'Short Trips': 'An Ocean of Sawdust' (1 Part) by Paul Starkey

The TARDIS lands inside a huge, ornate bedroom, where the Doctor meets Samuel, a young boy trapped in his bed by wooden eels that erupt from the floor. After one of the monsters eats the TARDIS, subsuming it into the floorboards, the Doctor reaches the sanctuary of the bed; he learns that Samuel lived with his parents on a generational spaceship, which was somehow destroyed, leaving the boy the sole survivor, floating in space. The Doctor works out that their environment is an illusion, psychically projected into their minds by a malfunctioning child-comforter represented by a bird-mobile. Grabbing the mobile, the Doctor tries to turn off the projection; when this fails, he realises that the mobile and Samuel are not real either, merely lures used by creatures named Kestrians. By singing Samuel to sleep with a lullaby the Doctor is able to shut down the illusion, leaving him and the boy on an alien world; between them and the TARDIS lie a number of sleeping, slug-like Kestrians. As the Doctor carries Samuel into the TARDIS the boy vanishes; furious at the Kestrians' trap, the Doctor places psychic buoys around the slugs' planet, warning people away...

Stephen Critchlow (Narrator)

Release Date:
September 2019

Notes:

*Featuring the Eighth Doctor

*A Big Finish Audio Production

*Time-placing: The Doctor is travelling alone and can sense a coming storm, implying the Time War, so I am placing this between 'To the Death' and 'Dark Eyes'