Downtime (novelisation)

Downtime by Marc Platt was a novelisation of the independent film Downtime, released as the eighteenth book of the Virgin Missing Adventures line. It was the second of two novelisations published under the line; the other, The Ghosts of N-Space, was a novelisation of a BBC Radio Drama. This release was also the second spin-off based story to be released by Virgin Books. The other was the novel Shakedown, which was in part a novelisation/tie-in to Reeltime Pictures' Shakedown: Return of the Sontarans.

Publisher's summary

 * Across the room, in a high-backed leather chair, Victoria saw the old man from the reading room. His face was curiously young for someone so long dead.

In 1966, the Doctor defeated the Great Intelligence, but he knew it wasn't a final victory. And his companion Victoria, whose mind had once hosted the evil entity, might still fall prey to its power.

Now it seems that his fears are justified. In a Tibetan monastery, the monks display unearthly powers — UNIT are investigating. A new university has opened in London with a secret agenda that may threaten the whole country. Victoria, abandoned in an age very different from her own, and haunted by visions of a father she refuses to believe is dead, is slipping into despair and madness. But are the visions which plague her really hallucinations? Or has the Great Intelligence once again made Earth its target for invasion?

Chapter Titles

 * Prologue
 * 1) Victoria's Journey
 * 2) Bug Alert
 * 3) A Day at the Zoo
 * 4) Home to Roost
 * 5) Geneva. Deadline: The Intermediate Future
 * 6) Putting it Together
 * 7) The Watch
 * 8) Eye Spy
 * 9) Flight
 * 10) By the Sea
 * 11) Neighbourhood Watch
 * 12) Anthony
 * 13) Shapes
 * 14) Twickers' Big Day
 * 15) Gridlock
 * 16) The Summons
 * 17) Web on the Line
 * 18) By Appointment
 * 19) Blunder Days
 * 20) Arrivals
 * 21) A Reunion
 * 22) Light of Truth
 * 23) Crichton
 * 24) The Boat
 * 25) Taking the Knight's Pawn
 * 26) Truth is Relative
 * 27) Special Powers
 * 28) Something in the System
 * 29) Call in the Cavalry
 * 30) Under Siege
 * 31) World Wide Web
 * 32) Access Denied
 * 33) Old Worlds For New
 * 34) Golden Afternoon Revisited

Plot
to be added

Characters

 * Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart
 * Victoria Waterfield
 * Sarah Jane Smith
 * K9
 * Kate Lethbridge-Stewart
 * Gordon James Lethbridge-Stewart
 * Daniel Hinton
 * Ex-Flight Sergeant ("Harrods") Haroldson
 * Professor Edward Travers
 * Captain Douglas Cavendish
 * Brigadier Charles Crichton
 * Christopher Rice
 * Anthony
 * Roxana Cywynski
 * Abbot Thonmi
 * Gordy
 * Celia Twickers

Continuity
to be added

Differences from the Televised Story

 * Victoria's visit to Tibet is expanded upon.
 * An original scene features Sarah Jane confronting a Yeti in the zoo.
 * A scene features a baby Yeti biting Margaret Thatcher.