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Recap / Big Finish Doctor Who 235 Ghost Walk

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This is a city of ghosts and no-one knows them better than Leanne. Twice a night she leads tourists to visit the most haunted sites - the Hanging Yard, the Witch Pool, the Screaming House, and, of course, the Catacombs.

Leanne’s realised the ghosts of the city are real. Something’s lurking in the Catacombs - an ancient force that has been growing in the darkness for centuries. Sabaoth is returning and they must be stopped before they devour the world. Leanne knows this, because a ghost told her.

A ghost called the Doctor.

Ghost Walk contains examples of:

  • Accidental Misnaming: The journalist in 1804 who wrote up Adric's court case recorded his name as "Derek". Though Adric didn't get to finish spelling out his full name, he did at least get out the first few letters, so this might have been a case of Malicious Misnaming on the journalist's part.
  • All Love Is Unrequited: Reverend Matthew falls very hard for Nyssa, but she is much too focused on getting back to her friends, and is quite uncomfortable when he asks her to stay with him. He doesn't take the rejection well.
  • And Then What?: Tegan hits the Doctor with one of these, pointing out that his plan to save her, Nyssa and Adric by flinging them out into time at random didn't go much beyond sending them away. What was he going to do if he somehow managed to defeat Sabaoth? How would he have found them again? The Doctor doesn't have a definitive answer.
  • Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: Tegan escapes the Doctor's time loop because she refuses to leave him behind on his own with no help.
  • Big Damn Heroes: The Doctor manages to turn up just in time to save Nyssa and Adric from being killed. He is particularly impressed with himself for Nyssa's rescue, as he materialized the TARDIS underwater. Nyssa would have preferred him to get there slightly earlier.
  • Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Mrs Stubbs, whose sheep's clothing is extremely thin, but she at least keeps up the pretense of civility around Reverend Matthew.
  • Bizarre Alien Senses: The Doctor is able to tell how fresh blood is and what species it belongs to. By licking it. Tegan is appropriately horrified.
  • Blessed with Suck: Leanne's claim to fame is that her job as a tour guide takes her on the exact same route between various points of power for Sabaoth, turning her into a living conductor loop for his energy and the gateway for his return.
  • Burn the Witch!: Nyssa and Adric, stranded at different points in time, are both threatened with this. Nyssa ends up subjected to the ducking stool.
  • Call-Back:
  • Cassandra Truth: Poor Tegan, trying to warn the world about Sabaoth, is mostly ignored because she appears to be a demon taking over a young girl's body.
  • Celibate Hero: Nyssa gets on very well with Reverend Matthew, but is shocked when he reveals his love for her. The thought never even crossed her mind, and she rather awkwardly turns him down.
  • Circle of Standing Stones: The circle in the underground cavern is described as a "mini Stonehenge".
  • The Constant: The Brotherhood of Sabaoth appears all throughout time, keeping an eye on people and events whose energy can be used to free their master. The Doctor compares them to a smoke alarm.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Even recovering from a nearly-fatal psychic attack, Adric manages to get a few licks in after The Doctor praises him and Nyssa for still being able to remember their names after Sabaoth came after them.
    The Doctor: Very good! Excellent!
    Adric: Not really... Name recognition requires a really low intellectual response. Tegan...?
    Tegan: Yes?
    Adric: See?
    Tegan: Hey!
  • Demonic Possession: Tegan manages to do this to Katya. At the very least, a priest is called because it certainly seems like a demonic possession.
  • Eldritch Abomination: Sabaoth is an incredibly ancient, borderline demonic force that has drained whole galaxies of life.
  • Evil Sounds Deep: Stephen Greif as Sabaoth has such a terrifying voice it didn't even need to be deepened in post-production, only getting a slight creepy echo added to it.
  • Gossipy Hens: Mrs Stubbs, of the most vicious variety.
