Time Works (audio story)

 was the eightieth monthly Doctor Who audio story produced by Big Finish Productions.

Publisher's summary
'You want to know about the Clockwork Men?

'We work in their shadow, every tick and tock of our lives. We hear them in the workings of the Great Clock. We work hard, turn our hands — but we all wind down in time, and that is when they come for us: when our time is up.'

The TARDIS lands in between times, in a time where this is no time. A time in which nothing can possibly be. But something is...

The Doctor, Charley and C'rizz are rats in the wheelwork, a threat to the schedule of a world where timing is everything. And the seconds are counting down to a fateful future that has already happened. Unless they can beat the clock.

Tick, tock.

Plot
The Eighth Doctor, Charley and C'rizz arrive on an uncharted planet where the entire population of the medieval-looking city-state is frozen in time. The Doctor strongly warns his companions not to interfere. Charley would very much> like to interfere, and gets her chance when the Doctor ends up just over an hour into the past while Charley and C'rizz are stuck at around 5pm. Charley wraps her scarf around the legs of a soldier chasing a young woman, hoping that it'll allow the woman to escape when time starts to tick again. They soon notice the Schizo Tech of the place: the medieval technology is paired with radios and cellphones

The Doctor soon befriends a young shopkeeper named Vannet, who explains the way the civilisation is structured. Every moment of the people's lives is dictated by the massive clock tower at the core of the palace. The work is for the next generation, since the citizens fully expect to die before the project is complete. Every second needs to be productive for Industry: time-wasters are caught between the tick and the tock by the faceless Clockwork Men. Vannet's own husband was taken from her not long ago. Since she now won't ever be able to have children, she considers her life meaningless, as none of her work would benefit her family.

The Doctor decides to go take a look in the palace and its clock tower — a very strong, culturally ingrained taboo in Industry — and ends up imprisoned by the prince. He pilfers a cellphone and calls Vannet, who rushes to the TARDIS to fetch a time gadget for the Doctor. On her way back, she's almost captured by some soldiers, but a scarf twisted around a soldier's legs — mysteriously appearing between the tick and the tock — helps her reach the Doctor.

Meanwhile, in the Future..., C'rizz and Charley, still in frozen time, enter the palace throne room and see the Doctor — on his knees before some soldiers, with his head about to be cut off. In the shadows, just out of sight, the Clockwork Men whispers at the less industrious soldiers and imprint things into their minds. Charley, a quick learner as usual, first wraps her jacket around the executioner's eyes, then whispers into the King's ears, hoping to change his mind about killing the Doctor.

The Doctor escapes a beheading when a jacket appears around his executioner's eyes and the King has a sudden, if difficult, change of heart. He discovers that the entire project of Industry is the result of a disaster that wiped out its population. The bio-data stored in case of mass genocide was activated by the central computer (The Figurehead) when the planet became viable again, and the people unknowingly work towards completion of the Industry in the hopes of saving their future children from having to live through the same thing again. The Doctor ingratiates himself to the King (to the supreme annoyance of the prince, who would very much like to sit on the throne by now) and vows to make a difference. By the time he reaches 5pm, though, Charley and C'rizz have been captured and subjected to tests. Charley intentionally fails it just out of stubbornness, while C'rizz is just  extremely  confused about the whole thing (having only recently gotten used to the concept of time in the first place). They're both confronted with the Clockwork Men's ability to punish them based on the probability of possible future actions. They do, however, encounter Vannet's husband, who's not dead at all. He was only removed from society because he was sterile and would be much more useful in the high-tech clock tower. In the middle of all that, Vannet's brother very reluctantly tries to lead La Résistance, but is slaughtered.

The Clockwork Men eventually do slip out of the moment between the tick and the tock. The people are horrified, but soon realise that they  can  have the upper hand. Because there are only two possibilities: either La Résistance wins, or the uprising fails, lending the people even more strength due to the Broken Masquerade. The central computer is soon defeated, and in the epilogue, a much older Vannet fondly looks back on the revolution.

Cast

 * The Doctor - Paul McGann
 * Charley Pollard - India Fisher
 * C'rizz - Conrad Westmaas
 * Kestorian - Ronald Pickup
 * The Figurehead - Tracey Childs
 * Vannet - Beth Vyse
 * Zanith - Adrian Schiller
 * Collis - Philip Edgerley
 * Revnon - Merryn Owen

Spacecraft

 * Charley tells C'rizz that she and the Doctor once visited a Bandril spaceship.

TARDIS

 * Charley has her own TARDIS key.

Time Manipulation

 * The Doctor at first thinks that the TARDIS has jumped a time track.
 * A Vortex Shield Resonator protects engineers working in the Time Vortex.

Continuity

 * The Sixth Doctor and Peri Brown previously encountered the Bandrils during their visit to Karfel. (TV: Timelash)