The Juggernauts (audio story)

 was the sixty-fifth story in Big Finish's monthly range. It was written by Scott Alan Woodard and featured Colin Baker as the Sixth Doctor, Bonnie Langford as Melanie Bush and Terry Molloy as Davros.

It was the first appearance of the Mechonoids in a performed story since The Chase in 1965. This was Bonnie Langford's second audio story with Colin Baker, the first being The One Doctor.

Publisher's summary
In a small mining colony on the dark and distant planet of Lethe, strange events are occurring — the results of which could dramatically affect things on a universal scale. For within the dingy corridors of the artificial biosphere, the lone survivor of a devastating crash has expertly wormed his way into the lives of the colony's personnel.

A scientist known as Davros.

Separated from one another across space and time, the Doctor and Mel find themselves in very different predicaments: Mel has been employed on Lethe, while the Doctor has been imprisoned aboard an alien spacecraft. Both situations are inexorably linked, however, and at the apex of the two sits Davros and the terrifying possibility of a new threat even more powerful than the Daleks!

Rescuing Mel and stopping Davros should be the Doctor's primary goals, but could it be that this time, Mel does not wish to be rescued? And might Davros actually be working on something for the benefit of the civilised galaxies...?

Part one
A Nazzian freighter carrying medical supplies in the Beta Orianus system comes under heavy fire and the Doctor sends Mel to safety in an escape module whilst he locates the TARDIS. Mel crash-lands on Lethe, sets up a homing beacon and waits for the Doctor for three months, spending her time repairing unearthed Mechonoids for Professor Vaso, a scientist who also survived a crash-landing and who takes an interest in the Doctor.

The Doctor is Time Scooped and held in a molecular disintegration cage by the Renegade Daleks, who hold the TARDIS and intend to recruit him to stop the creation of a rival race on Lethe, a planet with an atmosphere that is potentially lethal to the Daleks. They inform him that Mel is on Lethe and use a visualiser to show her with Professor Vaso, whom she is telling stories about her adventures; the Doctor immediately recognises him as Davros.

Part two
The Black Dalek explains that Davros crash-landed on Lethe en route to his trial on Skaro and agrees to give the Doctor and Mel their freedom following Davros's capture. After a successful demonstration of the Juggernauts adapted from the Mechonoids for investors from Outreach, Mel returns to her bedroom and is reunited with the Doctor, who has been transmatted down by the Daleks. Mel has difficulty believing the truth about Professor Vaso and rests whilst the Doctor looks around the colony.

In the morning, Mr Brauer informs the staff that work on the Juggernauts will be taken over by one of Outreach's own product development team for a month or two, angering Davros. He deduces that Mr Kryson is an addict immune to the virus masking his true appearance and blackmails him into recommending that his superiors suspend their plan. Afterwards, the Doctor enters and, as they discuss how Davros has taken a new identity and plans to leave a new legacy, three damaged Imperial Daleks arrive.

Part three
Davros summons his Daleks to exterminate Mr Brauer when he interrupts his demonstration of the Juggernauts to confront him about his blackmail of Kryson and orders a colony lockdown. He summons Mel, confirms that the Doctor is right about his true identity and explains that the Juggernauts are the perfect Dalek killers, but the Doctor does not believe that they are a valid solution. Giving the Doctor some time to reconsider, Davros has his Daleks kill Mr Brauer's colleagues and tells Kryson that they will claim that it was an accident.

Mel puts the Juggernaut escorting her and the Doctor into idle mode using a backdoor she included in its programming and they find a living organism inside. Hacking the colony's medical records, she finds evidence that Davros has been harvesting organs from dead colonists and proceeds to erase any information on the Juggernaut programme on the Doctor's orders. The Doctor calls for the Renegade Daleks to capture Davros and a battle breaks out. The Doctor and Mel run, but more Juggernauts emerge from the section of the base damaged by Davros's crash-landing.

Part four
The Juggernauts are held back by a back-up energy barrier, allowing the Doctor and Mel to get to an access panel and sabotage the Juggernaut manufactory in the damaged section of the base whilst Davros offers to upgrade the Renegade Daleks as he has the Mechonoids. The Black Dalek reveals to the Doctor that the Dalek Supreme has manoeuvred both him and Mel as part of his scheme to defeat Davros, with the supposedly lethal atmosphere being a fiction. The Doctor is to be taken to Skaro so that knowledge of how to fly his TARDIS can be extracted, but the Juggernauts destroy the Black Dalek and kill Kryson on Davros's orders.

Mel's friend Geoff locks up Davros's Daleks as Sonali evacuates their colleagues to the Outreach spaceship and sacrifices himself to kill him by opening the airlock. Having learnt that another colleague, Loewen, was placed inside a Juggernaut, Mel takes control of the Juggernauts and has them attack Davros, an act which the Doctor disapproves of. Davros's self-destruct system has been activated by the attack and, after the Doctor and Mel use the transmat to escape to the TARDIS on the Dalek mothership, the resulting explosion destroys the base. Mel apologises for her actions and leaves a music box given to her by Geoff on the Dalek ship.

