Trial of the Valeyard (audio story)

Trial of the Valeyard was Big Finish Productions' subscriber-free release for 2013. It acted as a sequel to the events of The Trial of a Time Lord with a karmic reversal of who was on trial, and featured Michael Jayston's return to the role of the Valeyard since his last appearance in the 1986 television story The Ultimate Foe. The audio also offered a potential explanation regarding the unknown origins of the Valeyard, but did not confirm any statements in the account given about his past as undeniably true.

Publisher's summary
There is some evil in all of us – even the Doctor. Transported aboard the Time Lords' orbiting courtroom, the Doctor once again encounters the Valeyard, an amalgamation of the darker sides of his nature. This time, however, the Doctor isn't in the dock. This time, the Valeyard is the defendant, accused of a crime so terrible that the presiding Inquisitor is forbidden to reveal it even to the court, nor even to his counsel for the defence… the Doctor.

If the Valeyard is found guilty, he'll be executed. Execute the Valeyard, and the secret of his origins dies with him. A secret that the Doctor is desperate to know… and which the Time Lords will stop at nothing to protect.

Plot
The Doctor is abducted by the Time Lords into a space station above the gas giant Eta Rho, where a court will be called in session. The Doctor initially refuses to take part in the proceedings, but in finding out that the defendant is the Valeyard, he stays to defend the Valeyard due to his curiosity. The Doctor is at first determined to find the Valeyard guilty, but the situation becomes even more complex as history is rewritten and information becomes classified as the court session goes on. After counselling the defendant, the Doctor agrees to defend the Valeyard due to the Valeyard "being clever".

The crime that the Valeyard is accused of, trivial hacking on to the Matrix, bewilders the Doctor. The Valeyard tells that when he was a mere 20 years old, he was found on the mud-moon orbiting Eta Rho by prospectors, who, upon finding out he was a Time Lord, took him to Gallifrey. When examined there, his biodata was apparently found to be the same as the Doctor's, and he was therefore considered a temporal abnormality by Time Lord society and place in a Shadow House. There he met a Time Lord whose regeneration was stuck in a paradox, who encouraged him to take up the study of regeneration. The Valeyard decided to follow the advice, and claims to have made many interesting discoveries during his studies and even voices the heresy that Rassilon himself imposed the fatality in the thirteenth regeneration to keep the Time Lords in check. The Valeyard says that he was the result of illegal experiments made by the Thirteenth Doctor on the mud-moon. Evidence of the experiments, the Doctor's Black Scrolls, were apparently in a container still on the planet. The moon is translocated by the Time Lords in order to erase the evidence presented. After some commotion, the Valeyard is found guilty by the Inquisitor and sentenced to termination, which is to be carried out immediately. The Valeyard gloats one last time as he is executed in front of the Doctor, claiming that by witnessing this event the Doctor is now irrevocably on the path to eventually become him. Deeply disturbed, the Doctor leaves the court.

The Doctor tracks the displaced timeline containing the mud-moon and finds the supposed thirteenth, mad incarnation of himself, in a shack like the one the Valeyard described. He tries to get some answers from the rambling lunatic, but he is interrupted as several military TARDIS arrives, and he realizes that the Inquisitor and a squad of guards has followed him to the moon. The Thirteenth Doctor is startled by their arrival, and runs out into the mud as the forces close in, but gets stuck in a mud hole and starts sinking down, and despite the Doctor's attempt to save him, he goes under The Inquisitor begs the Doctor to open the container, as only his bio data could open it, and reveals that the Valeyard refused to open it. The Doctor deduces that the Valeyard was really put on trial, because he refused to reveal the secret of immortality in those scrolls. He then deduces that the container does not actually contain the scrolls, but a bomb set as a trap by the Valeyard, and that the Thirteenth Doctor is actually the Valeyard in disguise. The Valeyard emerges from the mud, revealing that a Matrix door is there, and that another one is in the courtroom. The Valeyard speaks of revenge and then flees after activating the bomb. The guard flees, and the Doctor and the Inquisitor escape aboard his TARDIS.

The Doctor suggests to the Inquisitor that someone within the Time Lord council was working with the Valeyard, and promptly leaves.

Cast

 * The Doctor - Colin Baker
 * The Valeyard - Michael Jayston
 * Inquisitor Darkel - Lynda Bellingham

Continuity

 * The Valeyard claims that the final incarnation of the Doctor had a picture of Stockbridge on the wall of his lab. (COMIC: The Stockbridge Horror)
 * The Doctor recognises Space Station Zenobia from his trial. (TV: The Trial of a Time Lord)
 * The Doctor mentions how the Master was able to survive past his final incarnation and also theorises that the Valeyard is a Watcher. (TV: The Keeper of Traken, Logopolis)
 * The Doctor's "final incarnation" mutters incoherently about Totter's Yard (TV: An Unearthly Child), Polly Wright, and fish people, "not as stupid as it sounds". (TV: The Underwater Menance)