No More Lies (audio story)

 was the fifth story in the first series of the Eighth Doctor Adventures, produced by Big Finish Productions. It was written by Paul Sutton and featured Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor and Sheridan Smith as Lucie Miller.

Because Blood of the Daleks was released in two parts, it was the sixth release of the series. It was co-produced with BBC 7.

The story was released along with the other stories in the Series 1 in the collection The Eighth Doctor and Lucie Miller on 3 October 2023.

Publisher's summary
What links a disintegrating spaceship to a posh garden party, where a wealthy couple are celebrating their love for each other in style? Gatecrashers the Doctor and Lucie think they know the answer. But they're not the only uninvited guests — ferocious alien warriors riding pterodactyl-like Vortisaurs are about to make their entrance!

Plot
The Doctor and Lucie are chasing after Nick Zimmerman aboard a Tar-Modowk ship. They reach the ship's hold and go inside. Zimmerman has activated the ship's temporal systems, which begins attracting the time-eating Tar-Modowks. The Doctor realises that Zimmerman is trying to steal the ship by using a time jump.

In 2006, at a classy garden party in England, Rachel sees her little brother Gordon is not enjoying himself and invites him to dancer. He declines, and Rachel goes to find her husband Nick, and asks him to cheer Gordon up instead. Everyone at the party is feeling tired. Nick suggests that he, Gordon and Rachel go for a quiet drive by themselves, to help come to terms with the recent loss of Rachel and Gordon's father.

The Doctor and Lucie come face to face with Zimmerman, who hits Lucie with a time-whip. Since Lucie is not a "full-blown time sensitive" the whip is ineffective. Zimmerman whips the Doctor instead, threatening to unleash much temporal energy that it would erase him from existence.

Zimmerman wants to sell the stolen ship to the highest bidder, and the Doctor scolds him because the highest bidder would surely use such a powerful time-travelling ship for death and destruction. Zimmerman's plan is to time shift the ship but escape on a pod just before the time jump happens, leaving the Doctor and Lucie to be killed on board when the ship depressurises in transit. Zimmerman gets into an escape pod, which he has rigged with temporal energy from the ship's engines. He then diverts all of the ship's power into the pod and dematerialises.

At the garden party, Nick Zimmerman picks up a microphone to talk to his guests. He welcomes his wife Rachel back, saying he was lost without her.

A Tar-Modowk finds the Doctor and Lucie on board the ship. They tell him Zimmerman has escaped into the vortex, sentencing their ship to destruction. The Doctor and Lucie race to the TARDIS as the Tar-Modowk jumps into the vortex after Zimmerman.

When Nick has finished, Rachel grabs the microphone to speak.

The TARDIS chases Zimmerman and the Tar-Modowk through the Vortex. They come across a large flock of vortisaurs, who are attacking one spot in the vortex and attempting to break through into real space.

Rachel begins to sing in Hungarian to the guests, accompanied by musicians.

When the vortisaurs begin attacking the TARDIS, the Doctor emits sonic waves to disorientate them. Believing they have now found Zimmerman's location the Doctor asks Lucie to enter the coordinates into the TARDIS. When she does, the TARDIS displays a 'TEMPORAL RECURRENCE WARNING'.

The TARDIS materialises at the garden party. The Doctor and Lucie spot Nick, who they identify as the Zimmerman they know but 30 years older. After she finishes singing, Rachel feels tired and goes for a lie down. Gordon spots the Doctor and Lucie, asks if they were invited. He says it's strange meeting them, he feels like he's lived out the same day over and over without anything new happening. The Doctor realises that they've landed inside a time loop.

The Doctor tells Gordon to bring Zimmerman to him so he can be informed. Lucie suggests that Zimmerman has been aged in the time loop, but the Doctor says he wouldn't have aged in the loop, so must have been on Earth for a while before the loop began. The Doctor notes that he also had time to settle down with a house and a wife.

The vortisaurs break through the vortex into the time loop and kill two guests. Elsewhere, Gordon tells Nick Zimmerman about the newly arrived couple.

Lucie suggests that the time loop is what's attracting the Tar-Modowks, and the Doctor agrees that she might be onto something. The Doctor introduces himself to Zimmerman again. Zimmerman says he doesn't want any trouble, and invites the Doctor to talk in a summerhouse down by the stream.

Lucie goes to investigate the house, where she comes across Rachel resting upstairs. When Lucie mentions the Doctor, Rachel identifies Lucie as the girl from her husband's stories.

Zimmerman tells the Doctor he doesn't know why the Tar-Modowks are trying to break through the vortex to reach him. He tells the Doctor that his escape pod crashed and he was barely able to survive. When the Doctor asks if he still has any of the temporal technology from the pod, Zimmerman says he could not have built anything from the wreckage.

