'Short Trips': 'Defining Patterns' edited by Ian Farrington

The known universe is home to countless trillions of lives, all interweaving with each other and affecting the line of history. When someone makes a decision, no matter how significant or seemingly irrelevant, they cause unknown effects throughout the ages…

Perhaps other, unreachable, factors at are play too: does the universe have a destiny? Are we all predetermined to follow a particular path? Do we reap what we sow or is it a case of what will be will be? Are coincidences really just that, or do we miss their deeper meanings?

Everywhere he looks, the Doctor sees the same patterns – the same events, decisions and actions cropping up again and again. Look at the bigger picture, however, and maybe – just maybe – you’ll see how the universe works. How the universe lives…

But, as the Doctor and his companions discover, are these patterns really there? Or do we, by the very nature of seeing them, define them?

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'Machine Time' by George Ivanoff

The Doctor rescues a transdimensional being from its imprisonment by a huge, ever-expanding machine-entity.

Notes:
*Featuring the Fourth Doctor

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Untitled by Ian Farrington

The Doctor takes Colonel Emily Choudry and Lieutenant Wil Hoffman back to 1957, to investigate discrepancies in the U.N.I.T. archives. Here they meet Ronnie Tillyard, a British government agent charged with removing all traces of the Doctor’s adventures from the M.o.D.’s records. The Doctor and his companions agree to help Ronnie, creating the very state of affairs that brought them there in the first place.

Notes:
*Featuring the Sixth Doctor, Colonel Emily Chaudry and Lieutenant Wil Hoffman

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'Time and Tide' by Neil Corry

The patrons of a London pub are surprised by the arrival of a strange little man known as the Doctor, who demands that the landlord release his friend, Ace, from her prison inside his mind. The Doctor explains to the confused customers that the seemingly friendly barman is in fact a malicious alien parasite; the creature has used his mental powers to create a time-space trap disguised as a public house, and is even now feeding off his unwitting victims’ life forces. Using his mind, the Doctor disrupts the alien’s mental projection, releasing Ace, and causing the pub to fall apart. Leaving the enraged landlord behind, the Doctor uses his own time/space vessel to take the kidnapped humans back home to Earth.

Notes:
*Featuring the Seventh Doctor and Ace

*Time-placing – the Doctor is wearing his off-white jacket, placing this at the start of his adventures with Ace

*Working title: 'The Tide and Time'

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'Losing the Audience' by Mat Coward

The TARDIS takes the Doctor and Susan to the BBC’s Paris Studios in London, 1955, where they meet radio comedian Max Wheeler, of the ‘Anyway, As I Say’ show. While the Doctor attempts to determine the cause of the interference that is immobilising the TARDIS, Susan learns of Max’s concern that his regular audience members have inexplicably started dying. When Max mentions that the infamous ‘BBC Hum’ has plagued the recording of each show, the Doctor realises that the same sound is affecting his ship. Meanwhile, Max’s producer, Jolyon, encounters a ghost while editing the latest edition of ‘Anyway, As I Say’; not long after, he drops down dead. The Doctor decides to recreate a recording of one of Max’s shows, and so the production team and cast reconvene in one of the sound studios at Broadcasting House, using canned laughter to simulate the audience. They are soon confronted by a group of extradimensional aliens known as ‘Shakers’; recruited by the British government during World War II as resistance fighters in the event of a German occupation, the creatures became trapped in the structure of the BBC buildings, only to be reactivated by the specific vibrations of the audience’s laughter; mistaking everyone for the enemy, the Shakers have been killing each of their victims using sonic resonance ever since. When the Doctor tries to explain to the aliens that the war is over, they turn on him and his associates; the Doctor has no choice but to retaliate, using augmented canned laughter to destroy the creatures.

Notes:
*Featuring the First Doctor and Susan

*Time-placing: the Doctor and Susan are currently living at the junk yard in Totter’s Lane, placing this just before ‘An Unearthly Child’

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'One Card For the Curious' by Xanna Eve Chown

Enjoying a peaceful holiday at the seaside with the Doctor, Ace sets off for fish and chips and comes across a fortune-teller’s booth. When the fortune-teller, Hiram White, makes three successful predictions – including an incident involving Ace and a juggler – the Doctor deduces that the psychic is deliberately making his predictions come true. After the Doctor identifies Hiram as an alien from the moon of Crammond, the psychic explains that he has been stranded on Earth for the last hundred years, during which he has become addicted to fake health pills; the Doctor offers to take Hiram home, but instead the alien asks to go back in time to secure more of the pills he craves. Respecting that Hiram has chosen his fate, the Doctor agrees to help him.

