory in the process. He starts his mission again and meets Nim.
Cast[[edit] | [edit source]]
- The Doctor - Paul McGann
- Bliss - Rakhee Thakrar
- The Doctor Valeyard / The Trial Valeyard - Michael Jayston
- Nim - Venice Van Someren
- Major Tamasan - Adèle Anderson
- The Daleks / Time Strategist - Nicholas Briggs
Worldbuilding[[edit] | [edit source]]
- The Doctor Valeyard is a product of the Eighth Doctor passing through a transmat with a genetic modifier, which copies his clothes but randomly creates the Valeyard.
- The Doctor Valeyard remembers travelling with many companions, and has modified his sonic screwdriver to attack Daleks. He uses land mines primed to their exact weight.
- The Daleks on Grahv think they are the Doctor.
- When asserting his identity, the Doctor Valeyard says "You are a Dalek. You are an enemy of the Doctor", a reversal of the Daleks' usual exclamation.
- Grahv is time-locked and impenetrable to all but the highest-ranking TARDISes.
- A temporal fault on Grahv leaks artron energy which the Daleks used to build a superweapon that could wipe the Daleks from the memory of the universe, and everyone on the planet.
- The Doctor steals Tamasan's TARDIS and tracks the Valeyard by his bio-signature.
- The Doctor Valeyard recognises Bliss and introduces himself as another incarnation.
- Although the Time War ended and the Daleks disappeared from the universe, the Dalek Time Strategist escaped through a dimensional portal.
- This serves as the set up for the restoration of the Daleks that occurs in The Eighth Doctor: Time War: Volume Four
Notes[[edit] | [edit source]]
- This was Michael Jayston's final performance as the Valeyard.
Continuity[[edit] | [edit source]]
- The Doctor explains the Valeyard to Bliss as "I am he, and he is me." (TV: The Three Doctors)
- The Dalek who thinks it's the Doctor exclaims "Who! Am! I!" (TV: Doctor Who)
- The "Doctor Valeyard" recalls how he once had a chance to erase the Daleks at their very beginning and didn't take it. (TV: Genesis of the Daleks)
- The Doctor Valeyard was a byproduct of the Eighth Doctor passing through the transmat with the genetic modifier. (AUDIO: Fugitive in Time)
- The Doctor tracks down the Valeyard via the telepathic circuits. (AUDIO: State of Bliss)
- The High Council remember when the Valeyard tried to assassinate them. (TV: The Ultimate Foe)
- The Trial Valeyard still wears his outfit from the Doctor's trial. (TV: The Mysterious Planet)
External links[[edit] | [edit source]]
- Official The War Valeyard page at bigfinish.com
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