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Recap / Big Finish Doctor Who Short Trips S8 E6 "The Siege of Big Ben"

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A Doctor in an alternate world working with an alternate version of UNIT? It's been done.
"The Siege of Big Ben" is a Meta-Crisis Tenth Doctor and Jackie Tyler story, set after the events of "Journey's End". Notably, this is the first reappearance of the Meta-Crisis Doctor in any media since his birth. Written by Joseph Lidster, read in the first person by Camille Coduri.


Jackie Tyler is settled into her new life, in Pete's World. She's head of food distribution for U.N.I.T, a super secret organisation devoted to fighting off alien threats. Well, the soldiers do that, but Jackie is there to give them the chips and beans they need to do it. But one day, when everyone is lured out on a mission, the base comes under siege, and it's down to her to stop it and save the world. Her and UNIT's scientific advisor.

But the Doctor isn't the man he used to be.

The Siege of Big Ben contains examples of:

  • Alternate Universe: The audio once again returns to Pete's World, giving a few more little differences. According to Jackie, they play football 'backwards', did something awful to the Royal Family, and EastEnders doesn't exist.
  • Anti-Villain: Brigadier Krista Lateef, who is faking a raid on Big Ben entirely in an attempt to gain access to the Meta-Crisis Doctor's half-formed TARDIS and save her daughter from Cyber-Conversion.
  • Call-Back:
  • Failed a Spot Check: The Doctor only bothers to do a scan for the supposedly alien life forms very late into the day, at which point it reveals that, rather than an army, there's only one other person in Big Ben aside from him and Jackie.
  • Fandom Nod:
    • The Meta-Crisis Doctor is growing his own TARDIS in his lab, following up a deleted scene of him being given a piece of TARDIS coral. RTD has gone on the record as considering this canon.
    • The Doctor refers to him and Jackie being trapped in Big Ben as being "a proper Base Under Siege", a popular fanon term for stories (particularly in the Second Doctor's era) where the Doctor is trapped in a besieged base.
  • For Want Of A Nail: Jackie guesses the reason Pete's World saw no alien interference (at least, on a scale comparable to the mass invasions she was used to) was a fear of Cybus technology being used against them.
  • I Never Said It Was Poison: The supposed invaders give themselves away as suspicious by focusing their siege around gaining the Doctor's time machine. In Pete's World, the Doctor isn't a universe-renowned Time Lord, and very few people even within UNIT are even aware of his half-grown TARDIS.
  • Landmarking the Hidden Base: Parallel UNIT is based out of Big Ben, and according the Jackie, it's meant to be secret... not that it stops Jackie telling her Beryl.
  • The Ghost: Jackie's friend Beryl Thompson. Jackie never lets her get a word in edgewise.
  • Skewed Priorities: Jackie including "Tomorrow is Tony's sport's day" on what she thinks might be her final message to Pete.

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