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Recap / Big Finish Doctor Who 066 The Game

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The Fifth Doctor takes Nyssa on a holiday — well, a war — on Cray, which has recently been declared Earth's new twin planet. The Doctor's hero, an Earth diplomat named Darzil Carlisle, is about to complete his 37th and most successful peace negotiation, the crowning moment of his career before retiring. The Doctor can't wait to meet him. He's a bit confused when the planet isn't actually in the middle of a 400-year war at all, and when he promptly gets strangled when he walks into a pub and isn't wearing the local sports team's colours.

Meanwhile, Darzil Carlisle (hey, it's William Russell!), accompanied by the weary Ambassador Faye Davis, isn't interested at all in the peace talks and seems to be exceptionally rubbish at his job on the whole. He butchers his diplomatic tasks, and fails to impress the coaches of the local sports teams, who are present for his grand arrival.

The Doctor gets invited (after that whole strangulation misunderstanding is cleared up) to play along for a game of Naxy on team Gora. Nyssa, offended at the not exactly feminist attitudes on Cray, goes off to find Carlisle and befriends Hollis Az, the star player of the other team: the Lineen. When she manages to interrupt Carlisle's meeting, mentioning the Doctor gets his attention — but when she takes a sneak peek at his files, she reads about plans to extend the games, rather than stop the war. Even more strangely, Carlisle isn't fazed at all at Nyssa having read his files. He does reveal something terribly important: he has no idea how to be a diplomat, because the Doctor has always done the negotiations in his place, with Carlisle getting the credit. The Doctor is his best friend, and has been for years and years.

The next day, after a bit of training with wooden sticks by Gora coach Sharz Sevix, Five is out on the field for the match of the day. Strangers are always welcome to join in, as the teams are massive and have a high turnover rate. As soon as the whistle blows, Five discovers why: Naxy isn't so much a sport as it is simply two teams unceremoniously hacking each other to death.

The Doctor refuses to participate, of course, and with people being slaughtered all around him, he decides to get out of there as quickly as possible. Fortunately, some of his team members start to go after him, and then more tag behind, so he rouses them into following his lead and heading towards the exit. Unfortunately, his team mistakes his fleeing for a new tactic, and they surprise team Lineen by coming up behind them and slaughtering them very effectively. The Doctor's "new strategy" costs the lives of hundreds of people, and gives the Gora a chance to recover from their losing streak, extending Naxy's season and reviving the chances of Gora coach Sharz. Coach Bela Destry of the Lineen is miffed, but perhaps not as much as he should be... because as it turns out, each team receives the profit of the other team's merchandise, in order to keep competition fair and encourage the losing team to recuperate their losses by making use of the other team's popularity surge. It's further explained that the game started out as a sport with a lot of teams 400 years ago, but the hooliganism before and after the games slowly came to replace the sports aspect, and all other teams were eliminated until there were only two left.

Five can't believe the carnage he's responsible for, and refuses to take any more part in Naxy. But Hollis — Nyssa's new friend — challenges him to a one-on-one match, which he can't refuse. In fact, should the Doctor refuse, not only will a regular game (with hundreds more deaths) replace the one-on-one, but a bunch of Gora will be hacked to pieces as an apology to the Lineen. The only thing that can stop the challenge is a successful peace negotiation. Hollis, meanwhile, reveals to Nyssa that his feud with the other team is personal: Sharz killed his father and his brother in a one-on-one match. Hollis realises that he and Nyssa probably shouldn't be friends anymore, seeing as how he's going to "eliminate" the Doctor (Cray language has some very notable euphemisms), but when she wanders off to follow a few clues as to some shadowy radio communications by either Carlisle or Ambassador Faye Davis, Hollis saves her from a monster.

The Doctor decides to shelve monster problems for now in favor of the more pressing matter of the peace talks. He has absolute faith in Carlisle, and is tremendously excited that, as the new Gora golden boy, he's invited to the diplomatic discussion. Carlisle, for his part, is glad to see his best friend, but fully aware that the Doctor hasn't met him yet and that he's on his own. Luckily, Faye falls ill very early on in the negotiations, and while she's recovering, she gets a surprise visit from her lover — a man named Morian.

Nyssa isn't sure whether or not telling the Doctor about his friendship with Carlisle would be bad for the web of time, so instead, she volunteers to become Carlisle's aide for now — even if it means staying on Cray and no longer travelling with the Doctor. Five is devastated at having seen his hero be really very bad at diplomacy, and terribly scared at his planned one-on-one match, which is still on due to Faye falling ill. While Nyssa, going through Carlisle's files, discovers that Faye is in fact very evil and gets shot and captured by her, the Doctor is forced onto the field and into a fight to the death with Hollis. His peaceful demeanor and his decision to simply leave his wand on the ground triggers a Heel Realisation in Hollis, who also drops his weapon and declares to the world that Naxy is a war, and that it must stop. At which point Coach Bela Destry of the Lineen gets the hell out of there, and moments later, the entire stadium is beset by the same kind of monster that attacked Nyssa earlier. The beasts start to murder the crowd, and take the Doctor and Hollis captive. They end up with Nyssa and a very badly wounded Carlisle, now prisoners of Faye and Morian and guarded by the dog-like monsters.

