History Recap / BigFinishDoctorWho070Unregenerate

* AnachronicOrder

* BrainUploading

* HiveMind
* IChooseToStay

* TheTapeKnewYouWouldSayThat
* TooDumbToLive: The Doctor.

* CallBack: The [[Recap/DoctorWhoS21E7TheTwinDilemma Lindos hormone]] from Eric Saward's novelization of "The Twin Dilemma" gets a mention..

* CallBack: The [[Recap/DoctorWhoS21E7TheTwinDilemma Lindos hormone]] gets a mention.

!Tropes

* VoiceChangeling: The Doctor can do a ''perfect'' middle aged woman.

Following prerecorded instructions from the Doctor, Mel hires a cabbie and follows Louis, one of the asylum's "recruiters," across town as he picks up his newest test subject. The newest subject an old man by the name of Johannes Rausch, who last met this particular recruiter back in 1957 and is understandably taken aback to discover that Louis doesn't appear to have aged since then. Following the two back to the asylum, Mel and the Cabbie team up to infiltrate the building - which they manage with a little help from the TARDIS - but not before discovering that the building is just a fake and the ''real'' asylum appears to be underground.

After making their way back inside, Mel and the others are unexpectedly rescued from an incoming guard ambush by Professor Klyst, the chief researcher. She explains that the Doctor had been spying on the asylum when he realised that the institute had been specifically established in order to transfer specifically-generated minds into new bodies. Unfortunately, this overwrites the minds of the host boides, effectively destroying their identities - as was the case with Johannes; doubly unfortunately, the new minds cannot stand their new bodies, and all of them have been driven insane as a result. Indeed, this is the very reason why the Doctor ended up in his current condition: still suffering from regeneration trauma and firmly grasping hold of the IdiotBall, he attempted to tamper with Klyst's machinery - but only ended up accidentally transferring one of the consciousnesses into his own mind, leaving his own personality crushed and slowly overwritten by the new tenant.

As it turns out, the Klyst Institute is an initiative created by the Gallifreyan Celestial Intervention Agency: fearing the threat posed by competing time travelers, they wanted to establish a race of time-sensitive individuals capable of infiltrating the societies that would eventually develop space/time travel. This way, if any cultures advanced enough to endanger Gallifreyan superiority, the CIA would simply have their infiltrators destroy their enemies from within. As such, the specifically-generated minds were actually the consciousnesses of infant [=TARDISes=] who have been removed from their developing bodies and deposited in the computer system, while the host bodies prepared for them were individuals who would have died on the day after their recruitment, ensuring that the Web of Time would not be disrupted by their part in the experiments. However, all of the experiments so far have been failures, since no species can properly contain a TARDIS consciousness without driving the new mind insane.

However, the sudden arrival of Johannes turns the tide in their favor: having been stabilized by the soothing influence of the Doctor's TARDIS, the new mind in Johannes' body has been able to adjust perfectly, and immediately leads a revolt in freeing his brothers and sisters from the Institute's captivity. Ultimately, the new Time-Sensitive proves too much for the guards to ward off; combined with a little intimidating gunfire from the Cabbie and Louis' sudden betrayal, the CIA are forced to evacuate the base - Louis stunning Rigun and dragging her away for good measure.

However, that still leaves a whole lot of baby TARDIS minds stored inside the asylum's inmates, going mad with the agony of being inside a flesh body. There's also a considerable amount of [=TARDISes=] still stored inside the computer system. Realizing that she can't afford to let the CIA begin the experiments again with the information gathered from the project so far, Klyst decides to make a HeroicSacrifice and let the TARDIS mind trapped in Shokhra take over her own body -- the overwriting process immediately destroying all knowledge of the experiment, so that even the Time Lord mind probe experts could never retrieve the data.

Following prerecorded instructions from the Doctor, Mel hires a cabbie and follows Louis, one of the asylum's "recruiters," across town as he picks up his newest test subject: an old man by the name of Johannes Rausch, who last met this particular recruiter back in 1957 and is understandably taken aback to discover that his contact doesn't appear to have aged since then. Following the two back to the asylum, Mel and the Cabbie team up to infiltrate the building - which they manage with a little help from the TARDIS - but not before discovering that the building is just a fake and the ''real'' asylum appears to be underground.

