Shortly after the TARDIS has materialised, the mysterious and mannered Simon and Joanne welcome their new visitors to an evening's entertainment involving Lant Land. But is all as it seems?
The Fifth Doctor and his companions Yvonne and Derek must find out...
"Land Land" was first released as a short story, published in the Big Finish anthology volume "Short Trips - Life Science" in 2004. It was recorded for the audio Short Trips range and released as a free subscriber bonus in 2011, before being made publicly available in 2018.
Lant Land contains examples of:
- The Alleged Car:The Doctor: Sometimes, I land us precisely where expected.Tegan: Yes, but you don't expect to.
- Ambiguous Ending: It's not clear how the Doctor and his companions will be able to escape the flat. Indeed, it seems that the most they manage is materializing the TARDIS inside another identical apartment.
- Big Brother Is Watching: The denizens of Lant Land fill their days by watching each other's lives on television and treating them like soap operas.
- Blank Book: Whole shelves full of them clue Turlough into the fact that Lant Land is even more bizarre than it first appears.
- Continuity Nod:
- Tegan still characterizes Brisbane as "the middle of nowhere".
- She also decorates her room with "Aboriginal stuff", tying into her interest in the subject from "Four to Doomsday".
- Cut and Paste Environments: Every room in every apartment in Lant Land looks completely identical. Even the residents are unnaturally alike.
- Deadpan Snarker: The creepy couple unnerves Tegan enough that almost every word out of her mouth in this story is pure snark.Tegan: We should leave.The Doctor: No, that's rather why we should stay. Find out! Where's your sense of mystery?Tegan: I think it died in a small box.
- Death Glare: Tegan "withers" Turlough for a few moments after he makes a crack about the kind of robot she would be.
- Literal-Minded: Simon and Joanne's bizarre reality hasn't done much for their mental capacity. When the Doctor says he might like something to eat later "if it's not too much trouble", it confuses them; of course it's not too much trouble. If it were, they wouldn't be able to do it.
- Mundane Object Amazement: Lant Land has so dulled Simon and Joanne's senses that they treat watching other people watching television as though it were on par with an action movie.
- Turing Test: The Lants were designed to be "One hundred per cent Turing-proof", though this doesn't prevent them from being thoroughly strange.
- Uncanny Valley: Simon and Joanne are described as being good-looking in an odd, manufactured kind of way that unsettles the TARDIS team.
- Unfortunate Names: Simon and Joanne think that Tegan and Turlough are "absurdly inappropriate" names that they can't take seriously, let alone say out loud. They rechristen them Yvonne and Derek. Tegan, naturally, does not take this well.
- Virtual Reality: The titular Lant Land, though the truth is much more complicated.
