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Context Recap / BigFinishDoctorWho016StormWarning

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1[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/86ab0162c6383b9845a4c30905241ba7.png]]
2[[caption-width-right:350: The journey of filling a thousand narrative blanks begins with a single audio.]]
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4The one that started the longest TraumaCongaLine any Doctor ever endured.
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6This is the first ''AudioPlay/BigFinishDoctorWho'' audio drama featuring the Eighth Doctor, five years since he made his debut in [[Recap/DoctorWhoTVMTheTVMovie the TV movie]]. It is also the debut story of India Fisher as the Eighth Doctor's first audio companion, Charley Pollard. (Though not his first actual companion, as he had had several in both his [[Literature/EighthDoctorAdventures book series]] and [[Magazine/DoctorWhoMagazine comics series]] by that point.)
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8It would turn out to be the first of an ''extensively'' long line of audios for Creator/PaulMcGann when his character became a [[BreakoutCharacter runaway hit.]] The audios began to explore the untapped potential of the Eighth Doctor, where the sky was the limit due to the movie not being picked up for a new series.
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10----
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12October, 1930. His Majesty's Airship, the R101, sets off on her maiden voyage to the farthest-flung reaches of the British Empire, carrying the brightest lights of the Imperial fleet. The Eighth Doctor ends up on the R101 entirely by accident, and soon meets an upper-class runaway named Charlotte Pollard (Charley for short), who has snuck aboard in men's clothing. She dreams of being an Edwardian LadyOfAdventure, and was rather hoping to hitch a ride to a romantic encounter on a rooftop in Singapore. The Doctor knows what will happen to the ship, but before he can make his way back to the TARDIS, he's captured and mistaken for a German spy. Playing along as Herr Dr. Johann Schmidt, he realises that a Vortisaur (a vortex pterodactyl) has followed him in from the time vortex, and he tames the beast by letting it drink his blood. It's not the only alien aboard, though -- the mysterious special passenger is the Prime of the Engineer caste of the Triskele. The three-caste race is looking for a new Lawgiver, and they have their eyes set on Lord Tamworth. The Uncreator caste, however, are also eyeing Rathbone, an Afrikaans traitor who's easily manipulated. He shoots the Triskele Lawgiver, which sets the Uncreators free of their mental bond with the law and gives them a great excuse to declare war.
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14However it turns out the new generation of Triskele Uncreators, who have never encountered predators before, are frightened of the humans, and scared away by roaring. In the end, the Doctor convinces the Triskele that they can live without a Lawgiver if their Engineers and Uncreators learn how to work together. It will take time and effort, but it's possible. Tamsworth, now the new Lawgiver, leaves to teach the Triskele this. But Rathbone gets his hands on the Triskele energy weapon. The Doctor needs prevent history from being changed by alien technology. He doesn't need to do anything special to save the day, though, as the crash of the airship makes Rathbone's plans moot anyway. But since he and Charley manage to escape from Rathbone on the Vortisaur's back, Charley is now a living paradox -- a girl who shouldn't be alive.
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16The Doctor briefly considers putting her back on the airship just before the crash so she'll die in her proper time. But he can't bring himself to do so, and they leave for adventures together with Ramsay the Vortisaur.
17----
18!!Tropes:
19* AccentRelapse: Invoked by the Doctor when he's pretending to be a German spy.
20* AesopAmnesia: Just after leaving the Triskele behind, the majority of the R-101 crew who were involved in the aborted invasion are celebrating their 'victory' and their acquisition of advanced technology, making it clear to the Doctor that they have learned nothing from their close call.
21* AlwaysChaoticEvil: The Uncreators seem to be this, though they are really all instinct and when confronted with humans roaring they are scared back.
22* AmoralAfrikaner: Rathbone is from South Africa and peppers his speech with the accent, and strange De Veldt sayings about lions and such.
23* AncientAstronauts: The Triskele have visited Earth once before in the distant past, and the triskelion symbol of the Isle of Man is said to be a cultural remnant of their first visit.
