Trial of the Valeyard (audio story)

Trial of the Valeyard was Big Finish Productions' subscriber-free release for 2013.

Publisher's summary
There is some evil in all of us – even the Doctor. Transported aboard the Time Lords' orbiting courtroom, the Doctor once again encounters the Valeyard, an amalgamation of the darker sides of his nature. This time, however, the Doctor isn't in the dock. This time, the Valeyard is the defendant, accused of a crime so terrible that the presiding Inquisitor is forbidden to reveal it even to the court, nor even to his counsel for the defence… the Doctor.

If the Valeyard is found guilty, he'll be executed. Execute the Valeyard, and the secret of his origins dies with him. A secret that the Doctor is desperate to know… and which the Time Lords will stop at nothing to protect.

Plot
The Doctor is abducted by the Time Lords into a space station above the gas giant Etarho, where a court will be called in session. The Doctor initially refuses to take part in the proceedings, but in finding out that the defendant is the Valeyard, he stays to defend the Valeyard due to his curiosity. The Doctor is at first determined to find the Valeyard guilty, but the situation becomes even more complex as history is rewritten and information becomes classified as the court session goes on. After counseling the defendant, the Doctor agrees to defend the Valeyard due to the Valeyard "being clever".

The crime that the Valeyard is accused of, trivial hacking on to the Matrix, bewilders the Doctor. The Valeyard supposedly reveals that he was an orphan left in a Shadow House that has a biodata the same as the Doctor's. Apparently, after meeting a Time Lord whose regeneration was stuck in a paradox, the Valeyard put himself in the study of regeneration. He voices the heresy that Rassilon himself imposed the fatality in the thirteenth regeneration to keep the Time Lords in check. The Valeyard says that he was the result of illegal experiments made by the Thirteenth Doctor on the planet. Evidence of the experiments, the Doctor's Black Scrolls, were apparently in a container still on the planet. The planet is translocated by the Time Lords in order to erase the evidence presented. After some commotion, the Valeyard is terminated in front of the court.

The Doctor tracks the planet and finds the supposed thirteenth, mad incarnation of himself, in a shack. The Inquisitor and the guard followed the Doctor to the planet, and the Thirteenth Doctor jumps into the mud as the forces close in. The Inquisitor begs the Doctor to open the container, as only his bio data could open it, and reveals that the Valeyard refused to open it. The Doctor deduces that the Valeyard was really put on trial, because he refused to reveal the secret of immortality in those scrolls. He then deduces that the container does not actually contain the scrolls, but a bomb set as a trap by the Valeyard, and that the Thirteenth Doctor is actually the Valeyard in disguise. The Valeyard emerges from the mud, revealing that a Matrix door is there, and that another one is in the courtroom. The Valeyard speaks of revenge and then flees after activating the bomb. The guard flees, and the Doctor and the Inquisitor escape aboard his TARDIS.

The Doctor suggests to the Inquisitor that someone within the Time Lord council was working with the Valeyard, and promptly leaves.

Cast

 * The Doctor - Colin Baker
 * The Valeyard - Michael Jayston
 * Inquisitor Darkel - Lynda Bellingham

Continuity

 * The Valeyard claims that the final incarnation of the Doctor had a picture of Stockbridge on the wall of his lab. (COMIC: The Stockbridge Horror)
 * The Doctor recognises the space station from his trial. (TV: The Trial of a Time Lord)
 * The Doctor mentions how the Master was able to survive past his final incarnation. (TV: Logopolis)
 * The Doctor himself later broke the regeneration limit when the Time Lords granted him an brand new regenerative cycle after he had exhausted the set of twelve he was given. This allowed him to become the Twelfth Doctor, his true thirteenth incarnation (with one incarnation reluctant to take the title of "Doctor" and another born by circumventing a complete regeneration). (TV: The Time of the Doctor)