To celebrate another milestone in 2011, this is another anthology akin to 100, Circular Time, Demons of Red Lodge and Forty Five. It features the Sixth Doctor and Peri, who hasn't been seen in Big Finish since The year of the Pig in 2006 (chronologically) or The Bride of Peladon in 2008.
Like the previous anthologies, they're all subject to being completely different from one another.
Recorded Time
The Doctor and Peri end up in medieval England, in the court of Henry the VIII. It seems they were summoned, the Doctor to save the people... And Peri to marry the king.
- Blessed with Suck: The Scrivener. Can warp reality itself, but everything he does costs bits of his life, and his father died and bestowed the curse upon him, and he's already an old man beyond his years.
- Call-Forward: For the Doctor's personal timeline, he'd later indeed meet Queen Catherine's daughter, and marry the other.
- Cast from Lifespan: How the use of the quill of the Temporal Phoenix works.
- Dark Age Europe
- Deader than Dead: The quill of the Temporal Phoenix cannot bring back someone from the dead who has already passed away before it came into posession of the Scrivener.
- Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": The Scrivener.
- Genius Loci: The castle quite literally opens itself up to the Doctor and Peri, creating a pathway for them to follow. Turns out this is the fault of the Scrivener.
- Historical Domain Character: Henry the VIII.
- Ironic Echo:The Doctor: It was written...
- Lampshade HangingThe Doctor: England! I wasn't expecting that!
- Mistaken For Jester: The Doctor, because of his very obvious garb, gets mistaken for a fool.
- The Nth Doctor: Invoked as a form of immortality for the Doctor.
- Shout Out To Shakespeare: The Doctor starts quoting Shakespeare plays when Henry the VIII asks him to perform.
- Mysterious Waif: The Doctor gets freed from the stockades by one.
- Reality Warper: The Scrivener, whatever he writes, will be, because of the quill of a Temporal Phoenix.
- Red Right Hand: Henry has the Scrivener give Queen Anne an extra finger, to "prove" she's a witch.
- Seers: The Scrivener in Henry's castle writes about present events as well as the future. But considers it all history.
- Toilet Humor: Henry VIII asks the Doctor (thinking he's a court jester) if he has any good "Bottom" jokes. (Jokes pertaining to the bottom.)
- You Can't Fight Fate: Queen Anne stays behind and suffers the fate the Scrivener wrote for her, as opposed to try and get the Doctor to rescue her.
- Younger Than They Look: The Scrivener.
Paradoxicide
The Doctor is working on the TARDIS when it receives a message from the legendary lost planet of Sendos. And the originator of the message is Peri. She and the Doctor investigate.- Advanced Ancient Acropolis: Sendos.
- Amazon Brigade: The Volsci are a race of these.
- Badass Boast: See also Call-Back.
- BFG: The particle cannons can blow up huge caves guarded by blast walls.
- Call-Back: When asked why he would make a good guide, the Doctor boasts he's been to the Dark Tower in the Death Zone, the city of Excillon and and the Tombs of the Cybermen on Telos.
- Computer Voice: "Ship".
- Deadly Gas
- Hoist by His Own Petard: The Volsci die by triggering the traps they were so careless to ignore, despite the Doctor warning them.
- Men Act, Women Are: Though this is described as a weakness for men, that women are more analytical.
- The Plague: Is what wiped out the people on Sendos.
- Pun: When Peri asks the Doctor "What's the racket", he asks back why she's concerned with tennis.
- Later another one "Su-Perri-or" alerts Perri to what she could do to save the Doctor.
- The end has the Doctor go into the deep end and unleashes his full Pungeon Master onto Peri. Peri-lous.
- Ragnarök Proofing: The traps in the vault are still active. Though it's unsure how much time has passed since it was abandoned.
- Stable Time Loop: Of course Peri recorded the message that lured the Doctor in, during the course of this story.
- Time Crash
A most excellent match:
Peri is to be wed, as is expected of a lady of her standing, but which one of her suitors shall be her choice of wedlock? Will it be the handsome Mr. Darcy, or the enigmatic ... Doctor?
Hang on what exactly is going on here?
- Artificial Intelligence: There is one in every story as one of the characters. In this case it's Tilly Brown, Peri's In-Universe "Sister".
- Bait-and-Switch Comparison: Early on we encounter the Doctor writing a sonnet. Later when Peri receives one, she mentions how standoffish and arrogant the writer first seemed, and that he was quite tall (Which she finds attractive), but that this shines him in a different light. Turns out it was written by Mr. Darcy.
- Call-Forward: The Doctor is a big fan of Charles Dickens.
- Cross-Dressing Voices: In-universe. Mrs. Brown is played by Cranton.
- Go-to Alias: The Doctor goes my Dr. Smith.
- Grand Theft Me: There's a being alive called a "Mindsmith" in the Lotus-Eater Machine that's trying to assert itself in the real world.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Tilly.
- Long Game: The Mindsmith plays one.
- Loophole Abuse: How the Mindsmith gets robbed of its power.
- Lotus-Eater Machine: Where the Pride and Prejudice plot takes place.
- Loveable Rogue: Cranton.
- Jerkass with a Heart of Gold: Mr. Darcy, and the Doctor shows a more tender side he doesn't show often.
- Red Herring: When the Mindsmith fails to take over Peri's body, it says there are other more interesting candidates. When the Doctor's legs stop working you think he's having a go for him, but instead he's going for the AI first.
- Whole-Plot Reference: To Pride and Prejudice.
Question Marks:
Peri wakes up along with four others with their memories missing. Still aware of that they're on a ship, and what most of the devices are, but who is the mysterious man with the collar full of question marks? And did he lead them into the deathtrap they're in?
- Easy Amnesia: Everybody in the plot.
- Call-Back: The Doctor refers to the previous three parts of the anthology when talking to Destiny, the Galaxy fair, the lost planet of Sendosa, and the court of Henry the VIII.
- Convection, Schmonvection: There is magma pouring into the vessel, and the Doctor and Greg are in the same room as it without breathing difficulties.
- Drill Tank
- Locked Room Mystery: Subverted. The apparent "murder" is an entirely different sort of tragedy.
-
Paranoia Fuel: Trapped in a vessel of sorts without any memory of who you are and who they are, in a beeline straight for your imminent demise and one of you is to blame? - Rise to the Challenge: At one point magma starts breaking through the shields, and the crew
- Rummage Fail: Question Marks' pockets produce a half eaten apple, a toy mouse, a bag of "confectionery" (probably jelly babies), a copy of Jules Verne's Journey to the Centre of the Earth and several loose buttons.
- Sherlock Scan: Question Marks deduces that he is in a vessel underground mere moments after he's let out of his cell.
- Teleporter Accident: A faulty transmat (through extra static created by the planet core's magma) left behind trace copies of the crew of the vessel.
- Tomato in the Mirror: None of the characters is who they believe themselves to be, or in technically anyone at all.
- We Are as Mayflies: They are extremely shortlived and they dissipate. The longest one is Captain Destiny, who manages to contact the Doctor and Peri on the surface. As she's dying she begs the Doctor to tell her about his travels.