24* ArtisticLicenseHistory: Let’s just say that while the R101 crash was real, the events described by the Doctor and depicted in the story did not. Further, the whole "spies from Zeppelin" angle probably wouldn't have happened in real life, as representatives from Zeppelin, including Dr. Hugo Eckner, actually were allowed openly to visit the airship while she was under construction.
25* ArtisticLicenseMilitary: The Royal Flying Corps didn’t have Lieutenant-Colonels.
26* AxeCrazy: The Uncreator Prime, who loves destruction for its own sake, being all instinct.
27* BatmanGambit: Everything goes according to Uncreator Prime's plan.
28* BizarreAlienSenses: The Vortisaur can sense time distortions.
29* BoisterousBruiser: Lord Tamworth
30* BrickJoke: At the beginning of the story, before he meets Charley, the Doctor spends a lot of time ThinkingOutLoud for the benefit of the audience, and lampshades it by noting that talking to himself is a bad habit to get into and possibly a sign of encroaching insanity. At the end he has a relapse when he's trying to decide what to do about Charley, and when she notices he's talking to himself she also says that it's a bad habit to get into and possibly a sign of encroaching insanity.
31* CassandraTruth: Toward the end of the story, the Doctor has a go at averting the historical crash of the airship, but of course nobody listens to his warnings.
32* ChekhovsGun: When the Doctor is explaining to Charley what a vortisaur is, he mentions in passing that he used to ride them bareback for fun when he was a student. This turns out to be how he escapes from the doomed airship at the end.
33* ChekhovsGunman: The Vortisaur is captured midway through the second episode and then is forgotten about until nearly the end of the story, when it suddenly becomes important again.
34* ClockRoaches: Vortisaurs live in the space-time vortex and are attracted to disasters involving time travel.
35* ColdOpen: The first episode opens with the TARDIS encountering a stricken timeship being mobbed by vortisaurs, leading to the Doctor making an emergency landing on the R101 and inadvertently bringing one vortisaur with him.
36* CoolAirship: The R101.
37* DeathByMaterialism: Rathbone tries to reach the alien weapon in the rafters, which he'd just busted up with an axe, and falls to his death.
38* DidntThinkThisThrough: The Doctor rescues Charley from the airship crash, reasoning that since she's a stowaway it won't make any difference to the death toll and history will be unchanged. After he's done it, he realizes that, since Tamworth went with the Triskele, one of the bodies that should be in the wreckage will be missing and history needs an unexpected body, namely Charley's, to make up the numbers.
39* DisneyVillainDeath: Rathbone.
40* TheDogBitesBack: Rathbone, who's been reduced to a puppet, shoots the Uncreator Prime when it tries to make him shoot Tamworth.
41* DramaticGunCock
42* DrunkRolling: Combined with MuggedForDisguise. Before the adventure started, Charlie got junior steward Simon Murchford drunk, left him passed out in the stables, and stole his papers and kitbag to take his place on the R101.
43* EstablishingCharacterMoment: Rathbone gets two. First he's introduced as drugging a defenseless creature, then afterwards he's trying to force himself upon Charley for "Protection".
44* ETGaveUsWifi: What Tamworth planned, and Rathbone tries after the climax.
45* TheEvilsOfFreeWill: The reason for the FantasticCasteSystem of the Triskele. Lord Tamworth says he will teach them to live with free will once again.
46* FantasticNamingConvention: The Triskele apparently have a different naming order from English, as the Engineer Prime addresses the other characters as Tamworth Lord, Frayling Lieutenant-Colonel, Zelda Madame, and Doctor The.
47* FelonyMisdemeanor: The Triskele Engineers have an entirely pacifist culture, so the Engineer Prime is horrified when the Doctor encourages her to shout to frighten away the Uncreators. Shouting is ''barbaric''!
48* FlyingSaucer: The Triskele mothership.
