Baker Street Irregulars (audio story)

Baker Street Irregulars was the third story in the audio anthology Stranded 2, produced by Big Finish Productions. It was written by Lisa McMullin and featured Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor, Nicola Walker as Liv Chenka, Hattie Morahan as Helen Sinclair, Rebecca Root as Tania Bell, Avita Jay as Zakia Akhtar and Amina Zia as Aisha Akhtar

Publisher's summary
The Doctor takes Zakia and Aisha to see some family history: their grandmother had her own secret life in Baker Street, during World War II. As Tania and Liv try to defuse an unexploded bomb, the sisters face explosive revelations of their own.

Plot
Following the aftermath of the Season 1 finale, the Doctor finally explains to Aisha and Zakia that his blue box is a TARDIS, and that at the moment it can travel in time but not space. They ask him to go back in time and save their cousin Sanjit, but he says no.

In her flat, Tania suggests to Liv the idea of them getting a cat. Liv immediately dislikes the idea, saying that it’s too domestic and too much of a commitment for her, and Tania gets irritated that she won’t even consider the idea. Their argument is interrupted by a phone call from Andy, but Tania refuses to tell Liv what he told her because everything she tells her ends up getting back to the Doctor and Helen.

Outside the flat, the council start digging up the road - they’ve had news that an unexploded bomb from the 40’s was buried there, and they start to uncover it. Everyone comes out to watch, prompting Zakia to mention that her grandmother had been fighting in the war in the 40’s as one of the Baker Street Irregulars - and the Doctor responds by saying that he remembers it well, but her grandmother was either before or after his time. Though he was one of the Baker Street Irregulars briefly, he ultimately left because he was ‘too irregular’ for them.

Deciding it would be a nice history lesson for them, the Doctor offers Aisha and Zakia a trip in the TARDIS to visit the 40’s and see this road in the height of the Blitz. Just before takeoff, they’re interrupted by Tania running towards the TARDIS, being chased by a strange man and ringing Andy to tell him that he was right about the bomb and other people know about it. When Liv asks her why she’s being chased, Tania denies that she even was right up until the man crashes headfirst into the closed TARDIS doors. When she finally admits it she refuses to answer any other questions and runs deeper into the TARDIS to avoid Liv.

In the 1940’s, Nisha Bashir is being assigned a mission. To her commander (Adi)’s disappointment, she accepts - it requires parachuting out a plane and setting off explosives that have already been placed around a power station. Though Adi tells her she’s worried that she’ll get hurt by placing her in such a dangerous situation, she says that she’s excited by the danger.

When the TARDIS arrives, the Doctor holds it a sliver of a second away from materialisation so that they can look out through the TARDIS’ still transparent walls and know that they’re not landing in the middle of anywhere that would instantly kill them. They comment that the sky is on fire one moment, and the next say it must be the middle of the night - but the Doctor tells them it’s 4:30 in the afternoon. Liv and Tania keep trading sharp remarks, which everyone notices and briefly asks each other about.

The second they land, Tania runs off. Liv follows after her, asking how she still has secrets eighty years in the past, and Tania snaps that they don’t have to be joined at the hip. This irritates Liv, as Tania was the one who had been trying to bring them closer by getting a shared cat, and now she’s pushing her away and refusing to tell her anything.

Meanwhile, Helen, the Doctor and the sisters go off to find the Baker Street Irregulars. The sisters spot Adi,- their grandad, so they all follow him into a building. The Doctor’s psychic paper gets them all in as Greek Fighting Youths, and when Adi goes off to verify their identity, the Doctor reroutes his phone call to his office so he can answer it himself.

Now confident that they are who they say they are, Adi allows them to do what they like within the building. They soon realise that this is the night that Nisha destroys a power station and sets back Hitler’s plans by 3 months. Eventually they also realise that the arrival of the actual Greek Fighting Youth was meant to signify that Nisha could go ahead and parachute into the spot they had chosen, but the actual people would’ve brought the message that it’s not safe for her to do that. Because of their presence, Nisha parachutes into an ambush and is captured by German officers.

Now outside the 40’s version of their Baker Street flats, Tania climbs to the top of a pile of rubble looking for the bomb. Liv follows her, despite Tania’s protests, and Tania says that her life was a lot easier before Liv came into it. After some searching, they eventually find the device and realise it’s not a bomb at all - it hadn’t even been made yet in the 40’s, and is most likely from a completely different planet. Tania knew all this before coming back in time to find it, and that’s why she’d come straight here to search for it before anyone else could find it - the people in 2020 digging up the road were trying to beat her to it. They’re safe, for the moment, until they stop to stroke a stray cat which accidentally activates the device.

Knowing he’s responsible for messing with the timeline, the Doctor decides he must find and rescue Nisha himself - if she doesn’t complete this mission and set Hitler back four months then it could mean Hitler winning the war, and if Nisha dies now then Aisha and Zakia would never be born. Because of this, Zakia says she wants to go too. Helen also offers, but Zakia believes it makes more sense for herself to go considering the family connection, and the Doctor doesn’t want to make Helen live through a part of this war for a second time. The Doctor tells Adi the truth about who they are and has him call Winston Churchill to verify their identity and

After a quick trip back to the TARDIS to grab an aeropod for Zakia, they board a plane going along the same flight path, and jump out 5km from where Nisha landed. From there the Doctor recognises a Nazi farmhouse, and assumes that since it’s the closest place it must be where Nisha was taken.

