The Authentic Experience (audio story)

 was the first story of the eighth season of Big Finish Productions' Short Trips series.

Publisher's summary
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(Terms and conditions apply.)

Plot
The Doctor and Peri arrive at a spaceport in search of the source of temporal fluctuation. They follow the readings to a travel agency where Ms Ipo gives them a tour, explaining how customers are placed in a stasis chamber and attached to a chronotopic projector which the Doctor recognises is from a timeline before its creators, the Luconians, erased themselves. The customers are then projected back in time and given an "authentic" holiday. The Doctor argues with Ms Ipo about this and Peri is accidentally pushed into one of the booths, projecting her consciousness into a male soldier avatar, Perry, without her memories.

Perry starts to recall terminology like "nebulae" and "starship" and hears the Doctor's voice, which he follows out onto a frozen river despite his fellow soldiers calling out to him. He falls into the water and wakes up as Perrault, a man on a hot air balloon expedition over Switzerland. He hears the Doctor tell him to grab anybody who seems out of place so that they can be returned with him when the Doctor pulls him out of the interrupted time stream; Perrault grabs Mr Jeffries and they are pulled into a white nothingness, after which Perrault becomes the Amazing Perpugilliam, a trapeze artist in a circus who remembers her mission to save the other interlopers.

Perpugilliam tries to catch Celeste during a performance and rescues her when an acrobat deliberately bumps into them. She tackles him and they fall, the acrobat starting to wake up whilst Perpugilliam becomes a 19th century woman in Venice and swoons so that the next tourist will catch her. She returns people as a fisherwoman and an astronaut dog called Pushinka before she wakes up and saves the Doctor from Ms Ipo, who was threatening to shoot the Doctor for his interference. The police arrive and impound the facility because its parent company, Exurus Holdings Plc, has been liquidated.

In the TARDIS, the Doctor explains to Peri that, after Pushinka saved the last tourist, he sent her into the stock market's mainframe to retroactively sabotage Exorus Holding Plc's share price. He has rendered the technology inoperable by confiscating a vortex phaser and responds to Peri's suggestion that they had been too harsh on Ms Ipo given that they often change time themselves by pointing out that they are professionals. Or, at the very least, he is.

Characters

 * Sixth Doctor
 * Peri Brown
 * Olaf
 * Sigurd
 * Amy Bonteppi Ipo
 * Anders
 * The professor
 * Leticia Fanshaw
 * Otto, Graf von Ulfdorf
 * Mr Jeffries
 * Celeste
 * Sergeant Clough

Worldbuilding

 * Peri reminisces about Grand Central Station in New York.
 * Exurus Holdings Plc is the travel agency's parent company.
 * The Luconians were insectoids.
 * Cyril is an engineer.
 * Ms Ipo carries a chunky phase pistol.

Continuity
to be added