Note: The following recap contains an unavoidable and fairly major spoiler for the two preceding Big Finish audio plays, City of Spires and The Wreck of the Titan. Read at your own risk if you haven't listened to them yet!
The Doctor and Jamie, having realized that their previous adventures since meeting again have taken place entirely in the Land of Fiction, find themselves drawn into a war between two factions of fictional characters. On one side are the troops loyal to the Land's Mistress, fighting to save their home; on the other side... the Cybermen, and their growing army of cyber-converted characters. The Cybermen have a new plan to destroy emotion and imagination by destroying fiction, and the only hope of stopping them lies with the Doctor, Jamie, and another old friend.
Legend of the Cybermen contains examples of:
-
Acting for Two: Zoe and other Zoe. - Alien Blood: The denizens of the Land of Fiction bleed ink.
- Animorphism: The Doctor gets turned into a white rabbit for a while.
- As Himself: It's Nicholas Briggs!
- Body Horror: With the Cybermen doing what they do best, the Trope's pretty much given. We are treated to a half-converted fictional creatures, as well as a white whale made into a submarine.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: All over the place, as is expected in such a meta story; of particular note is the moment when Jamie finds himself playing the role of a voice actor in an audio drama, taking direction from Nicholas Briggs (in a cameo as himself).
- The Bus Came Back: Zoe appears in this story as well.
- Call-Back: The Doctor employs his Second incarnation's: "When I say run, run."
- When Jamie gets his memories back and is struggling to remember all the monsters, Zoe names the Daleks, the Ice Warriors and the Quarks.
- Jamie then recalls all of the people he travelled with, Ben and Polly, Victoria, and mentions having walked on the moon, seen Atlantis sink beneath the waves and all through time and space.
- The Doctor tells Jamie and Zoe what had become of him after the Time-Lords sent his friends away and how he came to die from poisoning.
- The Time-Lord's problems with vampires comes up, as well as the Doctor meeting the non-fictional Vladimir Teppes Dragûl.
- The Doctor finds it funny that Zoe isn't afraid of Unicorns anymore.
- The Doctor mentions his past lives as "scarves and frills".
- Jamie insults the Doctor by calling him Frenchman.
- The Doctor mentions he's managed to patch up his relation to the Time Lords.
- The "Doctor Who" books are called Doctor Who andthe Krotons, Doctor Who and the Dominators.
- The Doctor brings Zoe back to the Wheel in Space.
- The Cavalry: The Nautilus bursts into the story saving the heroes from Moby Dick.
- Clockwork Creature: The Redcoats are like giant windup toys.
- The Eeyore: Dracula is repeatedly called out on being an extremely depressing person (vampire?) to be around.
- Credits Gag: The last episode's ending theme starts out as the Second Doctor's version, before melding with and becoming the Sixth Doctor's.
- Dying Vocal Change: The Cyber-Controller's previously-deep voice turns high-pitched and screeching after being fatally hacked by Nemo.
- The Ending Changes Everything: The ending of this arc not only reveals that the settings and characters of the two previous plays were fictional.
- Evil Is Hammy: When the Cybermen impose a new reality onto the fictional characters Dracula's first person narration is really dramatic and over the top.
- Fake Memories: For a while, Jamie and the Doctor fear that they never left the Land of Fiction the first time around from the Mind Robber, until the Doctor snaps out of it.
- Fantastic Racism: The Doctor has an instant dislike of Dracula because "his people" had a history with the Doctor's.
- Hope Crusher: The Cybermen are trying to convert all of fiction to destroy mankind's creativity, which would then allow them to more easily convert all of us.
- "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: Artful Dodger tries this on Oliver, but to no avail.
- I'm Standing Right Here: Alice repeatedly utters this.
- Inner Monologue: Invoked/parodied when the characters lose their free will thanks to the machinations of the Cybermen, and Alice and Dracula start narrating a scene in which the vampire is about to prey upon the young girl resting alone by the water. Luckily they are shaken out of it before it gets too far, although with Dracula it takes some doing.
- Intrepid Fictioneer: The Doctor and Jamie play this role, and turn out to have been playing it since the beginning of City of Spires.
- Lady of War: Alice.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Jamie's "part of the story" is him in a recording booth talking to Nicholas Briggs.
- Living Ship: Moby-Dick has been converted to a submarine for the Cybermen.
- Metafiction
- Mythology Gag: Dracula at one point says: "Listen, the children of the night... What terrible music they make. No ear for melody."
- The fictionalized Doctor Who stories are called
Doctor Who and the [subject], just like the titles of the majority of the Doctor Who novelisations.- The one book that refers to something the Doctor didn't recognize? (Doctor Who and the Laird of McCrimmon) was going to be Jamie's finale episode before Patrick Troughton decided to leave when Jamie did as well. It would have been Jamie going back to Scotland to find another James McCrimmon as lord of the clan McCrimmon and would have seen the return of the Great Intelligence trying to inhabit his body.
- The fictionalized Doctor Who stories are called
- Never Heard That One Before:Alice: I say, it's Bigger on the Inside!Zoe and Jamie: We know.
- Ominous Obsidian Ooze: The ink of the characters. Though more beneficial than the last two instances, it's still played for tension when it turns out that fictional characters bleed ink - revealing that the Jamie who's been travelling with the Doctor for the past few episodes isn't real.
- Ominous Pipe Organ: Plays constantly in Castle Frankenstein.
- Public Domain Character: Lots, most notably Dracula, Alice, and the Artful Dodger.
- The Reveal: Several, including the revelation the new Master of Fiction.
- Ret-Gone: The Cyber-Controller gets programmed to claim Cybermen are not real, and do not exist. This proceeds to wink all the converted Cybermen out of existence.
- Retroactive Wish: When Jamie mutters he'd like to find a door and one appears he then asks for "A bottle of whiskey and a lass with a cheeky smile!"
- They don't appear.
- Rhymes on a Dime: Rob Roy's and Jamie's story involves them rhyming as they slaughter Cybermen.
- Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: The Artful Dodger whips out several words that make him sound like he swallowed a thesaurus.
- Smoke Out: Dracula disappears in a puff of smoke to move about more quickly.
- Standard Snippet: When the Valkyries are mentioned the Doctor hums the Ride of the Valkyries. When they actually show up, the music starts playing.
- Third-Person Person: Karkus.Karkus: KARKUS KIIIIILL! *gets shot* Karkus die now!
- This Is Wrong on So Many Levels!: Alice says "That's just wrong" when she hears that the Cybermen have begun cyberconverting mermaids.
- Tomato in the Mirror: Jamie's realization that he is fictional.
- The true identity of the Mistress of Fiction.
- Unicorn: Alice rides one.
- Walk, Don't Swim: The Cybermen on the Moby Dick that sink to the bottom of the ocean still function there and proceed to walk towards the shore.
- We Have Reserves: The land of Fiction has a well of ink which allows them to recreate non-converted characters.