Rachel tells Lucie that Zimmerman has been turned inside-out by guilt, and is now a better person than the thief who once left them for dead. Meanwhile Zimmerman tells the Doctor that he's had time to forgive himself for his past actions. The Doctor tells Zimmerman he has been trapped in a time loop, which is drawing the Tar-Modowks. The loop has looped for too many years, and is steadily eroding the barrier between the vortex and reality. Incensed, Zimmerman forces the Doctor to hand over his sonic screwdriver, then threatens to kill him and Lucie. When Gordon arrives, Zimmerman tells him to restrain the Doctor while he goes to find Lucie, telling him that her and the Doctor are here to kill Rachel.

The Tar-Modowks see that the vortisaurs have opened a hole from the vortex into the time loop, and they begin to move in. The Doctor is pleading with Gordon, asking him why he would possibly want to harm Rachel, when suddenly they see the vortisaurs being ridden by the Tar-Modowk. The Doctor and Gordon begin to fight them off.

In the house, Tar-Modowks find Lucie, Rachel and Zimmerman, who run and hide. Lucie suggests that Zimmerman knows what's drawing them here, and pleads with him to fix the problem while she stays with Rachel. Rachel then says he should go to the mausoleum while her and Lucie distract the creatures. Zimmerman goes, saying he will come back after to get Rachel.

The Doctor tricks a vortisaur into dropping the Tar-Modowk riding it. The Doctor then names it Margaret. He mounts Margaret and gets Gordon to join him in the saddle. They fly off, letting the vortisaur lead them to the source of the time loop.

Lucie grabs the microphone and holds it in front of a speaker, creating an audio feedback loop that repels the vortisaurs. A Tar-Modowk corners Lucie and Rachel, telling them they are here to reclaim what is theirs.

The Tar-Modowk leader finds the heart of the last Tar-Modowk vessel in the mausoleum. Zimmerman then arrives and swipes at him, knocking him out. Margaret takes the Doctor and Gordon towards the mausoleum, where they find that Zimmerman is taking the Tar-Modowk leader hostage. The leader says the engine heart is stolen from them. The Doctor sees that the heart of this engine, which is stored in the mausoleum, is a time focus - the source of the time loop.

Outside, a Tar-Modowk attempts to consume Lucie by absorbing her time.

The Doctor tells the Tar-Modowk leader that he sympathises, but that they have killed innocent people and so he will not help them. He intends to deactivate the time focus and let the Tar-Modowk leave without it. He then asks Zimmerman to return his sonic screwdriver. When Zimmerman refuses, Gordon punches him and retrieves the screwdriver for the Doctor. Zimmerman runs off, shouting for Rachel. The Doctor then deactivates the time loop, sending the Tar-Modowk and vortisaurs back into the vortex.

Zimmerman runs up to Rachel, and Rachel asks Lucie for a moment alone with her husband. Rachel tells Nick that she knows he created the loop to keep her alive, but that her time to die has finally come. They embrace each other. Nick breaks down crying, and Rachel tells him it's okay.

As Lucie goes to find the Doctor the Headhunter appears and kidnaps her. In the TARDIS, the Doctor hears the cloister bell and realises something has happened to Lucie.

Cast

 * The Doctor – Paul McGann
 * Lucie Miller – Sheridan Smith
 * The Headhunter – Katarina Olsson
 * Nick Zimmerman – Nigel Havers
 * Rachel Zimmerman – Julia McKenzie
 * Gordon Davidson – Tom Chadbon
 * Tar-Modowk Leader – Tim Hudson

Crew

 * Cover Art - Alex Mallinson
 * Associate Producer & Director - Barnaby Edwards
 * Executive Producers - Jason Haigh-Ellery and Nicholas Briggs
 * Music - Tim Sutton
 * Producers - Nicholas Briggs and Sharon Gosling
 * Script Editor - Alan Barnes
 * Sound Design - Gareth Jenkins
 * Writer - Paul Sutton

Worldbuilding

 * One of Gordon's hips was shattered by a bullet.
 * Dr Zimmerman has a time whip, the effects of which are only dangerous to time sensitives such as the Time Lords.
 * Nick suggests that Rachel sing "You Are My Sunshine".
 * Feeding on time is a process known as chronosynthesis.
 * Rachel's native language is Hungarian.
 * Soon after the Doctor's TARDIS materialises at the garden party, the Doctor realises that it is trapped in a time loop.
 * The Doctor theorises that the time loop could have been created by a Time Agent trying to track down Zimmerman.
 * Rachel is dying of cancer.
 * Lucie refers to Gordon as "Flash Gordon".
 * The Doctor can smell kippers.
 * Lucie is given the codename Eliza Doolittle.
 * Lucie wants chips and gravy.

Continuity

 * The Doctor mentions that he once had a pet Vortisaur named Ramsay, referencing the Eighth Doctor's Main Range debut,
 * Lucie refers to her aunt Patricia Ryder, whom she recently encountered in Bramlington in 1974 during the audio drama
 * The Headhunter kidnaps Lucie and takes her to Hulbert Logistics on Lonsis in 2006. (AUDIO: Human Resources)
 * In a later incarnation, the Doctor would encounter a crashed timeship that was merged with a English manor in an attempt to cling to existence, referencing AUDIO: Auld Lang Syne)