After some creeping around, Mel and the Cabbie bump into an escaping inmate - a compound creature named Shokhra, an organic gestalt with no less than six consciousnesses. With his help, they eventually find the Doctor (who they take with them) and Johannes (who remains behind, firmly convinced that he's suffering from Alzheimer's). Chased by guards, they are forced to flee into an airlock and barely have enough time to put on the pressure suits provided before discovering that the Klyst Institute is actually a SpaceStation somewhere beyond Earth. Elsewhere, Johannes is taken away by the guards for experimentation; moments after the first procedure is completed, he awakens in a screaming fit and attempts to tear his own face off. More disturbingly, it's remarked that Johannes himself is "gone."

After making their way back inside, the four are unexpectedly rescued from an incoming guard ambush by Professor Klyst, the chief researcher. She explains that the Doctor had been spying on the asylum when he realised that the institute had been specifically established in order to transfer specifically-generated minds into new bodies. Unfortunately, this overwrites the minds of the host boides, effectively destroying their identities - as was the case with Johannes; doubly unfortunately, the new minds cannot stand their new bodies, and all of them have been driven insane as a result. Indeed, this is the very reason why the Doctor ended up in his current condition: still suffering from regeneration trauma and firmly grasping hold of the IdiotBall, he attempted to tamper with Klyst's machinery - but only ended up accidentally transferring one of the consciousnesses into his own mind, leaving his own personality crushed and slowly overwritten by the new tenant.

Fortunately, as it turns out, the Doctor's TARDIS has been able to provide symbiotic assistance and keep the new mind from going completely insane. In the meantime, Shokhra is able provide further aid by absorbing the Doctor's mind and body into himself for a while to share the burden of having an anguished mind roaming about inside them. At this point, however, the guards arrive and very nearly kill Shokhra in their attempts to recapture him, and in the confusion, Louis ends up being fatally wounded... only to regenerate into a new form. Louis is a Time Lord, as are Klyst and all the other scientists at the asylum.

Elsewhere, Johannes unexpectedly awakens from sedation, seemingly much more lucid than before. Breaking out of the Institute, he arrives back on Earth and immediately makes a beeline for the TARDIS - who he seems to recognize as a friend.

Back at the asylum, the Doctor has been restored to sanity, but unfortunately almost immediately ends up getting captured by the guards. With Klyst having given up on the entire experiment, [[TyrantTakesTheHelm security coordinator Rigun takes over]], intending to have the Doctor sent back to Gallifrey and Mel and the Cabbie mind-wiped. However, the newly-regenerated Louis decides to conduct the interrogations, unwittingly giving Mel an opportunity to get under his skin by playing on his doubts over the project and his concern for Rigun. However, even with Louis changing sides, the odds are still stacked against them.

However, the sudden arrival of Johannes turns the tide in their favor: having been stabilized by the soothing influence of the Doctor's TARDIS, the new mind in Johannes' body has been able to adjust perfectly, and immediately leads a revolt in freeing his brothers and sisters from the Institute's captivity. Ultimately, the new Time-Sensitive proves too much for the guards to ward off; combined with a little intimidating gunfire from the Cabbie and Louis' sudden betrayal, the CIA are forced into full retreat - Louis stunning Rigun and dragging her away for good measure.

However, that still leaves a whole lot of baby TARDIS minds stored inside the asylum's inmates, going mad with the agony of being inside a flesh body. There's also a considerable amount of [=TARDISes=] still stored inside the computer system. Realizing that she can't afford to let the CIA begin the experiments again, Klyst decides to make a HeroicSacrifice and let the TARDIS mind trapped in Shokhra take over her own body -- the overwriting process immediately destroying all knowledge of the experiment, so that even the Time Lord mind probe experts could never retrieve the data. The young TARDIS is much more at home in a Time Lord body than in any other species, and with some mentoring from the Doctor's TARDIS, she's soon able to feel relatively stable in her new form. She and Johannes decide to stay behind on the base to take care of the other TARDIS children and restore them all to sanity, with the Cabbie deciding to remain behind and help as well.

* FateWorseThanDeath: Namedropped. At one point the members of the Institute plans to mindwipe the Doctor and bring him back to their homeplanet as a vegetable.

The Seventh Doctor is locked in a mental asylum, and seems to have gone stark raving mad. He's babbling like a small child and very confused about the whole situation. His fellow inmates are people from different races, all of which were lifted from their regular lives just hours before they were supposed to have died. At some point in their lives, they all signed consent forms to be experimented on after their deaths. And although most of them thought it was just an odd joke, even the ones who took it seriously never had ''this'' sort of thing in mind.

Mel and a cab driver sneak into the asylum, and quickly discover that the resident scientists are (a) not evil and (b) rather bad at computer coding. After some HollywoodHacking, they find the Doctor and a fellow inmate: a compound creature named Shokhra, who inherently has six consciousnesses inside him.

