Planet of the Ogrons (audio story)

Planet of the Ogrons was the second story in the audio anthology The Eighth Doctor: Time War: Volume Two, produced by Big Finish Productions. It was written by Guy Adams and featured Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor, Rakhee Thakrar as Bliss, Nikki Amuka-Bird as Major Tamasan and introduced Julia McKenzie as the Twelve.

Publisher's summary
Avoiding the Time War, the Doctor and Bliss are found by an old acquaintance: the latest incarnation of a criminal mastermind the Doctor knows of old. But unlike her predecessors, the Twelve has a handle on her previous selves' unruly minds.

There is a mystery to solve involving the Doctor's TARDIS and its unusual occupant – and answers will be found on the Planet of the Ogrons.

Plot
In the Capitol, Major Tamasan and her soldiers hurry to intercept a materialising TARDIS and find that it is the Doctor's ship. However, an Ogron in a frock coat and a cravat claiming to the Doctor steps out and asks for Tamasan's help, offering her a satsuma.

After visiting a number of antique shops on Sto, the Doctor and a bored Bliss watch ducks at a pond and are approached by the Twelve, who is accompanied by Doctor Ogron and claims to have been sent by the High Council. The Doctor explains to Bliss who the Twelve is and, at Bliss' suggestion, agrees to hear her out over afternoon tea. The Twelve tells them that a neural inhibitor has given her control over her previous selves and that Doctor Ogron has the Doctor's DNA and memory engrams, although the High Council do not believe that he is a future incarnation of him.

The Overseer receives an Ogron subject to experiment on in attempt to find a way to keep individuals from suffering damage from temporal fallout by preventing his entropy. The experiment involves restructuring the Ogron's genetic composition, a painful process following which the Overseer subjects him to temporal bombardment. The Ogron decomposes to dust in seconds and the Overseer requests another specimen.

Doctor Ogron asks the Doctor to come with him to the Planet to save the Ogrons from the Daleks. The Doctor cannot see why the Daleks would be interested in the Ogrons and, when the Twelve reminds him of Auderly House, he has conflicting memories about whether or not the Ogrons were there as foot soldiers of the Daleks; he is surprised that the Daleks have been interfering in their own timelines and realises that the Ogrons have also been inserted into the Human-Draconian War. The Overseer is a meddler who has done this to amuse himself and to gather data and must be stopped.

The Doctor, Bliss, the Twelve and Doctor Ogron arrive on the Planet and the Twelve sends the TARDIS away with a remote control to keep it safe. The group flee from giant crabs and the Doctor and Doctor Ogron use their sonic screwdrivers to cause a number of rocks to fall and block the crabs' path. The Twelve taps into the Nine to crack the Daleks' security system, but Doctor Ogron has managed to open the genetic lock by virtue of being an Ogron and they enter the Daleks' steel city.

They go to the Overseer's lab and the Twelve uploads the contents of his system to the Matrix and finds a Gallifreyan temporal bomb which she begins to disarm. They also find TARDISes which the Overseer has transplanted Ogron brains into to make them fully sentient and capable of obeying voice commands. When an alarm sounds, they flee from the lab and are chased by Daleks who alert the Overseer to their presence; he orders them to be captured alive, a command that the Dalek initially disagrees with.

Doctor Ogron climbs through an air vent, carrying an unwilling Bliss with him, and escapes to the roof and out of the city to start an Ogron rebellion against the Daleks.

The Doctor and the Twelve are cornered by Daleks and taken prisoner. The Overseer has an Ogron wire up another to a machine and tells the two Time Lords that, in addition to making hybrid TARDISes, he is also planning on making hybrid Time Lords to get around TARDISes' isomorphic controls. He duplicates the Doctor's biosignature into the Ogron and subjects the Twelve to an invasive and painful scan.

Dalek Command has been contacted and is sending a taskforce to retrieve the Doctor and the Twelve. The Daleks believe that it is time for the Overseer to understand the Dalek way.

The Ogrons decline to help fight the Daleks, so Bliss and Doctor Ogron, who has another plan, leave.

The scan of the Twelve destroys the Overseer's machine and he is forced to shut everything off. She gets free and damages the Overseer's weapon before shooting at him, causing him to retreat. She frees the Doctor, who releases Doctor Ogron and, after summoning his TARDIS with the remote control, sends him to the Capitol and waits with the Twelve to be rescued.

