No Place Like Home (audio story)

No Place Like Home was a 2003 Big Finish audio drama, featuring the Fifth Doctor and new companion Erimem. Originally included in Doctor Who Magazine #326, it was offered free to the public on the Big Finish Podcast 24th August 2011.

Publisher's summary
Whilst showing his latest companion, Erimem, around her new home, the Doctor discovers that the TARDIS seems remarkably keen to be as unhelpful as possible. Almost as if it wants rid of its occupants...

Cast

 * The Doctor - Peter Davison
 * Erimem - Caroline Morris
 * The Rovie / Shayde - Mark Donovan

Continuity

 * Shayde's warning to the Doctor is a direct homage to the Time Lord's warning to the Fourth Doctor in TV: Genesis of the Daleks. Again, the Time Lords "foresee a time" when a race will conquer the universe — only this time, it is the Rovies.
 * As in TV: Time and the Rani and later in TV: The Christmas Invasion, the TARDIS wardrobe holds the outfits of several earlier incarnations. In particular, Erimem finds the Fourth Doctor's scarf and hat (TV: Robot, et. al.), the Second Doctor's furry overcoat (TV: The Abominable Snowman, TV: The Five Doctors) and the Third Doctor's ruffled shirts and smoking jackets (TV: Spearhead from Space, et. al). Of the three, the Fifth Doctor seems fondest of the scarf — which he describes as "useful" but cumbersome as he tended to trip over it. The furry coat is described as being made of polyester rather than animal skin and as having come from the planet Thraxis. He expresses positive embarrassment at her discovery of the kind of clothes he wore in his third life.
 * Companions' clothes are also discovered in the wardrobe, including a dress worn by both Victoria Waterfield and Sarah Jane Smith (TV: Pyramids of Mars), a kilt worn by Jamie McCrimmon and one set of Leela's skins, which the Doctor says Peri once considered wearing.
 * The TARDIS is said to have the ability to automatically reconfigure its rooms, leaving the Doctor temporarily unaware of where the rooms had gone. This was also touched upon in TV: Castrovalva, TV: The Eleventh Hour and COMIC: Tesseract.
 * Shayde is again seen here as an agent of the Time Lords, working both for them and, to an extent, with the Doctor. He is described as having the ability to remove his dome-like "head" and absorb things into himself. He is given a male voice, a gender assignment not entirely clear in the comics, especially after he merged with Fey Truscott-Sade to become the more feminine combined being, Feyde.
 * Similar to a conversation between the Second Doctor and Victoria in TV: The Tomb of the Cybermen, the Fifth Doctor speaks to Erimem about his memories of his family. He says that he does not, in fact, think of his family very much at all, save for occasional thoughts of his granddaughter Susan Foreman.
 * The Fifth Doctor expresses a disdain of cats. This was a running gag in his adventures with Erimem, at least until her cat Antranak's death. (AUDIO: Nekromanteia)
 * The Doctor claims that he delivered the Terracotta Army to the first Emperor of China, Qin Chi Huangdi, during his third incarnation. His previous incarnation had encountered the Emperor towards the end of his life in 210 BC. Since his companions Jamie McCrimmon and Victoria Waterfield discovered the Terracotta Army on that occasion, this would indicate that the Doctor delivered them at an earlier point in the Emperor's timeline. (AUDIO: The Emperor of Eternity)