Cast

 * The Doctor - Colin Baker
 * Melanie Bush - Bonnie Langford
 * Davros - Terry Molloy
 * Sonali - Bindya Solanki
 * Geoffrey Gatlin - Klaus White
 * Kryson - Peter Forbes
 * Brauer - Paul Grunert
 * Loewen - Julia Houghton
 * The Daleks / The Mechonoids / Computer - Nicholas Briggs

Uncredited cast

 * Computer / Announcer - Gary Russell

Crew

 * Cover Art - Lee Binding
 * Director - Gary Russell
 * Executive Producer - Jacqueline Rayner
 * Music and Sound Design - Steve Foxon
 * Producers - Gary Russell and Jason Haigh-Ellery
 * Writer - Scott Alan Woodard
 * Daleks, Davros and Mechanoids created by Terry Nation

The Doctor

 * The Doctor has met Melvin Schwartz, the co-discover of the muon neutrino.
 * According to Mel, the Doctor is approximately 900 years old. She tells Geoff that he does not look a day older than 45.

Individuals

 * Captain Hazil is killed.
 * Due to her programming skills, Mel became employed by the Outreach association.
 * Prior to her arrival on Lethe, the only computer languages at which Mel was adept were BASIC, COBOL and FORTRAN.
 * The ship carrying Davros to Skaro was attacked in the Beta Orianus system and was presumed to have destroyed with all hands.
 * The investors are Mr Brauer, Mr Kryson, Mr Valmont (in charge of financing for special projects) and Miss Ferris.
 * Commander Eckhardt is in charge of mining.
 * Private Lance P. Kellogg died in a cave-in with eleven other people.
 * Geoff has a cousin who lives in Australia. She is married with two children.

The Daleks

 * A Supreme Dalek is in charge of the Daleks who inform the Doctor of Davros' presence.

The TARDIS

 * Shortly before the TARDIS dematerialised, it was ensnared by a Dalek Time Scoop.

Cultural references

 * Mel refers to George Orwell and quotes "Big Brother is Watching You" from his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four.
 * The Doctor refers to the Seven Dwarfs from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
 * Mel refers to the Doctor as Fred Astaire while the Doctor refers to Mel as Ginger Rogers.
 * The Juggernaut prototypes are named Sooty, Sweep and Soo, after children's TV puppet characters.
 * Geoff gives Mel a music box which plays "Ave Maria" by Schubert.

Continuity

 * After regaining consciousness, the Doctor calls out for Evelyn Smythe before remembering that she has departed the TARDIS to marry Justice Rossiter on Világ. (AUDIO: Thicker Than Water)
 * The Mechonoids were considered ancient when unearthed on the mining colony Lethe. (TV: The Chase)
 * The ship transporting Davros and the surviving Daleks, belonging to both the Imperial and Renegade factions, from Tranquil Repose on Necros crashed on Lethe during their return voyage to Skaro 716 days earlier. (TV: Revelation of the Daleks)
 * This is Davros' fourth of five known encounters with the Sixth Doctor. The others took place on Skaro, (COMIC: Emperor of the Daleks!) an unnamed planet at some point after the 38th century, (AUDIO: Davros) on Necros (TV: Revelation of the Daleks) and in Waterloo, Belgium in June 1815. (AUDIO: The Curse of Davros)
 * It is difficult to reconcile Davros' near obliteration in this story with his subsequent appearance in COMIC: Emperor of the Daleks! where both he and his life support chariot remain undamaged during his later trial on Skaro. Disregarding this account detailing his rise to Emperor, it appears that Mel is responsible for his subsequent emaciation in TV: Remembrance of the Daleks after sending the Juggernauts to murder Davros.
 * The Doctor mentions the Thal attack on the Kaled Dome which left Davros crippled. (AUDIO: Davros, Corruption)
 * Davros has built a mechanical right hand for himself after his original one was destroyed by Bostock on Necros. (TV: Revelation of the Daleks, The Stolen Earth / Journey's End)
 * Davros refers to the various times that the Daleks betrayed him and attempted to exterminate him, only to later seek his assistance. (TV: Genesis of the Daleks, Destiny of the Daleks, Resurrection of the Daleks)
 * The Doctor tells Davros that he previously encountered the Mechanoids on their native planet Mechanus during his first incarnation. (TV: The Chase)
 * The Doctor reminds Davros that their previous attempt to work together was a disaster. (AUDIO: Davros)
 * Davros refers to the Doctor's refusal to avert the creation of the Daleks due to moral considerations. (TV: Genesis of the Daleks)
 * Mel's address in Pease Pottage is 36 Downview Crescent. (PROSE: Business Unusual; AUDIO: The Wrong Doctors)
 * The Doctor refers to Davros' attempt to create a new race of Daleks from humans on Necros. (TV: Revelation of the Daleks)
 * The Doctor refers to his last encounter with Davros as being the events on Necros; this disregards their encounter during the Battle of Waterloo, (AUDIO: The Curse of Davros) but this may be attributed to the Doctor recognising that the current events take place chronologically shortly after the confrontation on Necros, and therefore dates the Waterloo confrontation as being in Davros's future even if it occurred in the Doctor's past.