Notes:
*Featuring the Seventh Doctor and Ace

*Working title: 'Wonderfully Efficacious in All Ailments Incidental'

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'Séance' by John Davies

Attending a work social event, Tim Leicester spends a night with his colleagues in a haunted pub. When his team-mates suggest holding a séance, Tim becomes anxious: as a child, he and his friends played with a makeshift ouija board, and immediately afterwards one of them was knocked down and killed by a passing car. As Tim’s colleagues begin the ritual to call up the dead, the glass on the ouija board moves of its own accord, spelling out the name of one of Tim’s associates, Neil Hilton. At that moment a police box appears out of thin air in the corner of the room, and a man calling himself the Doctor steps out and asks for Neil... Some time later, Tim reads Neil’s blog and learns that he was taken aboard the Doctor’s police box, a time and space ship called the TARDIS, and had many adventures with him and a girl named Ace. Realising that he had forgotten that Neil was one of his childhood friends, Tim goes on to read that Neil should have been run over by the car too, but instead events took a wrong turn; consequently, the Doctor came to collect Neil to ensure that history was put back on track. As Tim reads the blog, it disappears from his computer’s screen; realising that Neil must have finally returned to the time of the accident, Tim decides to make the most of his life, and his first act is to stop smoking…

Notes:
*Featuring the Seventh Doctor and Ace

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'The Celestial Harmony Engine' by Ian Briggs

Investigating the source of a strange chime heard in the TARDIS, the Doctor arrives in mid-Seventeenth Century Seville, where he discovers that the great navigational engineer Senor Carlos López has constructed a “Celestial Harmony Engine”. Learning that the machine uses sub-chronic resonance to map the movement of the stars, and then uses the information to predict the future, the Doctor becomes concerned, knowing that such a dangerous device could alter mankind’s history. However, López ignores the Doctor’s warning; his obsession with the engine has blinded him to everything – including his wife, Dona Isobel’s affair with the visiting Don Ramiro of the royal household. López explains that he got the idea of the device from an alien sailor when he was a boy, and has been working on the device for years; he then activates the machine, only to hear it sing a song of death in a woman’s voice. Fearing for Isobel’s life, López rushes to her room, arriving just in time to save her from an attack by an overzealous Ramiro. Realising that his obsession has caused him to neglect his wife, López smashes the object of his life’s work, and then vows to devote his remaining years to spending them with Isobel. As the Celestial Harmony Engine dies, the Doctor observes that the song of death was that of the machine itself…

Notes:
*Featuring the Seventh Doctor

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'Mutiny' by Robert Dick

Called in to interrogate a captured alien, Surgeon-Lieutenant Harry Sullivan finds himself clashing with U.N.I.T.’s new commanding officer, Colonel ‘Dragon’ Dennis Horsely when he sympathises with the apparently peaceful alien. Acting against orders, Harry calls in the Doctor to help the stranded creature…

Notes:
*Featuring the Fourth Doctor and Harry

*Working title: 'Divided We Fall'

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'Numb' by Dave Owen

Searching through some old M.o.D. files, Sarah uncovers a report that appears to refer to the Doctor, as it details the death of a ‘Doctor John Smith’ in the explosion of an extraterrestrial spaceship on the Isle of Wight in 1950. The discovery shocks Sarah, but she chooses not to tell her friend of his demise. The next few weeks prove to be a strain for Sarah, her mind increasingly numbing with a sense of dread, despite the amazing adventures she experiences with the Doctor in his TARDIS. When the TARDIS eventually takes them to the Isle of Wight in 1950, the Doctor and Sarah meet Major Williams, who tells them of a crippled alien spaceship; after the Doctor decides to investigate, Sarah believes his death to be imminent; however, as they approach the vessel it explodes before they can reach it. Hearing that a scientist named Doctor John Smith on attachment from the M.o.D. was inside, Sarah finally explains the reason for her recent depression to the Doctor. In response, the Time Lord fondly advises her on the dangers of looking for patterns where there are only coincidences…

Notes:
*Featuring the Third Doctor and Sarah

*Time-placing: this story occurs shortly after the events of ‘Invasion of the Dinosaurs’

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'Closing the Account' by Stephen Hatcher

