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Recap / Big Finish Doctor Who 092 Nocturne

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The Seventh Doctor takes Ace and Hex to one of his favourite spots: Glasst City, on the planet Nocturne. The city is the last stop for soldiers heading off to the Forever War — a journey that takes months of interstellar travel. Many last-minute deserters live in the city, which consequently punishes a lack of identification by death.

The Doctor and his companions are, of course, immediately in trouble when a piece of music starts killing people and they're implicated in the murders. The music is composed by a student of music genius Korbin Thessinger. The artist's enclave of Glasst City soon becomes a grisly nightmarish hellhole.

While Ace befriends a disabled ex-soldier named Will (the twin brother of said composer, and also a student of Thessinger), the Doctor slowly comes to realise just what the music is: an ancient alien technique that captures the atmosphere of a planet and turns it into psychic energy. For those Ancient Astronauts, the music was nice and harmonious, much like their planet — for the citizens of Nocturne, who only know war, it's just plain horror. Thessinger lures the sentient music in by playing one of Will's compositions, and team TARDIS succeeds in destroying it, although Will dies in the process. The Doctor realises that he had misunderstood history: he knew Will's music would live on through Thessinger's homages to this final piece, but he had always thought that Will had died in the war. Ace is glad to discover that her friend's music won't be forgotten.

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