An anthology release that features The Fifth Doctor and Nyssa in an Arabian Nights themed story, interspersed with separate adventures as relayed to another character by Nyssa.
A long time ago, two travellers came from far away...
In the perfumed palace of an omnipotent Sultan, a girl must tell stories to keep the man she cares about from a cruel and horrible death. She spins tales of distant lands she has visited with a mysterious traveller, of fabulous creatures and fantastic adventures — and of a blue box that can travel in time and space.
Meanwhile, in the dungeons below the throne room, there lurks a secret which will bring down the kingdom — perhaps even the universe.
Can the Doctor and Nyssa escape from this never-ending story before the final chapter spells their end?
1001 Nights contains examples of:
- Action Prologue: Nyssa and the Doctor fighting off a rock monster while attempting to flee back to their "magic carpet".
- Call-Back: Nyssa tells the Sultan that the Doctor had a different face when she first met him, and it wasn't until he regenerated that she began to travel with him properly.
- Framing Device: This story is interwoven through the first three episodes, as Nyssa tells her tales to the Sultan and the Doctor tries to escape his prison cell, and then takes over as the main story for the fourth episode.
- More than Mind Control: The old man the Doctor meets in prison has had his mind altered so that he believes his prison cell is an opulent palace suite.
- Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: In-universe; once the fake Sultan starts to revert to his true form, he slips back into a standard RP accent.
- Scheherezade Gambit: What Nyssa is forced to do to try and save the Doctor's life. Little did she know she was actually dooming him.
- Shout-Out: The title is one to Arabian Nights, also known as "One Thousand and One Nights".
- The Slow Path: The Doctor, having lost his memories, Nyssa and his TARDIS is stranded on Earth for three years.
My Brother's Keeper contains examples of:
- Call-Back:
- Nyssa recalls meeting the Doctor and Adric for the first time at her home on Traken.
- After landing on the prison asteroid, Nyssa wants to leave, having seen quite enough of prisons recently.
- Grand Theft Me: The Shanaki's special ability. It doesn't shapeshift into its prey, but takes over their memories and identity until everyone around believes that they are who they are impersonating.
- The Jailer: The Warden's entire reason for being is to torture the Prisoner.
- Literal Split Personality: The Warden and the Prisoner are two halves of the same person.
- Magic Feather: The Doctor tells the Miaxa he has placed a "psychic aggression filter" into the force field controls that will cause it to deactivate and release it once it no longer senses that the Miaxa is dangerous. In reality, he just set the force field to turn itself off in three months time, believing that the Miaxa would be no real danger to anyone.
- Running Gag: The Doctor talking about Harry Houdini as he attempts to escape his latest imprisonment.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: The prison is supposed to be the can, but the truth is much more complicated.
- Shock Collar: The "compliance collar", which shocks its wearer if it detects a lie.
- The Walls Are Closing In: The Warden attempts to shrink the prison force field to kill its occupants.
- Voice of the Legion: Once the Miaxa is whole again.
The Interplanetarian contains examples of:
- Apologetic Attacker:The Doctor: "Hear now, oh vile creature! Oh excrescence! Oh cursed abomination and abhorred cur!" ...Sorry about that, I don't mean to be personal, just trying to follow the instructions.
- Call-Back:
- The Doctor uses "Tremas" as the code word in his ritual to expel the Interplanetarian from Nyssa.
- Crazy-Prepared: The Doctor knew the alien might escape from Nyssa into Miss Spinnaker or Hill, and placed a special control agent in the tea bags he gave them to take it out for good.
- Demonic Possession: The Interplanetarian is a "psychic parastite" that takes over Nyssa in this story.
- Evil Is Hammy: The Interplanetarian doesn't know what an inside voice is.
- Inter-Class Romance: Between the Lady Spinnaker and her butler, Mr Hill.
- Not So Invincible After All: The Interplanetarian is a powerful psychic entity and proclaims itself to be indestructible, but the Doctor found its weakness: "slightly pompous" mystic rituals.
- Older Than They Look: Elizabeth is unwilling to believe that the youthful-looking Doctor could really be her father's old friend from decades past.
- Quintessential British Gentleman: The Doctor delays performing an exorcism to have a cup of tea downstairs. It turns out this was all part of The Plan, but still very in character.
- Stiff Upper Lip: Mr Hill shakes of his demonic possession as "a most original experience".
- Young Face, Old Eyes: This is what helps to convince Elizabeth that the Doctor really is her father's "specialist".
Smuggling Tales contains examples of:
- Beneath Notice: Lottie's old hag disguise.
- It Was a Dark and Stormy Night: How Nyssa begins relaying this story, and it is brought up in several of the tales the bar patrons trade in.
- Heel–Face Revolving Door: The Balladeer switches sides at dizzying speed.
- Undercover Cop Reveal: Who would have suspected old hag Lottie?
- Serious Business: In a society that uses stories, tales and limericks as currency, plagiarism is grounds for kicking patrons out into the rain.
- Slipping a Mickey: Bessie tries it on the Doctor and Nyssa, but she's not nearly as slick as she thinks she is.
- Story Within a Story: Even ignoring that Nyssa is telling this story in the first place, this appears to happen at the end when the entire adventure appears to have been the tale the Doctor told at the beginning to pay for his and Nyssa's drinks. Subverted when it turns out that everything really did happen, but Bessie's memories have been altered to make her believe otherwise.
- Weird Currency: The denizens of Fabula pay for everything, even gamble, with stories.