Doctor Ogron appeals to the Crab Gods and get them to follow him to the Ogron camp. He tells the Ogrons that the Gods say to fight, persuading them to march on the Dalek base.

The Daleks call the Overseer an inefficient leader and an insult to the Dalek race before exterminating him. The Ogrons attack and, once the Daleks have been defeated, the Doctor tells the Ogrons to flee from the base whilst he detonates the temporal bomb. Any living experiments will be bundled into the TARDIS and taken to Gallifrey to be helped, but the taskforce arrive and exterminate Doctor Ogron, who regenerates after the Doctor, the Twelve and Bliss are taken prisoner. He takes a hybrid TARDIS and leaves before the base explodes.

Cast

 * The Doctor - Paul McGann
 * Bliss - Rakhee Thakrar
 * The Twelve - Julia McKenzie
 * Doctor Ogron / Ogron subject - Jon Culshaw
 * Major Tamasan - Nikki Amuka-Bird
 * Ogron - Christopher Naylor
 * The Daleks / The Overseer - Nicholas Briggs

Crew

 * Cover Art - Alex Mallinson
 * Directors - John Ainsworth and Helen Goldwyn
 * Executive Producers - Nicholas Briggs and Jason Haigh-Ellery
 * Music - Jamie Robertson
 * Producer - David Richardson
 * Script Editor - Matt Fitton
 * Sound Design - Benji Clifford
 * Writer - Guy Adams
 * Series Director - Ken Bentley

Worldbuilding

 * Doctor Ogron offers Tamasan a satsuma.
 * The Twelve describes the Eight as "sweetness itself".
 * The Overseer creates hybrid-TARDISes using Ogron brains to bypass the isomorphic controls.
 * The Twelve is able to "tap into" her old personalities through her neural inhibitor.
 * The Twelve has a healing spray.
 * The Doctor, Bliss, the Twelve and Doctor Ogron have afternoon tea, which includes scones.
 * The Ogron homeworld used to be covered in trees until the rock monsters ate the trees and became gods to the Ogrons. They were subsequently eaten by crab monsters, who became the new gods.
 * Doctor Ogron has a sonic screwdriver.
 * The Doctor likes Everton mints.

Continuity

 * The Doctor and Bliss visit Sto in the Beryllium cluster. (TV: Voyage of the Damned)
 * Doctor Ogron makes various references to the Doctor's memories, such as initally calling Romana I "Fred". (TV: The Ribos Operation)
 * Doctor Ogron also says several well-known lines of the Doctor throughout his incarnations, such as:
 * "Concentrate on one thing..." in reference to the Second Doctor's first words post-regeneration. (TV: The Power of the Daleks)
 * "A tear, Bliss?", in reference to the Third Doctor's final words before regeneration. (TV: Planet of the Spiders)
 * "The definite article, you might say", in reference to the Fourth Doctor. (TV: Robot)
 * "Brave Heart," in reference to the Fifth Doctor. (TV: Earthshock, Enlightenment, Warrior of the Deep, The Awakening)
 * "Who Am I?" after his regeneration, in reference to the Eighth Doctor's first words post-regeneration. (TV: Doctor Who)
 * "I don't want to go...", in reference to the Tenth Doctor's final words before his regeneration. (TV: The End of Time)
 * "Trust me, I'm the Doctor", in reference to the Eleventh Doctor. (TV: The Eleventh Hour)
 * Due to temporal alteration, the Doctor now recalls Ogrons being present in previous adventures with the Daleks. (TV: Day of the Daleks, Frontier in Space)
 * Doctor Ogron eventually regenerates, and is pleased to see he's still ginger. (TV: The End of Time)
 * The Monk and Missy would later visit the Planet, where the crab gods were still in power. (AUDIO: Too Many Masters)
 * The Doctor and the Twelve remember the Daleks' previous attempts to introduce the 'human factor'. (TV: The Evil of the Daleks, AUDIO: Across the Darkened City)
 * The Eighth Doctor and Doctor Ogron compare sonic screwdrivers, with the former insulting the latter's as "bulbous". The Tenth and Eleventh Doctor would also compare sonic screwdrivers, with the former implying the latter was compensating for something. (TV: The Day of the Doctor)