On their way, the Doctor and Zakia talk about time travel. She eventually comes to the conclusion that it shouldn’t be done if doing harmless things in the past can have bad consequences, and the Doctor says that he believes he can do good, too. She asks if the good outweighs the bad, and he falls silent.

Inside the farmhouse, Nisha is being interrogated by Nazis. She refuses to give up any information, knowing full well that they’ll kill her as soon as she does, though she admits to being frightened. The soldier says that she’s right, but that she can choose between having a slow and torturous death or a quick and painless one. She refuses to make the choice, and he ultimately can’t go through with killing her. He offers her a glass of water and she tries to convince him that he’s on the wrong side, and though he knows she’s right he also knows that he’s trapped in his role.

Helen, Aisha and Adi are relatively safe in Adi’s house, and he’s kind enough to share his limited food rations with them as they all stress over the safety of their loved ones. Helen starts to miss her mum, and is overly aware that she’s only 7 miles away - she says that her dad is fighting in the war but him being drafted was the best thing to happen to their family. Aisha shares that she’s annoyed the Doctor allowed Zakia to go with him, and Adi admits that he loves Nisha; has been finding excuses not to send her on missions just because he doesn’t want her to get hurt despite knowing that doing that is borderline treasonous.

Still on Baker Street, Liv and Tania realise that time has passed around them. With no idea how long has passed, Tania suggests finding shelter - but they soon realise that staying with the device is more important. If it activates again then it could reach its full potential and trap the entirety of Baker Street in a stasis field for any amount of time - maybe forever.

Knowing that it’s now too late to save Nisha and let her complete her mission, the Doctor shows Zakia how to set off the explosives in the power station. When she sets it off, she’ll have two minutes to run as far away as possible so as to not get caught up in the blast. Confident that she knows what she’s doing, the two split up.

The Doctor arrives just as the German soldier is debating his place in the war, though it’s clear he wouldn’t have let Nisha go. Masquerading as ‘Johann Schmidt’, he convinces the soldier that he is his commanding officer here to take Nisha to another facility. Once he’s handed her over, the Doctor tells her he’s English and here to rescue her. On the way back to the rest of the group they hear the power station exploding and pick up Zakia.

Time passes again for Tania and Liv, and they’re still not sure how much. Thankfully it hasn’t spread out to the potential half a mile yet, as they can see that a nearby house is now a pile of rubble, meaning the stasis field is just around them.

As Liv  tries to work on deactivating it, Tania says that she doesn’t think their relationship is working. Their original ‘ask no questions and I’ll tell no lies’ policy is making Liv paranoid, and though Liv doesn’t mind keeping her own secrets she can’t handle not knowing much about Tania. Liv disagrees, saying she can handle it because she knows they’re probably the good guys - which Tania takes offence to, because she wants Liv to be sure.

Their argument is cut off by the device starting to activate, and though Liv can’t stop it, she manages to change the scope to half a metre rather than half a mile. This traps the cat in the stasis field, but nothing else - and both the animal and the device end up buried as the pile of rubble beneath it collapses.

They establish that it is most likely midday, but have no idea how many days have passed since they first arrived. Lacking anything else to do, they decide to try to find the others.

When the Doctor and Aisha return with Nisha, Adi finally plucks up the courage to ask her to go out with him. They all watch out the window as she says yes, and - content that history is back on track - they head back to the TARDIS, where they find Liv and Tania.

Aisha breaks down into tears the second they’re safe, and tells Zakia not to go on adventures again. She finally admits that she’s Zakia’s mum, not her sister, and that she couldn’t bear to think of Zakia dying without knowing. They agree that she needs time to process it, and everyone is left a little stunned.

Now back in 2020, Liv and Tania find that the small stasis field has broken, and the cat is now wandering around. Liv promises not to tell the Doctor about anything that happened, and because it’s so far out of its own time, they decide to keep the cat.

When she’s alone again, Tania calls Andy and tells him ‘it’s starting’.

Cast

 * The Doctor - Paul McGann
 * Liv Chenka - Nicola Walker
 * Helen Sinclair - Hattie Morahan
 * Tania Bell - Rebecca Root
 * Zakia Akhtar - Avita Jay
 * Aisha Akhtar - Amina Zia
 * Nisha Bashir - Anjli Mohindra
 * Adi Akhtar - Homer Todiwala
 * Pieter - Stewart Clarke

Organisation

 * The Baker Street Irregulars is a codename for the Special Operation Executive.

Species

 * The Doctor talks about the New Age of the Autons, which he claims is the "true end of single use plastics."

Continuity

 * Aisha and Zakia ask about changing Sanjit's death. (AUDIO: Wild Animals)
 * The Doctor says he's a member of the Baker Street Irregulars, but says he left because he was a little too irregular. (TV: Hide)
 * The Doctor gets Adi to call Winston Churchill to prove his credentials. (TV: Victory of the Daleks, et al.)
 * While pretending to be a German commandant the Doctor uses the alias Johann Schmidt. (AUDIO: Klein's Story)