  • Hanging Judge: Adric is tried by one of these, and only narrowly avoids the sentence thanks to the Doctor's intervention, which he was very much counting on.
  • Hearing Voices: The Doctor is able to communicate with Leanne as a voice in her head that nobody else can hear. She tries to convince herself that he's just an inner ear infection.
  • Hollywood Exorcism: A priest is called in to perform one of these on the young girl Katya, to free her from the influence of Tegan.
  • In Medias Res: The story begins with the reveal that The Doctor is both dead and a ghost, before going back and showing how this came to be.
  • In the Hood: The Brotherhood of Sabaoth never take their hoods down.
  • "It" Is Dehumanizing:
    Tegan: Is that the TARDIS? Why is it making that terrible noise?
    The Doctor: I always considered the TARDIS a she, not an it.
    Tegan: Fine. Why is "Your Little Pony" making that racket?
  • Lampshade Hanging: Tegan, as the resident Deadpan Snarker, bemoans the TARDIS once again dumping them in a creepy underground cavern with a dark mystery to be uncovered.
    Tegan: Catacombs, underground passageways, cellars... they'll feature heavily in my autobiography.
  • Life Drain: Sabaoth's major party trick. He's done it to entire galaxies in his day.
  • Love Makes You Evil: Being rejected by Nyssa drives Matthew to have her convicted as a witch out of spite. He regrets it in the end, but it's much too late (or would have been, if not for the Doctor).
  • Mega Manning: Sabaoth drains the TARDIS of all its power, and gains psychic powers from absorbing its telepathic circuits.
  • Mental Time Travel: An unusual case with Tegan and the Doctor, whose minds are sent into the future, but into other people's bodies.
  • Not Good with Rejection: If Matthew was hurt by Nyssa turning him down, that's understandable. Actively trying to have her killed for being a witch? Much less understandable.
  • Not Helping Your Case: Predictably, Adric does himself no favors acting as his own court defense, flat out telling the prosecutors that he doesn't like their planet and doesn't understand why the Doctor would bother trying to save them.
  • Once More, with Clarity: Sabaoth sends Tegan's mind forward in time, and she cries out to people around her to listen to her warnings. The sounds used in the scene makes it sound like she's standing in a crowd that can't see her. Later in the story, it turns out that her mind was projected into Katya's, and she was possessing her as she was speaking.
  • O.O.C. Is Serious Business: When Tegan is starting to succumb to Sabaoth's influence, she starts being remarkably kind and tender to the Doctor. That's when you know things are bad.
  • Our Ghosts Are Different: They're not even dead, for a start. Tegan and the Doctor are mentally projected through time, appearing as spirits communicating through other people's minds, with varying degrees of success. The Brotherhood of Sabaoth are more outwardly traditional ghosts, but the Doctor insists that even they aren't actual ghosts, just wraiths, which are apparently something else.
  • Psychic Powers: Leanne's very particular circumstances gives her these under certain conditions, though the Doctor insists the truth is a bit more complicated.
  • Running Gag: Trying to guess where the TARDIS has landed them this time, Adric sarcastically suggests that it might be Heathrow Airport. Tegan is not amused.
  • Shaped Like Itself:
    Tegan: It's a pile of bones. Ugggh. But they're... mushy.
    The Doctor: Mmm. Bones are breaking down. Something's attacking the valency of the bonds in the molecules, sucking the energy out of them like... well, marrow from a bone.
    Tegan: Right.
  • Tastes Like Chicken: Literally, as the Doctor is able to discern that spilled blood on the walls came from chickens by tasting it.
  • Wham Line: When Katya starts to come under the influence of an apparent Demonic Possession, speaking in a distorted voice and hearing whispers in her mind about the evil Sabaoth, it seems clear that Sabaoth himself is taking her over. And then, fighting for control, Katya says: "She is coming... she is so angry". Sabaoth is a lot of things, but female is not one of them. It's Tegan, her mind flung across time, desperately trying to warn people about Sabaoth.

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