The Iron Shore (audio story)

The Iron Shore was the third and final story in the audio anthology The Return of Jo Jones, produced by Big Finish Productions. It was written by Lizzie Hopley and featured Tim Treloar as the Third Doctor and Katy Manning as Jo Jones.

Publisher's summary
Landing on the troubled, sea-faring planet Mercator, the Doctor and Jo encounter Callis, a 'cursed man', the last surviving member of his family line - and the curse is keen to find new victims.

Nearby, a condemned wet dock, a deep rectangle of unmoving water, is the source of mystifying rumours. As Jo lifts the lid on the tensions within the local community, the Doctor finds himself in deep trouble.

Part one
Almost immediately after the Doctor and Jo land on the iron shores of Mercator, a number of girders collapse onto the TARDIS. Jo goes to a pub with dock warden Callis, who seems to be terrified of everybody, and learns from Merileen that the majority of his family died in unexplained circumstances over the course of two years. After hearing stories about Callis and a ghost in the wet dock from Tamber, the Doctor joins Jo and sets up a monitoring station to build a map of the dock.

The Doctor discovers that there is a shipping crate in the dock which Tamber agrees to have winched to the surface, believing it to have been dropped by the now-scrapped Granicus, which was transporting skins when the entire crew was wiped out. Jo looks for the Granicus's records to find out what was on board and is told by Callis that they have disappeared. He believes that everybody aboard died because of a curse which has since passed to him, killing his family and friends. When the crate is lifted, it is found to be empty aside from an energy residue.

Jo goes to speak with the native Iron Pickers and is approached by Merileen, who confirms that she is one of them. Merileen tells her about how they were enslaved by the Mercateers led by an ancestor of Callis's, whom her people cursed and sent the creature Solomun after. She goes to the dock and sees Solomun, who communicates with her telepathically and shows her his journey, repeating his name as she begs him to stop pulling her into the water.

Part two
The Doctor uses low-voltage electrodes to break Solomun's grip on Jo and get her to safety. After the Iron Pickers fall to their deaths from the cliff, the Doctor has Jo and Callis chain his legs to ensure that Solomun cannot drag him beneath the water and allows him to make contact. Solomun recounts how he killed Callis's ancestor, Solomun Callis, and took his name due to him being the first in his series of killings. He is not a victim as Jo initially believed but a hunter who latches onto people and kills everybody linked to them. As a result of Solomun entering the Doctor's mind, he now knows about his people and the TARDIS.

Tamber and his men put together a cage connected to the power of the TARDIS. The Doctor enters the cage and is lowered into the water without a diving suit. He offers to show Solomun another way of living without being a monster and is eventually raised to the surface with Solomun wrapped around him. He activates the current, apparently killing both Solomun and himself. Jo waits by the Doctor's body for him to regenerate and follows Solomun into the TARDIS when he is revealed to still be alive and somehow gets inside, deducing that the Doctor allowed him to do so so that he would be confused by the dimensions of the TARDIS and take comfort in a smaller matter converter.

The Doctor awakens thanks to the TARDIS's telepathic defibrillator and confirms that Solomun was too intelligent for him to trick without also making Jo and the others believe it. Jo takes Callis to speak with Merileen about what has happened and how they can rebuild Mercator and returns to the TARDIS where the Doctor has decided to take Solomun to sleep out the rest of his days in an asteroid field. They dematerialise, and Solomun moans his name, signifying that he is awake.

Cast

 * The Doctor - Tim Treloar
 * Jo Jones - Katy Manning
 * Callis - Tom Alexander
 * Merileen - Paksie Vernon
 * Tamber / Solomun - Sam Clemens

Worldbuilding

 * Jo has seen a wet dock on the Old Dock Road in Liverpool.
 * Solomun Callis was Callis's ancestor.
 * Solomun is an energy convertor.
 * The Doctor decides to take Solomun to an asteroid field closed off by the Intergalactic Trust.

Continuity

 * Jo has been in a diving suit before. (AUDIO: Prisoners of the Lake)
 * The Doctor mentions Aggedor as an example of a reformed monster. (TV: The Curse of Peladon)