49* ForegoneConclusion: The [[CoolAirship Airship]] in question is not a future or alternate history, it's the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R101 R101]], which crashed in France on its maiden voyage in October 1930.
50* FreudianTrio: The Triskele have this sort of arrangement on a species-wide scale. The Engineers are the Superego, the Uncreators are the Id, and the Lawgiver is the Ego.
51* FriendlyEnemy: Spies are received better than {{Intrepid Reporter}}s.
52* GoingDownWithTheShip: ForegoneConclusion
53* GoodOldFisticuffs: Lord Tamworth challenges the Uncreator Prime to this to give the others a chance to retreat and actually gets the upper hand (at least until his opponent cheats), because the Uncreator Prime, although large and hostile, has no martial training or experience.
54* GoToAlias: Well not quite; as he's been mistaken for a German spy, the Doctor calls himself "Johann Schmidt" rather than "John Smith".
55* TheGreys: The Triskelene
56* GroundhogDayLoop: The opening has the Doctor discovering an exploding ship that is stuck in the time vortex in a way that makes go through the same few seconds of exploding, and the explosion itself, on a loop.
57* HeadsOrTails: After making an unplanned landing on the R101, the Doctor flips a coin to decide whether to explore or to go back into the TARDIS and leave immediately. Using an alien coin with two heads.
58* HistoricalFantasy: This story mixes the real life R101 Airship disaster with fictional characters and a rendevouz with aliens during the airship's maiden voyage.
59* HumansAreTheRealMonsters: They're warmongering jerks.
60* HumansAreSpecial: But also pioneers, ''innovators''. And possess free will.
61* HumansThroughAlienEyes: From the perspective of the Uncreators humans are Monsters, as they have never met any predators before. The humans scare them away by roaring.
62* IndyPloy: Well it is ''the Doctor'', and in this story the Eighth incarnation hasn’t fallen far from the tree.
63--> "[[FalseReassurance Trust me, I have no idea what I'm doing]]."
64* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Tamworth first appears as a rather stuffy glory-seeking individual, but underneath it all he has a [[HiddenDepths core of honor and compassion that comes out as the story goes on]] and becomes an eminently lovable character.
65* KlingonPromotion: Tamworth beats the stuffing out of Uncreator Prime, and becomes the leader of the Triskele.
66* LadyOfAdventure: Charley
67* MilitarySalute: When Tamworth is about to leave with the Triskele, the Doctor is heard shuffling about and exclaims, "Sir!", seemingly the radio version of a salute, conveying just how impressed he is.
68* MistakenForSpies: The crew assume the Doctor and Charley are spies from the Zeppelin Company. [[SureLetsGoWithThat The Doctor rolls with it]].
69* MuggedForDisguise: Before the adventure started, Charlie got junior steward Simon Murchford drunk, left him passed out in the stables, and stole his papers and kitbag to take his place on the R101.
70* NamedAfterSomebodyFamous: Explicitly, [[UsefulNotes/RamsayMacdonald Ramsay]] the vortisaur.
71* NewsBroadcast: A radio broadcast about the launching of the R101 is used to set the scene.
72* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: "Lord Tamworth" sits in for Christopher Thompson, 1st Baron Thompson, who was a member of the Labour Party and Air Minister under UsefulNotes/RamsayMacdonald, and the motive force behind the building of the R-101. He died in 1930, in the RealLife R-101 disaster. Tamworth's military background is also drawn from Thompson's. Making him a fictional character gives the writer a free hand with his personality (not to mention the bit where he goes into space instead of dying).
73* NonAnswer: The Doctor is a Doctor of "Most things and some things aside".
74** NotThatKindOfDoctor
75* NotMeThisTime: For once, the Doctor actually gets involved in the story at the beginning ''completely by accident'' and has nothing to do with the exploding R101.
76* ObfuscatingStupidity: The Doctor, once he's been "exposed" as a German spy, starts intentionally botching English sayings to suggest that he's less experienced with English than he is.