The Doctor pays a visit to dying President Josef, a man who has spent his life in the service of his people. Asking the Doctor about the future, Josef is dismayed to learn that his actions will go down in history as the acts of a monster; however, the Doctor reassures him that later generations will re-evaluate Josef’s actions, and accept them as philanthropic. Rejoined by Ace, the Doctor bid Josef goodbye – knowing that the president’s servant, Grigori, has fulfilled his own destiny by poisoning his master…

Notes:
*Featuring the Seventh Doctor and Ace

*Time-placing: Ace has been off with a guard, so I’m placing this in the later part of her timeline

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'The Great Escapes' by Simon Guerrier

With the Doctor apparently shot dead by robot soldiers, Lucie finds herself imprisoned in a cell with two Illixtrians. Lucie promptly makes an attempt to escape, but she is immediately recaptured, while one of her fellow prisoners is shot dead. Refusing to accept her fate, and driven on by her conviction that the Doctor is still alive, Lucie tries again and again to break free, but each time her robotic oppressors recapture her and her cellmate, placing them in ever increasingly secure incarceration. Eventually, Lucie comes to accept that the Doctor really is dead, and resigns herself to her impending execution. However, at the last minute…

Notes:
*Featuring Lucie

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'Loose Change' by Steve Savile

After the Doctor gives some money to a busker, the coin then makes an interesting journey, passed from person to person, before eventually finding itself back in the Doctor’s pocket when he foils the escape of a bank robber…

Notes:
*Featuring the Sixth Doctor

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'Lepidoptery for Beginners' by John Dorney

The Doctor, Jamie and Zoe find themselves prisoners of Iolas Blue, an evil genius whose computer-generated schedule predicts every action that his captives will make up until the moment of their deaths at his orchestration. Making himself comfortable while his prisoners languish in their cell, Iolas explains that they are in the Seventy-Fourth Century, where his invention, the Predicticon, has formulated a plan to kill them before they can stop his scheme to take over the universe. Iolas invented his machine by reverse-engineering hurricanes to identify the particular butterfly responsible for their creation; by using this principle, the Predicticon can foretell any future event, allowing Iolas to manipulate events to his own ends. As the time-travellers look on, Iolas uses a time transmit to alter history, triggering a complex chain of events that results in the indirect murder of one of his childhood enemies. The Doctor and his friends are appalled and immediately try to escape – however, each of their attempts has been predicted by Iolas’ computer, enabling the mad inventor to take preventative steps against them. The time-travellers’ predicted moment of death finally arrives, but Iolas’ glee quickly turns to disappointment and confusion when they remain alive; at that moment the Predicticon announces that it deliberately lied to its creator: knowing he was evil, it turned the tables and set its own series of events in set in motion. As the computer’s scheme plays out, the frustrated Iolas meets an indignant demise, preventing the threat to history, and allowing the Doctor and his friends to escape in the TARDIS…

Notes:
*Featuring the Second Doctor, Jamie and Zoe

*Time-placing: Iolas refers to Slaar, placing this shortly after ‘The Seeds of Death’

*This story was later released as a narrated audio play by Big Finish:



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'One Step Forward, One Step Back' by Chris Thomas

Having spent some time enjoying the hospitality of the Atkyan people at the Yelyahj festival, the Doctor and Jamie are confused when, the following morning, their new friends exhibit nothing by extreme hatred towards them. The Doctor suspects that time is in flux – history has somehow been altered… One-thousand years in the past, the Doctor’s Fifth incarnation and Turlough are on Atkya helping to find a cure for the renepscia syndrome that is killing the population. Having successfully isolated a cure, the Doctor prepares an airborne version with which to treat everyone; however, this produces a terrible side effect, a mutation that causes the Atkyans to exhibit violently aggressive behaviour. As fighting breaks out across the planet, the Doctor creates a stabilising agent to compliment the effects of the cure; leaving it with the authorities to distribute, he then departs in the TARDIS with Turlough. In the future, the Doctor and Jamie are coming to terms with their conscription into military service when their surroundings suddenly change around them; finding themselves in a deserted museum, they come across an exhibit detailing the Doctor’s future involvement with the renepscia syndrome cure – it seems that the entire population died out as a result of the Time Lord’s interference… Elsewhen, the Fifth Doctor experiences a mindshock as history realigns itself around him. Recalling his earlier self’s experiences on Atkya, the Doctor is immediately filled with distress at the demise of the population; however, Turlough reassures him with the observation that the Atkyan people were destined to die, and his cure helped to prolong their lives for a while longer…

