Invaders from Mars (audio story)

 was the twenty-eighth story in Big Finish's monthly range. It was written by Mark Gatiss and featured Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor and India Fisher as Charlotte Pollard.

It was the first in a series of 6 audio stories that begins the second "season" of Eighth Doctor stories.

Publisher's summary
Hallowe'en 1938.

A month after a mysterious meteorite lit up the skies of New York State, Martian invaders laid waste to the nation. At least, according to soon-to-be infamous Orson Welles they did. But what if some of the panicked listeners to the legendary The War of the Worlds broadcast weren't just imagining things?

Attempting to deliver Charley to her rendezvous in Singapore 1930, the Eighth Doctor overshoots a little, arriving in Manhattan just in time to find a dead private detective. Indulging his gumshoe fantasies, the Doctor is soon embroiled in the hunt for a missing Russian scientist whilst Charley finds herself at the mercy of a very dubious Fifth Columnist.

With some genuinely out of this world "merchandise" at stake, the TARDIS crew are forced into an alliance with a sultry dame called Glory Bee, Orson Welles himself and a mobster with half a nose known as "the Phantom".

And slowly and surely, something is drawing plans against them. Just not very good ones...

Part 1
In 1938 America, both Ellis and Mouse break into a dime store to steal some “merchandise” from their boss. Detective Halliday later meets up with them and attempts to buy “merchandise”, but Ellis shoots him in retaliation with the “merchandise”.

Later, The Eighth Doctor and Charley land in the same alleyway where Halliday was shot. They notice his corpse and decide to loot it. They notice his body was badly burnt. They decide to go visit his office. Glory Bee meets up with them, mistaking the Doctor for Halliday, which the Doctor promptly impersonates. Bee informs them that her uncle has gone missing in New York City while attending a conference, and wants Halliday to investigate. The Doctor, upon hearing her uncle’s field of study decides to investigate.

Don Chaney and his gang are having dinner at Luigi's restaurant. He notes Mouse is missing. He is then interrupted by two hitmen attempting to kill him on behalf of a mysterious benefactor. Chaney then has his men kill the hitmen with radiation pulse guns.

Meanwhile in a recording studio, John Houseman and Orson Welles are rehearsing for the War of the Worlds broadcast. Bix Biro meets up with them when they’re about to leave and threatens to cancel Welles’s contract due the lack of people tuning in to his program.

Cosmo Devine makes a speech in a club and then goes to make a call to Bix Biro, wanting him to send a signal. He later meets Jimmy Winkler, whom he had kidnapped to coerce Bix into doing what he wants.

Mouse is captured by Don Chaney and is interrogated by him; Chaney knows Mouse is going behind his back and working for a mysterious third party. Mouse, afraid of Ellis, does not reveal that they are working together. Chaney believes him, but notes that since he doesn't know anything there is no reason to keep him alive, and feeds him to a Laiderplacker they keep in a basement.

Part 2
The Doctor is reading through Halliday’s notes, which points the Doctor and Charley to the Excelsior Hotel. They are then interrupted by police knocking on the office door. Charley and the Doctor escape using the fire escape into the street below, but, during the escape, Charley is kidnapped by Ellis. The Doctor notices Charley has gone missing, and while looking for her runs into Glory Bee. Glory notes Charley may have been taken by those who took her uncle. They then travel to the Excelsior Hotel to look for them.

Meanwhile, Ellis meets with Cosmo Devine, his benefactor. Ellis informs that Halliday came to the deal and he shot the detective with the radiation pulse gun. He also reveals that he has kidnapped a young lady for “protective custody”. While he asks where the “merchandise” comes from, the Doctor and Glory enter the hotel lobby and ask for Professor Stepashin.

Charley is banging at the metal door asking to be let out when a voice calls out in the same room as her, startling her. The voice introduces himself as Jimmy Winkler. He informs her that they were kidnapped by Cosmo Devine and that Cosmo is a Nazi sympathiser.

Back at the hotel, the Doctor and Glory have no progress trying to talk to the manager. The Doctor has Glory cause a scene in the lobby as a distraction while he slips in to look at the hotel records. After he’s done, they head up to the 15th floor of the hotel. The Doctor and Glory enter a room and find a man waiting for them.

While Professor Stepashin is doing research, he is interrupted by Ellis and Chaney entering the room. Chaney has the professor create weapons with alien technology to sell to the CIA. The professor is worried the technology will fall into enemy hands, but Chaney assures him that won’t happen. Meanwhile, Charley is being interrogated by Cosmo Devine. They are then brought into a room by Ellis.

The Doctor and Glory manage to break out of their cell and run into Stepashin. The Doctor introduces Glory as his niece, to Stepashin’s confusion, and it is at this moment that Glory reveals herself as a Russian spy and aims a gun at the professor.

Part 3
to be added

Part 4
to be added



Cast

 * The Doctor - Paul McGann
 * Charley Pollard - India Fisher
 * Mouse / Winkler / Luigi / Heavy - Ian Hallard
 * Ellis - Mark Benton
 * John Houseman / Thug / Streath - Jonathan Rigby
 * Orson Welles / Professor Stepashin / Halliday - David Benson
 * Bix Biro / Noriam / Man - Paul Putner
 * Don Chaney / Actor - Simon Pegg
 * Glory Bee / Carla / Women - Jessica Stevenson
 * Cosmo Devine / Hotel Clerk - John Arthur
 * Reception Guest - Katy Manning
 * Radio Announcer - Mark Gatiss
 * Thug 2 / Toastmaster - Alistair Lock

Continuity

 * The Sixth Doctor previously met H. G. Wells, the author of The War of the Worlds, in Scotland during the summer of 1885 and subsequently took him on a trip to the planet Karfel. (TV: Timelash) Many years later in his personal timeline, the Tenth Doctor would meet Wells once again in 1889. He intimated that they would have a third encounter later in Wells' personal timeline which occurred earlier in his own. (COMIC: The Time Machination)
 * The Doctor once again speed reads a book in a matter of seconds. (TV: City of Death, Rose, The Time of Angels)
 * The reason for Welles' ignorance of Shakespeare is revealed in AUDIO: The Time of the Daleks.
 * In AUDIO: Neverland, it is revealed why there are forty-nine states in the USA (instead of forty-eight in 1938) and how the CIA, which was actually founded in 1947, can exist in 1938.
 * The Celestial Toymaker would later refer to Orson Welles in a riddle while Charley was playing his games in the Celestial Toyroom. (AUDIO: Solitaire)
 * Later during his eighth incarnation, the Doctor and his companion Tamsin Drew would become embroiled in the events surrounding an actual Martian invasion in the 23rd century, though not of Earth but Mars itself. (AUDIO: Deimos / The Resurrection of Mars)