The Wishing Beast (audio story)

 was the three-part story comprising part of the ninety-seventh release in Big Finish's monthly range. It was written by Paul Magrs and featured Colin Baker as the Sixth Doctor and Bonnie Langford as Melanie Bush.

This was the second three-part Sixth Doctor audio story and the first to feature Mel as his companion in a three part story.

Publisher's summary
What can it mean when the Doctor and Mel are drawn to an asteroid by a message from the strange, elderly Applewhite sisters? The travellers are promised that they will receive their dearest wishes when they enter the frozen forests of this benighted shard of a world. But the ghosts that haunt this place are desperate to warn the Doctor about the sisters' promises. Only the ghosts know the true nature of the legendary Wishing Beast.

Part one
After receiving a transmission which gives him a strange feeling, the Doctor materialises the TARDIS near its source, a skull-shaped asteroid with a dangerously high level of radiation, only to decide to ignore it. However, he is intrigued when the transmission comes through as an invitation from sisters Maria and Eliza Applewhite and the TARDIS's readings change, indicating that the asteroid is safe and that there is a house located there. He and Mel run from a ghostly voice after landing on the asteroid and are welcomed by the Applewhites.

Maria explains that she and Eliza, who was blinded when they first arrived on the asteroid, sent the message out years ago to invite Mel to see the Wishing Beast as they consider to be a hero in time and space. The Doctor checks the TARDIS's psionic energy readings whilst the Applewhites ask Mel about her adventures and senses an almost invisible presence which communicates with him by knocking on the TARDIS. When he returns, he learns that the Applewhites had a brother, Daniel, and tells Mel that the TARDIS is currently incapable of taking off.

The Doctor and Mel hear knocking and crashing which the Applewhites do not react to. When ghosts appear, Maria tells the Doctor and Mel to ignore them and that, tomorrow, the Wishing Beast will grant Mel's greatest wish as a reward. The ghosts want to help and, fighting against psychic interference, warn the travellers that the sisters will be the deaths of all of them.

Part two
Maria sucks up the ghost with a vacuum cleaner fit with a proton filter before he can elaborate on his warnings against visiting the Wishing Beast. In the night, the Doctor sneaks out in the hopes of unjamming the TARDIS and encounters another ghost, Mildew, who takes him to where other ghosts have gathered in the forest and explains that they were all devoured by the Wishing Beast, which is actually the mutated Daniel Applewhite. They continue to be fed to it in their ghostly forms as an appetiser before a new corporeal being is absorbed.

Believing that the Doctor might have gone ahead to the Wishing Beast, Mel goes with the Applewhite sisters in their carriage after breakfast and tries to stop them from capturing more ghosts with the vacuum cleaner. The Doctor arrives and switches the vacuum cleaner off, but the dragon-like Wishing Beast approaches and Maria tells Mel that it is time for her to receive her reward.

Part three
Maria and Eliza feed the ghosts to the Wishing Beast and command Mel to make her wish, but the Doctor volunteers to give his remaining lives instead to protect the ghosts and asks Mel to make sure that the sisters do not acquire the TARDIS. Absorbed, he finds himself inside the Wishing Beast with Daniel, who recounts how he heard the voice of the Wishing Beast a year after the Applewhites crash-landed on the asteroid. The Wishing Beast, which was a box at the time, combined with him to become a monster which would allow Daniel to stand up against his bossy sisters.

Initially willing to let the Doctor take his place so that he can fade away, Daniel asks the Wishing Beast to let the Doctor go. Maria and Eliza are reduced to ghosts after Mildew, whom they proceed to kill, attacks them with their vacuum cleaner and Daniel tells them of his wish to die. He releases the Doctor with the box. By opening it, the monster disappears and Maria and Eliza take Daniel's place inside the box, which the Doctor believes contains a fugitive from another dimension. He and Mel decide to lock the box and the vacuum cleaner away in the house, believing that the asteroid will fall apart without the Wishing Beast.

Cast

 * The Doctor - Colin Baker
 * Melanie Bush - Bonnie Langford
 * Maria - Jean Marsh
 * Eliza - Geraldine Newman
 * Ghost / Mildew - Sean Connolly
 * Daniel / Ghost Brother - Toby Sawyer
 * The Wishing Beast - Toby Longworth
 * Female Ghost - Rachel Laurence

Crew

 * Cover Art - Simon Holub
 * Director - John Ainsworth
 * Executive Producers - Jason Haigh-Ellery and Nicholas Briggs
 * Music - Andy Hardwick
 * Producer - Sharon Gosling
 * Script Editor - Alan Barnes
 * Sound Design - Gareth Jenkins
 * Written - Paul Magrs

Worldbuilding

 * Maria offers a choice between tea and sherry.
 * Eliza is blind.
 * Maria and Eliza have a vacuum cleaner fitted with a proton filter.

Continuity

 * The Doctor and Mel would later encounter the Wishing Beast at an earlier point of its existence in Salford in 1965. (AUDIO: The Vanity Box)