Notes:
*Featuring the Second Doctor and Jaime, and the Fifth Doctor and Turlough

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'Homework' by Michael Coen

Eleven-year-old Norman Bean writes a story for his homework: one night, Norman was visited by a man claiming to be Norman from thirty years in the future, who urged him to steal money from his nan and begin stockpiling toys that in time would become very valuable. When the younger Norman refused, his older self became angry; however, his tirade was interrupted by the arrival of another, older man, a girl and a ‘Scotch’ boy, who captured Norman’s future self and took him away, whilst telling him off for misusing a ‘time-rift’. When Norman told his family and friends of his adventure, no one believed him; however, although exasperated, Norman knows he has learnt a valuable lesson from meeting his unpleasant older self, and hopes that in the future he will understand what is really important.

Notes:
*Featuring the Second Doctor, Jaime and Zoe

*Working title: 'What I Did on my Summer Holidays'

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'The Devil Like a Bear' by Brian Willis

Arriving in Chelmsford in 1645 to make repairs on the TARDIS, the Doctor and Ace save a young girl named Tilly Brewer from a gang of witch hunters led by Matthew Hopkins, the Witchfinder General. The girl explains that her father believed she was possessed by a demon, and when he tried to beat it out of her she accidentally killed him. The Doctor realises that the girl has been infected by the Skeeth, terrible parasitical aliens that spread by spores, infecting their hosts and transforming them into fire-breathing beasts. Tilly’s awful transformation finally completes, but she turns on her pursuers the Doctor materialises the TARDIS around her, and, cut off from the rest of the Skeeth, the girl returns to her normal human form. Knowing that Tilly can never leave the TARDIS for fear or reverting to a Skeeth, the Doctor constructs a cottage in a woodland area inside his ship, allowing the girl to live out the rest of her life, unaware of her real surroundings.

Notes:
*Featuring the Seventh Doctor and Ace

*Time-placing – the Doctor is wearing his beige jacket, placing this at the start of his adventures with Ace

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'Stanley' by Lizzie Hopley

Visiting London Zoo in the early Twenty-First Century, the Doctor and Leela are surprised to find the animals running loose and attacking the visitors. Avoiding the rampant creatures, the two travellers decide to investigate; following the trail of human corpses to the aquarium, they soon find the cause of the trouble: a purple cod named Stanley. The Doctor tells Leela that the fish is in fact General Secretary Murigan Epinephelus III of the Black-fin Army of Halemida, an alien political prisoner and former dictator exiled to Earth four thousand years ago. As the Doctor engages Stanley in mental battle, the fish manipulates a young boy whose mother has been killed during the incident, and an escaped Golden Lion Tamarind Monkey, the descendant of another alien race that were amongst the general’s victims, forcing them to open his tank in an act of suicide; as his nutrient solution drains away, Stanley finally dies happy, having committed one last act of atrocity before his miserable existence comes to an end…

Notes:
*Featuring the Fourth Doctor and Leela

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'Twilight's End' by Cavan Scott and Mark Wright

The TARDIS brings the Doctor back to the Forge, the gigantic automated building complex where he once fought the proponents of Projects Lazarus and Valhalla. The building begins opening and closing doors around the Doctor, keeping him away from its guards whilst herding him towards a cathedral-sized room in the basement. Here the Doctor meets the computer, Oracle, now cybernetically linked to the near-dead husk of Nimrod to become the Forge itself. Disgusted by the alterations Nimrod has made to himself, the Doctor leaves his former enemy a syringe containing the Twilight drug, so that he can finally end his abhorrent life and obtain release.

Notes:
*Featuring the Seventh Doctor and Ace

*Time-placing – the Doctor is wearing his beige jacket, placing this at the start of his adventures with Ace

*This story was later released as a narrated audio play by Big Finish:



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'The Book of My Life' by Ian Mond

The Doctor finds himself a prisoner on a planet where the population’s lives are mysteriously foretold in books that appear out of nowhere. Taken to the records building by the Malamud, the Doctor learns that he too has a book, which is in a colossal seven hundred and fifty volumes. The Malamud gloatingly shows his captive the final volume, which predicts the Doctor’s death in just two days time…

Notes:
*Featuring the Sixth Doctor

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Publication Date:
March 2008


Notes:
*Published by Big Finish