The Green Man (BF audio story)

The Green Man was the second story in the audio anthology James Robert McCrimmon, produced by Big Finish Productions. It was written by Paul F Verhoeven and featured Michael Troughton as the Second Doctor, Frazer Hines as Jamie McCrimmon and Emma Noakes as Raven.

Publisher's summary
Perched hundreds of miles above the forest canopy of Florestus Prime, The Grove rehabilitation centre promises to help the staggeringly rich of the galaxy cheat death. When a reunited Doctor and Jamie are despatched by Raven to investigate the disappearance of a Time Lord, they are greeted by Chief of Medicine, Overseer Fuller.

Watching from his room at The Grove, an incapacitated Doctor helplessly observes the facility from afar. Who is the lone patient waving from across the courtyard? Why is Overseer Fuller doing rounds late at night when the Grove appears to have no other patients? And what precisely does Raven know about the 'Green Man'?

Part one
After completing various dangerous missions, the Doctor and Jamie ask Raven for a holiday and are sent to the Grove, a rehabilitation centre on Florestus Prime from which the Time Lord Tanerus has gone missing. Raven infects the Doctor with Jayklin venom to allow him to pose as a patient and Jamie as his carer and they are welcomed to the centre by the forgetful Overseer Fuller, who provides the Doctor with an electronic wheelchair and shows the two of them to the deluxe suite.

The pair decide to prolong their stay at the Grove by neglecting to begin their search for Tanerus until morning, but Jamie wakes the Doctor up when he is unable to sleep and they see Fuller outside with a green man. The Doctor, waking up from a nightmare about his next incarnation over an hour later, takes photographs of the green man in a room opposite which he and Jamie spot four tropical plants and medical equipment.

In the morning, Jamie notices that one of the plants has disappeared and theorises that the green man has been killed and buried, something which they cannot investigate until nightfall. In the meantime, Jamie searches the building, finding no other patients in residence. The Doctor, at midnight, sends Jamie outside with a trowel and walkie-talkie to dig up the courtyard in search of a body whilst he observes the motion sensors to ensure that he is not caught. Instead of a body, he finds a seed pod and the Doctor realises that the green man must be a Krynoid.

Part two
Deducing that the other patients have been devoured by the Krynoid, the Doctor decides to return to the TARDIS with Jamie to recover before going after it, only to suddenly change his mind and send Jamie to survey the building once more. Fuller locates Jamie thanks to a listening device and the Krynoid attacks him, after which Fuller locks the Doctor, whom he knows to be a Time Lord, in his suite to await his arrival.

When Fuller arrives at the suite, he tells the Doctor that he found the seed pod when it crashed onto Florestus Prime and has been having the Krynoid absorb patients and their diseases in the hopes of using it to create an incurable super virus. He intends to add the power of regenerate by having the Doctor absorbed, but the Doctor reveals that he adapted his and Jamie's subdermal resonators to allow them to communicate telepathically whilst making physical contact, helping them trick Fuller into thinking they were unaware of him being in the Krynoid's thrall.

Jamie has actually killed the Krynoid and crawled inside its carapace without Fuller's knowledge and knock him out. Once he and the Doctor return to the TARDIS, Raven fries the resonators and admits, as the Doctor deduced, that there never was a Time Lord named Tanerus at the centre and that the Time Lords would have captured the Krynoid if the Doctor had failed to destroy it. The Doctor threatens her, but she claims to be serving the highest authority and departs.

Cast

 * The Doctor - Michael Troughton
 * Jamie McCrimmon - Frazer Hines
 * Raven - Emma Noakes
 * Overseer Fuller - Nigel Havers
 * The Green Man / Beltraxian / Patient / Small Robot - Barnaby Edwards

Uncredited cast

 * Third Doctor - Tim Treloar

Crew

 * Director - Nicholas Briggs
 * Executive Producers - Jason Haigh-Ellery and Nicholas Briggs
 * Music - Toby Hrycek-Robinson
 * Producer - Mark Wright
 * Script Editors - Nicholas Briggs and John Ainsworth
 * Sound Design - Andy Hardwick
 * Writer - Paul F Verhoeven
 * Senior Producer - John Ainsworth

Worldbuilding

 * Last week, the Doctor and Jamie thwarted the assassination of a Beltraxian ambassador at a Beltraxian opera.
 * The Doctor defused a temporal bomb on a transdimensional train.
 * The Doctor dreams about Bessie.
 * The Doctor brings a camera from the TARDIS.
 * Jamie uses a food dispenser.
 * The Krynoid observes an executive from Ursa Minor.
 * Raven suggests that the Doctor drink tea.

Continuity

 * One of the Doctor and Jamie’s missions involved meeting a future incarnation. (AUDIO: The Annihilators)
 * Raven reminds Jamie the Time Lords could return him to a dungeon. (AUDIO: Jamie)