Big Bang Generation

Roots: There are references to Torvill and Dean, Juliet Bravo, The X-Factor, The Wurzels, Top of the Pops, Al Capone, Robin Hood, Disney, Poyo Satou, Utzon, Paddington Bear, Smith & Wesson, Rudolph Valentino, Wonderland, Downton Abbey, Mission: Impossible, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Augustus Gloop), Top Gear, Last of the Summer Wine, and Star Trek: The Next Generation (Sto'Vo'Kor).

Dialogue Disasters: "Look mate if you don't like 'Stralia, go back home, you Irish ponce."

Continuity: The Ancients of the Universe created the Pyramid Eternia. According to legend, they seeded life in the Universe. They are immortals who used to seek entertainment throughout time and space, but eventually grew bored and retreated to a microsecond beyond the destruction of time and space. When the Doctor meets them they appear to be blurred. The Glamour is the lodestone that controls the Pyramid Eternia, and resembles a lump of rock [the Doctor doubts that this Glamour is legendary Glamour seen in Royal Blood and Deep Time and assumes that the term has been applied to various powerful objects over the years]. Other ancient species mentioned here include the Prometheans, the Kokopellian Republic, and the Corcini.

The Doctor is reading The Hungry Tiger of Oz. He visits the White Rabbit in Legion City. He gives Keri one of his cell phones. He gives his sonic screwdriver to a Kenistrii hatchling. He can deactivate his sonic screwdriver remotely via his cell phone. He meets Ruth, Jack and Peter here. He is familiar with Kadeptians and the work of Professor Horace Jaanson. He and Bernice adopt the aliases of Mr Smythe and the Duchess. He eats some cold Hawaiian pizza.

Bernice tried to introduce Peter to a young Halantii in the White Rabbit. She is probably in her mid-fifties now, but looks and feels about fifteen years younger as a result of extensive travel in time. The Doctor tells her about the Time War and explains that he saved Gallifrey but that it is now missing (The Day of the Doctor). She has copies of every episode of EastEnders except for the live ones. Ace taught her how to hotwire a car.

Peter invented some tiny, contact-lens like devices which, when attached to a person's skin and activated, induce six hours of sleep. He carries a gun of his own design.
[There are vague references to Braxiatel running the White Rabbit, but he doesn't appear here. He either perished in the Time War, or is simply elsewhere, although the latter doesn't explain why the Doctor couldn't sense another living Time Lord in the Universe prior to Utopia].

Works mentioned here include the writings of Trout the Talpidian; the journals of the Generational Professorial Clone Family of Candy; the mythical Sky Ray Lolly Wrappers of the Miwk Archives; the Holy Dam Scriptures of the Tarka People of Leina VI; and the Repository Banks on the Large Moon of Pixlie.

Aztec Moon's true name is Bates's World. It has a breathable atmosphere and is largely covered in russet-coloured mountains. There is a Mail and Package Archive on Ardethe Four. There is a White Rabbit bar on Bedrock 12. Other planets mentioned here include the gallery planet Rembrandt, the jewellery world of Sappho, and the twin planets Romulus and Remus.

Kik the Assassin is from the planet Spyro. She is a reptilian humanoid with turquoise skin, silver hair and pupil-less yellow eyes, and has hollow, telescopic bones. The average Spyro lifetime is four hundred and fifty years. The Kenistrii resemble very tall, upright pink crocodiles and are famous for disembowelling people and eating them raw. There is a Tahnn in the White Rabbit when the Doctor visits. There is a symbiotic link between the Time Squids of the Lower Vortex and the Crinis.

Links: Chronologically, for Bernice and her friends, this story takes place after In Living Memory. The last time she met the Doctor was on Skaro (The Lights of Skaro). The Doctor is travelling alone, so for him the story probably takes place between Dark Water/Death in Heaven and Last Christmas. He first met Keri in 'Legacy'.

