Starring the Fifth Doctor and Turlough, this release is an anthology of four stories, loosely connected by the overarching theme of the concept of memory in different forms. It features the rarely-used twosome travelling together after Tegan left them in "Resurrection of the Daleks" and before Turlough's departure in "Planet of Fire".
The Memory Bank
The Doctor and Turlough arrive on a planet where to be forgotten is to cease to exist. But the Forgotten leave a gap in the world – and that’s where the monsters are hiding.
- Abstract Eater: The Doctor says that every Hux has a different, strange diet. The one in this story feeds on other people's memories.
- A.I.-cronym: The "Archive Intelligence" goes by "Archie".
- Clap Your Hands If You Believe: The Hux has made the inhabitants of Insculpo subject to this; people need to remember them and think about them or they will fade away, being replaced by creepy nothing-monsters.
- Continuity Nod:
- The Doctor is attempting to find Turlough an ideal spot for him to do some sketching.
- Turlough remembers his classmates at Brendon Public School, including Hippo Ibbotson and Charlie Gibbs.
- Doom Magnet: It takes five minutes for Turlough to become locked into the Memory Bank as its new Archivist.Turlough: I just shouldn't leave the TARDIS, should I?
- Magnetic Hero: Turlough wryly notes the Doctor's uncanny ability to make new friends wherever he goes.
- Ominous Multiple Screens: The Memory Bank is comprised of thousands of screens showing individual faces, as a way of preserving their memory.
- Phlebotinum Overload: Max and the Doctor Reverse the Polarity of the Hux's neural network and overload it with the power it was sending out into the city.
- Teleporters and Transporters: The Doctor zips all around the place using a transmat instead of the TARDIS in this episode, saving a lot of valuable time not having to explain the whole Bigger on the Inside bit.
- Transferable Memory: The entire point of the Memory Bank, sharing memories with the Archivist to keep the original memory-holder alive.
The Last Fairy Tale
Deep in the heart of old Europe, the village of Vadhoc awaits the coming of a mythical teller of magical tales – but not all such stories end happily, the TARDIS travellers discover.
- Celibate Hero: The princess is practically falling over herself to lure in the Doctor at the end, but he politely yet firmly turns her down.
- Continuity Nod:
- Turlough mentions meeting a Sontaran who had bitten through his own tongue.
- Distressed Dude: Turlough gets tied up (again) and kidnapped by Alitha.
- Fairy Tale Motifs: Naturally, given the setting.
- I Don't Like the Sound of That Place: Grayling tells a story about the "Catacombs of Utter Dreadfulness".
- Last of His Kind: Grayling, the Storyteller. At least, that's one theory the Doctor comes up with.
- Mistaken for Special Guest: The Princess assumes, not without some justification, that the Doctor is the legendary Storyteller people have been waiting on for generations.
- Noodle Incident: The Doctor reminisces about an adventure he had in his third incarnation with Jo Grant where they went up against The Master and giant turtles.
- Pun: Grayling makes an awful joke about Turlough and the Doctor "dropping in".
- Shout-Out: Turlough sarcastically calls Grayling "Oscar Wilde" after the above Pun.
- Wicked Witch: Alitha is considered to be one thanks to the propaganda of the Storyteller's fairy tales, and she resents it.Alitha: I'm not really a witch. I'm just a slightly nasty old woman.
Repeat Offender
The Doctor has tracked the deadly Bratanian Shroud to 22nd century Reykjavík – where he’s about to become the victim of a serial criminal. Again.
- Bottle Episode: Very rarely for an audio adventure, this story takes place almost entirely in Lara's apartment.
- Brand X: "Ingi", a 22nd century Siri knockoff.
- Continuity Nod:
- Inspector Jill mentions the Lunar Penal Colony.
- The Doctor and Turlough have been to Reykjavík once before, though that was in the 51st century, not the 22nd.
- Demonic Possession: What the Bratanian Shroud does to get around.
- Go-to Alias: "Dr John Smith" makes another appearance.
- Kangaroo Court: The Doctor bemoans the fact that police officers are apparently allowed to try and sentence criminals on the spot, with no due process.
- Oh, Crap!: The Doctor, when Turlough tells him there are three versions of the TARDIS in the city and the murder victims are actually his own future incarnations.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Jill starts off being quite cynical and obstructive, but she eventually proves her mettle.
- Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory: Since the Doctor fixed the paradox that caused the whole story in the first place, he and Turlough are the only ones that remember anything that happened. He plans to drop in on Jill and refresh her memory, believing that she showed such great strength of character in her investigation that it would be a shame for her not to realize her potential.
- Temporal Paradox: The Shroud has lured in two future incarnations of the Doctor and killed them, having killed the oldest one first and going back along his timeline, killing younger Doctors and making it impossible to have killed the original victim.
- You Have to Believe Me!: The Doctor really doesn't do himself any favours with his outlandish description of events.Jill: You're telling me, in your future, you'll travel back to before now?The Doctor: Yes.Jill: And be murdered?The Doctor: Yes.Jill: Twice?The Doctor: ...yes.
The Becoming
A young woman climbs a perilous mountain in search of her destiny. The Doctor and Turlough save her from the monsters on her trail – but what awaits them in the Cavern of Becoming is stranger, even, than the ravening Hungerers outside.
- Bizarre Alien Biology: Waywalkers are translucent beings, whose forms can be altered by merging with a sentient jelly that lives in a cave.
- Continuity Nod:
- Turlough's traumatic ancestral race memory is mentioned.
- Healing Factor: The Waywalkers can heal their wounds simply by concentrating. The one Turlough and the Doctor meet says it becomes easier to pull off the closer they get to their Becoming.
- Hive Mind: The Waywalkers effectively have one, all their ancestral memories pooled and shared among their people.
- Oh, Crap!: When the Doctor figures out what the Hungerers really are.
- Our Werewolves Are Different: "The Hungerers" are actually transformed Waywalkers.
- Rite of Passage: The Becoming is a ritual that all Waywalkers must go through when they come of age to become one with the ancestral memories.
- Spanner in the Works: Turlough saving the Waywalker from the Pathmaker before she can be fully converted into a mindless Hungerer means that she might be able to spur some change in her society that has been locked in the same cycle for countless generations.
- Walk-In Chime-In:Waywalker: Were have you gone, Old Ones? Answer me! Help me!The Doctor: I'd be delighted!
- Was Once a Man: Waywalkers either ascend to join the hive mind, or are rejected, and become Hungerers.
