The first episode of the New Eighth Doctor Adventures. This series takes place in the same continuity as the Eighth Doctor's regular monthly Big Finish episodes, but at a later point in his timeline. It picks up after Charley and the Doctor were separated, and introduces Sheridan Smith as Lucie Miller.
Big Finish promotes the episode as an excellent starting point for new listeners.
A snarky, somewhat amnesiac girl named Lucie Miller suddenly teleports into the TARDIS, much to the Eighth Doctor's annoyance. Especially when she's not impressed with him being an alien. Or with his awesome hair. Or with his nice Victorian coat. She has no idea how she got there, but she's got some connection to the Time Lords and doesn't remember a thing.
The Doctor tries to return her to her home in Blackpool in 2006, but instead hits a barrier in the Time Vortex and crash lands on the planet Red Rocket Rising in the future. A global impact winter cataclysm is slowly killing the people there. (Lucie's still not impressed.)
As the Doctor tries to work out what's happening, a familiar — and terrifying — voice appears on the radio, offering "help" to the planet. It's the Daleks, who pretend to help the humans. Daleks using zany schemes? Something's a bit off. While Lucie and the Doctor argue and bicker a lot, they slowly find out that a mad scientist (Martez) has made a bit of a name for himself: stealing corpses (and almost-corpses) for experiments, and subsequently dying a few hours before his trial. The scientist's assistant, Asha, isn't very popular either. A conspiracy theorist named Tom Cardwell tries to make sense of it all.
Asha turns out to be Martez, who faked his own death before his trial and stole his assistant's body. The local president is still getting quite chummy with the Daleks, who ask her to kill the Doctor — the greatest criminal in history, with the blood of millions of Daleks on his hands. To Be Continued.
Blood of the Daleks contains examples of the following tropes:
- Better to Die than Be Killed / Dying as Yourself: Tom Cardwell thinks this way.
- Call-Back: This is not the first time the Daleks employ literal acid rain.
- The Daleks say they wish to put the Doctor, a Time-Lord, on trial
- Call-Forward: This won't be the only time a companion randomly appears in the TARDIS and demands to know where she is.
- Cassandra Truth: Tom Cardwell knows that the Daleks are not here to help, but he cannot convince anyone of that until far too late.
- Chained Heat: The Doctor and Lucie encounter a two-some in this situation.
- The Cuckoolander Was Right: Lucie says, due to the Dalek spaceship being a saucer, "All of those loonies back home were right".
- Crazy Survivalist: Tom Cardwell again, right down to the Tinfoil Hat.
- Death World: The planet Lucie and the Doctor land on is doomed, and dying.
- Dragon with an Agenda: Dr. Martez.
- Duct Tape for Everything: The first thing Lucy notices about the TARDIS is that it's being held together by Duct tape.
- Easy Amnesia: Lucie doesn't remember getting into the TARDIS.
- Evil Versus Evil: The normal Daleks and their "improved" counterparts.
- Exposed to the Elements: Lucie claims that after clubbing in Blackpool, she doesn't feel the cold even when wearing far less than is prudent. She attempts to use this 'ability' to attract the Daleks' attention, but they're not interested in scantily-clad young women.
- He Went That Way: How the Doctor saves Klint and Gryvern from the mob.
- Hostile Weather: The planet is beset by literal acid rain, courtesy of the natural disaster that's quickly making it uninhabitable.
- I Never Said I Was A Time-Lord
- Laser-Guided Amnesia: Lucie forgot some information, but remembers what she forgot, but can't form the memory. This was imposed on her by the Time-Lords for "reasons".
- Mysterious Waif: Lucie starts out as one.
- Mythology Gag: Lucie asks the Doctor if his hair is real, a reference to Paul McGann wearing a wig for the role in the TV Movie.
- Oh, Crap!: When Aileen Klint mentions Lucie's "Driver" was a man called "The Doctor", the Daleks fall silent and try their best to coerce her into handing him to their plungers.
- Perception Filter: Martez' lab has a door which she doesn't notice until the Doctor arrives and shows her.
- Properly Paranoid: The "insane" homeless person, Thomas.
- Running Gag: Big Finish delights in making fun of the infamous aborted "I'm taking you to Blackpool!" line from "Revelation Of The Daleks". The TARDIS has never been keen on going to Blackpool in the Big Finish continuity, but from this episode onwards she's downright barred from going anywhere near it.
- Show Some Leg: Lucie shows some skin by pulling a bit of her top down, because, as she describes it, "Everybody else is wearing furs and scarves."
- Tinfoil Hat: Tom, the bum.