The Panopticon Records of the Obverse are mentioned (see The Blue Angel and various Iris Wildthyme stories). There are references to River Song's imprisonment in Stormcage Confinement Facility Number One (first established in The Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone); the Church of the Papal Mainframe (The Time of the Doctor); the Headless Monks (A Good Man Goes to War); the Brotherhood of Logicians (The Tomb of the Cybermen); Land Crows and Toothless Bob (The Brimstone Kid); Ruth's past and Peter's dead boyfriend (The Curse of Fenman); Bernice's first meetings with Ruth (The Temple of Questions) and Jack (Private Enemy No. 1); Trout the Talpidian (Bad Habits).

There are references to Bernice's first encounter with the Doctor and Ace, battling the Hoothi on Heaven (Love and War); Bernice's first introductions to Jason (Death and Diplomacy), Guy de Carnac (Sanctuary) and Irving Braxiatel (Theatre of War); Shimmers (The End of Time); the Great Old Ones (All-Consuming Fire, Millenial Rites, Divided Loyalties); Gumblejacks (The Two Doctors); Bandrils (Timelash); and Kolpasha (Instruments of Darkness, Spiral Scratch).

There are mentions of the following companions: Clara Oswald; Amy Pond; Rory Williams; Wilfred Mott; Donna Noble; Martha Jones; Jack Harkness; Mickey Smith; Rose Tyler; Cinder (Engines of War); Molly O'Sullivan (Dark Eyes)' Tamsin Drew; Lucie Miller; C'rizz; Charlotte Pollard; Samson and Gemma Griffin (Terror Firma); Mary Shelley; Grace Holloway (The TV Movie); Ace; Hex; Mel; Evelyn Smythe; and Susan.

Peter has a Deindum maser (see Resurrecting the Past/Escaping the Future) and notes that he was born on Dierbhile (Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Glass Prison). Stacey Townsend and Ssard appeared in Gary Russell's Eighth Doctor Radio Times comic strips and were reunited with him in Placebo Effect.

Location: Legion, c2622; Aztec Moon, c5067; Sydney, 22nd December 2015; the Blue Mountains, New South Wales, c36,000BC and 22nd December 1934; Marbella, 1964; Turkey, the fourteenth century; Swansea, the thirty-first century; and Medazzaland.

Future History: Cyrrus Globb arrived on El Diablo in 5064. He and Kik the Assassin were captured and imprisoned in Stormcage Confinement Facility Number Eight in 5066. The human colony El Diablo is established in the late forty-ninth century on the outskirts of the Vadim system. It has a sulphurous atmosphere and volcanic polar regions. In the twenty-seventh century, Bournville covers the whole of Birmingham.

Unrecorded Adventures: The Doctor took Keri ice skating on an ice planet that is actually a single huge creature: when he made it laugh, she fell over and broke her leg. Keri encountered Sarah Jane, Luke and K-9 whilst possessed by the ancient spirit of the Kortha Gestalt, resulting in K-9 shooting her. He has previously left her on the Azure Moon of Gald, Tugrah, in a jail on Kolpasha, and guarding an Eternity Capsule for five years on Nefrin whilst he dealt with an invasion of another planet by the Scarrions.

The Doctor took Clara to a Sam Smith concert, where they became separated. He claims to have visited a planet where Koalas are the dominant species. Ruth wears a pair of sunglasses that the Doctor gave to Bernice when they went rock-surfing on Volcana. The Doctor once met a Crinis, an experience he describes as "not fun". He once took Jamie and Zoe to the chill-out zone of Lymnos.

The Bottom Line: "I'm an archaeologist, but probably not the one you were expecting." Spectacularly fanwanky in ways that even Gary Russell has never achieved before as the Twelfth Doctor meets Bernice Summerfield, although it seems oddly appropriate now that Big Finish are starting to get permission to make audio stories based on the Welsh Revival and its spin-offs. The actually plot is rather good fun, albeit typically overblown and with some fairly feeble dialogue. However, Russell writes the "regulars" well, as always.

Discontinuity Guide by Paul Clarke

Feel free to Contact Us if you have any questions about the site, or any technical problems with it. You may also want to check out our Privacy Policy. There is also an About Us page, if you really want to read one.

Comments

Why no mention of all the Duran Duran references?

Add new comment

Comment

  • Allowed HTML tags: <em> <strong> <cite> <blockquote>
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.