77* OohMeAccentsSlipping: InUniverse example as Charlie's SweetPollyOliver act fails not due to her disguise (although chances are that would have failed anyway at some point), but because she cannot keep the accent of her assumed identity straight and keeps switching from Londoner to West Country.
78* OneLastSmoke: When he realizes that it's too late to avert disaster and everyone on the airship is going to die, Frayling notes that there's enough champagne left for one last drink, and proposes a final toast.
79* OohMeAccentsSlipping: When Charley is disguised as Murchford.
80* PreEmptiveApology: The Doctor gives Rathbone one before breaking his nose and making off with the alien weapon Rathbone plans to take back to England.
81* PretextForWar: The Uncreator Prime uses Rathbone shooting the Lawgiver as this, even though he manipulated Rathbone into doing so.
82* PronounTrouble: The Triskelene seem to lack obvious genders. Charley refers to the one who was on the R101 with female pronouns, but Tamworth refers to the same individual as male.
83* RankScalesWithAsskicking: Lord Tamworth, among other things, takes on Uncreator Prime in a fistfight and wins.
84* RealityIsUnrealistic: The Doctor's "English Accent" is almost good enough, but doesn't quite cut the mustard! Creator/PaulMcGann doesn't use his real accent to play the Doctor.
85* ShellShockedVeteran: Both the Minister and the "Uncreators"
86* ShoutOut:
87** When the Doctor is allowing the Vortisaur to drink some of his blood he says that it must have had about a pint. [[Radio/HancocksHalfHour "That's very nearly an armful"]].
88** When the Doctor is encouraging the Engineer Prime to stand up against the Uncreators, he says to show them "[[{{Film/Network}} you're mad as hell and you're not going to take it anymore]]".
89* ShownTheirWork:
90** Barnaby Edwards' Afrikaans accent is definitely not bad.
91** Late in the story, The Doctor mentions that the hydrogen cells are leaking gas. According to Website/TheOtherWiki, no less a figure than Hugo Eckner, the designer of Zeppelins for Germany, voiced concerns during a visit to R-101's construction site that the gas cells were too close to the structure in R-101 and were at a risk of friction causing the bags to wear thin and leak at the points of contact. Lord Thompson politely ignored the concerns, stating that cushioning would be installed at those points to forestall it.
92* SpectacularSpinning: SPIN that TARDIS into rescue, Doctor!
93* SpellMyNameWithAThe: The Triskelene get a bit confused by the Doctor's name and call him Doctor The.
94* SweetPollyOliver: Charley starts out disguised as steward Simon Murchford.
95* TakingYouWithMe: The Doctor threatens this on Rathbone.
96* {{Telepathy}}: The Triskelene. The Doctor is shielded from this because of his own latent PsychicPowers. Mention is also made of Madame Zelda, an English medium who was the first human to be able to communicate fully with the Triskelene.
97* ThinkingOutLoud: The Doctor for most of the first episode, until he finally meets someone else to talk to. He even chides himself for talking to himself a few times, calling it a bad habit.
98* VillainousBSOD: Rathbone goes through one.
99* WarIsHell: The horrors of UsefulNotes/WorldWarI hang over the story.
100* WholePlotReference: The first part, with the vortisaur attacking the airship, seems to invoke "[[Series/TheTwilightZone1959 There's something on the wing!]]"
101* WouldHitAGirl: Rathbone.
102* YourPrincessIsInAnotherCastle: Yay! Tamworth beat the Aliens! Rathbone has stolen alien technology and at the end is trying to kill the Doctor and Charley.
103* YouTalkTooMuch: "Give it up, with the yak, yak, yak, will you?"
104* YouWouldntShootMe: During their final confrontation, the Doctor threatens to deliberately bring down the airship to destroy the alien technology Rathbone has stolen, and Rathbone says he's not the type to do something like that. Normally he would be right, but in this case it's more ambiguous because the Doctor knows the airship is going to crash anyway and thus, he does not have to save ''anyone'' if he doesn't want too.

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