The Doctor had been spying on the asylum when he realised what was going on: the scientists are part of the Gallifreyan Celestial Intervention Agency. And the asylum's inmates were being systematically overwritten with the minds of young [=TARDISes=], who have been lifted out of their bodies and deposited in the computer system. The Time Lord C.I.A. wanted to establish TARDIS spies with flesh bodies in all societies that would eventually develop space/time travel. That way, excessive time travel could be prevented or shut down entirely if it ever got out of hand. But all of the experiments so far had been failures, since no species could properly contain a TARDIS consciousness. The Doctor, still suffering from regeneration trauma and firmly grasping hold of the IdiotBall, managed to accidentally transport a baby TARDIS into his mind.

As it turns out, Shokhra had established a strong mind link to the Doctor, and was able to save the Doctor from having his mind overwritten. He absorbs the Doctor's mind and body into himself for a while to share the burden of having an anguished TARDIS mind roaming about inside them. They use the Doctor's symbiotic psychic link to his own TARDIS, who calms down the baby TARDIS and soothes her pain.

After the Doctor is restored to sanity and splits apart from Shokhra again, he also (rather amazingly) manages to convince the entire asylum staff that what they're doing is pretty much fascism. The entire group of Time Lords agrees to cancel the experiment and go back home. However, that still leaves a whole lot of baby TARDIS minds stored inside the asylum's inmates, going mad with the agony of being inside a flesh body. There's also a considerable amount of [=TARDISes=] still stored inside the computer system. The head of the asylum decides to make a HeroicSacrifice and let one of them, which had been transferred into Shokhra, take over her own body -- letting it wipe her own mind and erase all knowledge of the experiment, so that even the Time Lord mind probe experts could never retrieve the data. The young TARDIS is much more at home in a Time Lord body than in any other species, and with some mentoring from the Doctor's TARDIS, she's soon able to feel relatively stable in her new form. She and another young TARDIS decide to stay behind on the base to take care of the other TARDIS children and restore them all to sanity. Mel's cab driver decides to stay with them as well.

Mel and a cab driver sneak into the asylum, and quickly discover that the resident scientists are (a) not evil and (b) rather bad at computer coding. After some HollywoodHacking, they find the Doctor and a fellow inmate: a compound creature named Shokhra, who inherently has six consciousness inside him.

* TheReveal: When Louis [[spoiler: regenerates]] we know ''exactly'' who's behind the Institute.

* [[spoiler: TestedOnHumans]]

* VoiceChangeling: [[spoiler: The Doctor can do a ''perfect'' middle aged woman]].

* ShoutOut: To Literature/SherlockHolmes "Whenever you eliminate the impossible"'s phrase. Creator/{{Nintendo}} and PlayStation get a mention as well, in the same conversation.

* NoNameGiven: The cab driver. He thinks it's rather funny that no one bothers to ask until the end, and describes himself as a ClintEastwood style "Cab Driver Without A Name".

* ShoutOut: To SherlockHolmes "Whenever you eliminate all the impossible"'s phrase. Creator/{{Nintendo}} and PlayStation get a mention as well, in the same conversation.

* TheReveal: Then Louis [[spoiler: regenerates]] we know ''exactly'' who's behind the Institute.

* AcCENTUponTheWrongSylLABle: Seven emphaSIZes awkward PARTS of his SENtenCES.

VoiceChangeling: [[spoiler: The Doctor can do a ''perfect'' middle aged woman]].

** The Doctor says he can survive the vacuum of space temporarily. He's done as such in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS19E2FourToDoomsday Four To Doomsday]] in his [[PeterDavison Fifth]] incarnation.

* LargeHam: SylvesterMcCoy ''really'' goes all out. The first sixty minutes of the episode are a grand ode to the art of overacting. And it's ''glorious''.

* ShoutOut: To SherlockHolmes "Whenever you eliminate all the impossible"'s phrase. {{Nintendo}} and PlayStation get a mention as well, in the same conversation.

* ContinuityNod: Mel mentions [[Recap/DoctorWhoS23E4TheUltimateFoe the Doctor's trial]]

** Mel saying she has the memory of an Elephant.

* FateWorseThanDeath: Namedropped. At one point the members of the facility plans to mindwipe the Doctor and bring him back to their homeplanet as a vegetable.

* TheReveal: Then Louis [[spoiler: regenerates]] we know ''exactly'' who's behind the facility.

* VideoWills

* AchronicOrder

* TimeyWimeyBall