'Short Trips': 'The Doctor's First XI' (1 Part) by Ian Atkins

Answering a distress call, the Doctor and Romana land on a planet devastated by an orbital bombardment; here they meet the surviving members of a human colony, and help out at a hospital. Later, when they return to the TARDIS, the Doctor and Romana are prevented from leaving by a crowd of belligerent colonists; when the Doctor refuses to take the traumatised humans away in the TARDIS the time-travellers are split up and ordered to continue their hospital duties in different parts of the city. The Doctor is undaunted, and convinces the distrusting leader and his people into playing a game of Cricket, with him as one captain and Romana as the other; the game proves popular, and becomes an annual event. As the years pass, new leaders come and go; each generation of colonists is taught to keep the Doctor and Romana imprisoned in their city, only allowed to meet each other once a year over the traditional game of Cricket… Eventually the current leader works out that the Doctor has been communicating to Romana over the years, using a code based on the game’s results and player statistics. With a deft throw of the ball, the Doctor makes everyone look up at the sky, causing them to realise their self-inflicted imprisonment on the planet. With the colonists now imbued with a positive outlook on life, the Doctor and Romana finally agree to take them to a better planet to begin anew…

Stephen Critchlow (Narrator)

Release Date:
March 2010

Notes:

*Featuring the Fourth Doctor and the First Romana

*A Big Finish Audio Production

*Time-placing: It is intimated that the Doctor and Romana have completed their quest for the Key to Time, placing this after ‘The Armageddon Factor’ and before ‘Destiny of the Daleks’. K-9 has been left in the TARDIS under repair…