The Scorchies (audio story)

The Scorchies was the ninth story of the seventh series in The Companion Chronicles audio range. It was produced by Big Finish Productions. It was written by James Goss and featured Jo Grant. An in-universe version of the regular writer's notes was printed in the interior booklet of the CD.

Publisher's summary
The Doctor, his companion Jo Grant and the Brigadier face their strangest case yet — a Saturday night TV show that has been invaded by aliens that look like puppets!

The Scorchies want to take over the world. They want to kill the Doctor. And they want to perform some outstanding showtunes. Though not necessarily in that order...

With Jo caught inside The Scorchies Show, can she save the day before the planet Earth falls victim to the dark side of light entertainment?

Part one
Jo is within the Scorchies show, and she is told she needs to complete three tasks on the show: tell a story, make a thing, and sing a song. She begins by telling the story of how she came to be on the show. One day the Doctor was working on his TARDIS, when the Scorchies show caught his eye. He tells Jo how he has seen the show before, and how it takes over the entire adult population of a planet, before burning it, the Scorchies then say how this is how they earned their name. The Scorchies then take a break from the story to make Jo begin the second task, to make a thing, with help from Amble the Ugly Doll, they begin to make an anti-Scorchie gun, but Mr Grizzfizzle sees through this and kills Amble. Jo reveals that she followed the Doctor to the studios when he failed to return. She then wants to know what they have done with him, and is horrified when Mr Grizzfizzle claims in song to have killed him.

Part two
Professor Baffle then tells the story of how the Scorchies came into existence, about how their world was burned by an invader through television, and the inventor of television found a way to transmit the population as an disembodied intelligence to other worlds. The Scorchies then decided to take revenge on the universe until either it was sorry, or everyone was dead. Professor Baffle then reveals that he was in fact the inventor of the television back on their home world, and the Scorchies were punishing him by making him watch the terrible things that they were doing. The Brigadier then begins an attack on the studios, and Mr Grizzfizzle sends the Magic Mice to deal with the attack. The Scorchies spot the Doctor in amongst the UNIT soldiers-he is alive after all. Suddenly, the Magic Mice are destroyed. The Scorchies believe that the Doctor has reversed their signal, and force Jo and Professor Baffle to make a device to reverse the polarity back again. Professor Baffle then activates the device, and the Scorchies begin to disintegrate, Baffle then reveals that the polarity was never reversed in the first place, and that he allowed the Doctor to infiltrate his personality long ago. The reversed signal then destroys the physical form of the Scorchies. The Doctor concedes that they continue to exist, as an intelligence floating in space.

Cast

 * Jo Grant/The Scorchies (Cool Cat, Amble the Ugly Doll, the Magic Mice) - Katy Manning
 * The Scorchies (Mr Grizzfizzle & Professor Baffle) - Melvyn Hayes

Worldbuilding

 * The Doctor and Jo were watching The Scorchies Show on the BBC on the previous Saturday before going ballroom dancing with Sgt. John Benton.
 * Delia Smith appeared in an episode of The Scorchies Show and baked a soufflé. Jo particularly enjoyed that episode.
 * Angela Rippon once tried to teach Cool Cat the foxtrot.
 * Bernie Winters appeared in an episode of The Scorchies Show.
 * The Scorchies refer in their songs to many of the Third Doctor's enemies who failed to kill him, including Ogrons, Azal, an Ice Lord, Daleks, Axons, Autons, and "even the blasted Gell Guards"; they also refer to the planets Solos and Metebelis III in their songs.
 * Jo remarked that even Space: 1999 was better than The Scorchies Show.

Continuity

 * The Doctor and Jo build a reverse polarity polarity reverser using a wine bottle and several corks. (TV: The Time Monster)
 * Jago & Litefoot encountered the Scorchies at the New Regency Theatre in the 1890s. (AUDIO: The Wax Princess, Encore of the Scorchies)
 * Iris Wildthyme also encountered the Scorchies in 2015 Margate (AUDIO: Comeback of the Scorchies)