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Recap / Big Finish Doctor Who 180 1963: The Assassination Games

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The Counter-Measures team, lead by Group Captain Ian Gilmore, investigate the assassination of a government official who was tied to a secret project involving an advanced missile, the Starfire. Along the way, they receive some help from some unexpected sources, including a politician and a maid who look strangely familiar...

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  • Been There, Shaped History: Anti-nuclear Independent MP John Rutherford is in fact the Doctor. Turns out he served a term as an MP during Alec Douglas-Home's tenure as PM.
  • Call-Back: The events of Shoreditch are mentioned.
  • Character Focus: Although this is a main range title, most of the story follows the Counter-Measures team until they cross paths with the Doctor and Ace.
  • Crippling Overspecialization: The Light came to Earth over a century ago to subtly take over the planet, but as they focused their initial arrival in Britain, by the present day Britain has lost most of its old global power, making their expansion programme harder to implement.
  • Exact Words: When Alison is hypnotised to kill John Rutherford, Captain Gilmore and herself, in that order, she is able to resist the command as she knows ‘John Rutherford’ as the Doctor and therefore believes that she hasn’t found Rutherford yet, giving the Doctor time to break her conditioning.
  • Failed a Spot Check: The Doctor takes time to work out where a certain politician fits into the conspiracy he's investigating until he realises that the link is the politician's wife, who attended the same school as the other two known conspirators.
  • Required Spinoff Cross Over: The Doctor and Ace assist the Counter-Measures team in investigating a nuclear missile. Though it technically released after Series 1 of Counter-Measures had already come out, this is their earliest adventure chronologically.
  • Sequel Episode: To "Remembrance of the Daleks".
  • Stable Time Loop: The Doctor and Ace came back to 1963 when they discovered, in 2013, veiled references to themselves showing up again in 1963 in Gilmore's autobiography. The Doctor has to explain to Gilmore that history's not immutable and Gilmore's not invincible, though.

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