The Hollows of Time (audio story)

 was the fourth story in the first series of The Lost Stories, produced by Big Finish Productions. It was adapted by Christopher H. Bidmead, from his original script, and featured Colin Baker as the Sixth Doctor and Nicola Bryant as Peri Brown.

This story was originally intended to be the fifth story of the original Season 23, but was cancelled along with other planned stories when Doctor Who went on a production hiatus.

Publisher's summary
The Doctor and Peri have been on holiday, visiting old friend Reverend Foxwell in the sleepy English village of Hollowdean. But why are their memories so hazy?

Piecing together events they recall a mysterious chauffeur, who is not what he seems, and Foxwell's experiments that could alter the nature of reality. Huge sand creatures have been sighted on the dunes, and many of the locals are devoted to a leader known as "Professor Stream".

But who is Stream? And what lies within the Hollows of Time?

The Doctor will discover that not every question has a definitive answer...

Part one
''In the TARDIS, the Doctor and Peri realise that neither of them can remember their recent trip to 1980s England to meet Reverend Foxwell. They cast their minds back to when they took a bus and a train to Hollowdean and met somebody, although the Doctor cannot remember his name or exactly who he was.''

The Doctor and Peri are given a lift to a fancy dress competition at the church by a man in steel spectacles and see a portrait on the clock tower of the All-Flowing Professor Stream, a man whom the Doctor believes he recognises. Peri befriends the young boy Simon whilst the Doctor learns from Jane that Stream is a philanthropist who made money selling electronics in the 1970s. Although the Doctor starts to remember him by reputation, his head goes "fuzzy" and he finds himself speaking with Stream, who claims that he worked with Foxwell at Bletchley Park and became spiritual after being paralysed in a car accident. He now leads the Streamers, a group of fans of his philosophy.

When the Doctor's dizzy spell ends, Jane tells him that Stream has left and he goes to find Peri. He purchases a glowing shell that Simon shows them from Mrs Streeter's stall, as well as a lead-lined tea caddy to insulate it, and confesses to Peri that they have come here because the TARDIS sensed gravitational anomalies around Hollowdean. He believes that the shell is a scale from a reptile which inspired Simon's sand creature costume, so he takes Simon's mask, losing his coat in a rosebush in the process, and presents it and the scale to Foxwell in his workshop. Foxwell has no explanation, but Mrs Streeter explains that Simon's mother made him give it to her and that Simon did indeed encounter a creature.

to be completed

Part two
to be added

Cast

 * The Doctor – Colin Baker
 * Peri – Nicola Bryant
 * Professor Stream - David Garfield
 * Reverend Foxwell - Trevor Littledale
 * Mrs Streeter / Simon - Susan Sheridan
 * Steel Specs - Hywel John
 * Jane - Victoria Finney

Worldbuilding

 * Foxwell worked with Alan Turing at Bletchley Park in the 1940s.
 * Jane tells the Doctor that Stream made money from electronics in the 1970s.
 * The Doctor quotes his "friend Wittgenstein".
 * When Reverend Foxwell inquires as to whether he used to have a "a metal dog", the Doctor says it was a long time ago in "another life".
 * The computer under Hollowdean runs Microsoft Windows.

Continuity

 * After Peri accuses him of deliberately deceiving her, the Doctor tells her that Time Lords do not do such things. However, his next incarnation would later deceive and manipulate his companion Ace and others on numerous occasions in furtherance of his schemes. (TV: Remembrance of the Daleks, et al.)
 * The Doctor notes that his previous encounter with the Tractators occurred aeons from the 20th century, which is consistent with the fact that TV: Frontios took place on the planet of the same name at an unknown time in the far future.
 * The Doctor is initially unable to remember the name of his vintage car, Bessie, which he used mostly in his third incarnation. (TV: Doctor Who and the Silurians, et al.) The Fourth, Seventh and Eighth Doctors used the car on one occasion each. (TV: Robot, TV: Battlefield, PROSE: The Dying Days)
 * The Doctor first paraphrases and then quotes "My kingdom for a horse", which appears in Act V, Scene IV of William Shakespeare's Richard III. During his fifth incarnation, he, Peri and their former travelling companion Erimem had met both a time travelling Shakespeare and the eponymous King of England in 1483 and 1485. (AUDIO: The Kingmaker) Later, in his tenth incarnation, the Doctor would meet Shakespeare again. (TV: The Shakespeare Code)
 * The Doctor took a battery from Reverend Foxwell's laboratory. (AUDIO: The Macros)
 * Upon meeting an older version of Peri in Los Angeles in 2009 who had no memory of their travels together beyond their first encounter on Lanzarote in May 1984, (TV: Planet of Fire) the Doctor mentions the Tractators in an attempt to jog her memory. (AUDIO: Peri and the Piscon Paradox)
 * The Doctor mentions that Alan Turing was working with Foxwell in the 40s breaking codes. During his eighth incarnation, he would later have an adventure with Turing. (PROSE: The Turing Test)
 * The Doctor tells Peri that after "that business on Frontios", he found the Gravis his new home. (PROSE: Life After Queth)