Morian reveals himself to be not only Faye's boyfriend, but also a mafia boss, who's making a living accepting bets about Naxy. He engineered the continuation of the war and sabotaged the peace talks. Carlisle was working for him (unbeknownst to Faye), but only because he felt that it might make things easier and because he had absolute trust in the Doctor. The twinning of Earth and Cray was engineered by Morian as well, knowing that it would lure Carlisle (and thus the Doctor — Morian found out about his involvement in Carlisle's career) to Naxy. Because he wants to steal the TARDIS — after all, a betting career is so much easier with time travel. The Doctor mocks Morian for his very limited ideas on what a TARDIS might be useful for, and realises that Faye's fever and fainting spells aren't an illness... they're drug withdrawal symptoms. Morian has genetically engineered a pheromone, usually excreted by another race altogether, that binds people to him emotionally and causes them to become ill when they're apart from him. He's seduced Faye this way in order to gain political power, and he's toying with the idea of using it on Nyssa as well. But no matter how rationally the Doctor explains it, Faye won't believe that her love isn't real. Meanwhile, Sharz fights his way out of the stadium and heads home to protect his wife and children... but finds them murdered by the beasts.

While Morian casually also reveals that Coach Bela Destry is working for him (make a profit on merch when his team loses, get a large cut of Morian's innings when his team wins — it's a win-win situation), the Doctor notices that Morian is dragging a large box-shaped thing along with him. Hoping that it's the TARDIS, he once again pleads to Faye and tries to make her understand she's being drugged. Faye still won't have it. Destry, realising the horror of his betrayal, reveals to Hollis that Coach Sharz Sevix wasn't the one who killed his father... Destry himself sabotaged the man's weapon, as a deal with Morian. Destry, overcome with guilt, attacks Morian but dies a very messy death at the hands of the monsters. Morian explains that he's already ordered his beasts to also simply kill every Gora player and supporter on Cray — he has a bet of his own going against the Gora, and hey, the bet didn't specify how they would lose. Sharz and a very angry mob of both Gora and Lineen star players barge in at the very moment, united in their grief and their anger towards Morian. He and Faye escape — the big box turned out to be their own escape rocket, since Morian really isn't the kind of man who'd go without a backup plan.

Carlisle finally reveals to the Doctor that they've been best friends for many decades now, and that the Doctor is the one who stopped thirty-seven wars (well, thirty-six... there's one he's not too keen to talk about). He tells Five about the first time they met — he never even planned to become a diplomat, and suddenly this man with a bit of celery on his lapel, who knew everything about him, barged in changed his entire life. And the last time they met — the Doctor more dramatic than usual, telling Carlisle how much he meant to him, and saying goodbye as though it would be forever. Carlisle realises that he'll never be able to properly say goodbye to his best friend, just to this much younger version of the Doctor. As Carlisle dies in his arms — "retires", as the Cray history books would later euphemistically say — the Doctor promises to always be there for Carlisle, and to always keep this tearful goodbye in mind for his older self.

Hollis, as a way to cope with everything, asks Nyssa to marry him. She of course declines, telling him that her life is with the Doctor right now. But she makes the Doctor promise to seek Carlisle out after she's stopped travelling with the TARDIS, because she couldn't bear to see him again and constantly be reminded of watching him die.


Until the release of "Cold Fusion", this was the only six-part Fifth Doctor story. Despite that, it's actually no longer than a standard four-parter. Each episode runs slightly shorter than usual instead.

Tropes

  • Actor Allusion:
    • Jonathan Pearce is the Naxy commenter, a role which mirrors his job as a football commenter at the BBC.
    • Carlisle saying the Doctor is his best friend and he's known him all his life, harkens back to his actor, William having been from the very start in "An Unearthly Child".
  • Black Comedy: In pieces. Especially Diblick's death as he's commenting on it whilst being pelted by laser beams. You don't know whether to cringe or laugh.
  • Brainwashed and Crazy: Ambassador Faye Davis has been drugged with pheromones to believe herself in love with ruthless criminal Morian, unable to accept the truth even when the Doctor and Nyssa try to explain it to her.
  • Broken Pedestal: The Doctor meeting Carlisle dispels the idea that Carlisle is a genius diplomat. it's his own fault, really, because in the Doctor's future his own personal exploits get credited to Carlisle's past.
  • Family-Unfriendly Death: Destry dies very messily.
  • Four Lines, All Waiting: There are many separate plotlines going on, but they all tie together very beautifully in the end.
  • Gladiator Games: In a way that players are expected to die.
  • Have We Met Yet?: A very dramatic example, and a direct precursor to River Song's story arc in Steven Moffat's run.
  • Insistent Terminology: It's a wand, not a stick!
  • The Man Behind the Man: A rare good guy version of this. Carlisle does nothing but claim the Doctor's deeds as his own (With the Doctor's blessing, and sometimes, forced blessing).
    • Played straight as well with Morian being behind the coaches.
  • Mistaken for Gay: Hollis thinks the Doctor's gay (since he's not sleeping with Nyssa). He doesn't mind, seeing as this prevents confusion.
  • Mundane Utility: Morian's plan is to use the TARDIS to find out wagers before hand and make money. He admits this and revels in it.
  • Never Got to Say Goodbye: Carlisle laments this towards the Doctor he knew, and the one the Doctor is yet to become.
  • Noodle Incident:
    The Doctor: "Do you know how many wars that means I've ended? 37!"
    Carlisle : "36."
    The Doctor: "I count 37."
    Faye: "Not Zarek 4."
    The Doctor: "Why, what happened on Zarek 4!?"
  • Planet of Hats: Planet of hooligans.
  • Rape as Drama: Faye is being drugged into believing she loves Morian.
  • Sherlock Scan: The Doctor pulls one when first arriving on the planet.
  • Time-Travel Tense Trouble:
    "His past is my future! .. No.. Wait.. Yes! No. Wait. .. Yes!"
  • Timey-Wimey Ball: Carlisle thinks he doesn't have to save the Doctor because obviously the Doctor (who doesn't know him yet) will have to survive to meet him in Carlisle's past/the Doctor's future. Nyssa points the Doctor may only live because they take action to save him.

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