Here There Be Monsters (audio story)

Here There Be Monsters was the first story of the third series in The Companion Chronicles audio range. It was produced by Big Finish Productions and was the first audio story to feature a non-Unbound version of Susan Foreman. It was written by Andy Lane and featured the First Doctor, Susan, Ian, and Barbara.

Publisher's summary Edit

A new adventure with the First Doctor as told by his grand-daughter, Susan.

"It was a terrible sound, like someone had just stabbed the universe and it was crying out in pain."

The distant future. The TARDIS, with the Doctor, Susan, Ian and Barbara aboard, is drawn out of the Vortex and lands aboard the Earth Benchmarking Vessel Nevermore, where Captain Rostrum is navigating by punching holes in the very fabric of space. The Doctor is appalled by this act of vandalism, and fearful that it could unleash monsters from the dark dimensions.

As the benchmarking holes begin to fray, the fate of the universe is at stake. And while the Doctor contemplates a terrible sacrifice, Susan befriends the Nevermore's First Mate — someone she will remember for the rest of her life...

Plot Edit

The Hole in Space (1) Edit

to be added

Messages from the Other Side (2) Edit

to be added

Cast Edit

• Susan Foreman/Rostrum - Carole Ann Ford
• The First Mate - Stephen Hancock

References Edit

• Susan claims that having a perfect memory is "the curse of her people."
• When she travelled with her grandfather, Susan was already older than Ian and Barbara combined.
• By Time Lord standards, the First Doctor is considered an adolescent.
• Rostrum's species were created to pilot Earth's ships and spread the Human Empire.
• The Nevermore uses gravitational singularities to punch holes in space every tenth of a light-year. Eventually a fissure rips open between two holes, which Ian tries to understand by comparing it to fabric, paper, or layers of Arctic ice, but the fissure isn't like that.
• The fabric of space (and time) is weak, more so in some areas.
• Susan mentions the TARDIS's time engines.
• Rostrum refers to a "Human Empire".

Notes Edit

• This was the first time that Carole Ann Ford reprised her role as the DWU Susan Foreman for Big Finish Productions. However, she had previously played an alternate version of Susan in the Doctor Who Unbound stories Auld Mortality and A Storm of Angels.
• This audio drama was recorded on 30 April 2008.

Continuity Edit

• Susan refers to her departure from Gallifrey with her grandfather, claiming that she was "an accidental passenger." (PROSE: Lungbarrow; COMIC: Time & Time Again; TV: The Name of the Doctor)
• Susan has never told her husband David Campbell that she is not human. (TV: The Dalek Invasion of Earth)
• Susan wonders if Ian and Barbara ever became a couple. (PROSE: The Face of the Enemy; TV: Death of the Doctor)
• Susan recalls the petrified forest on Skaro and her first encounter with the Daleks. (TV: The Daleks)
• Susan is beginning to realise she will need to leave the Doctor soon and make her own life. The Doctor is also intending to leave her somewhere safe, as he believes the Time Lords will be after him for changing history. (PROSE: The Time Travellers)
• The spaceship upon which the TARDIS lands has a jungle in it. Ian suggests that it provides oxygen, similar to the Byzantium's Treeborgs. (TV: Flesh and Stone)

• Rostrum's appearance is reminiscent of the Animus. (TV: The Web Planet)
• This is the Doctor's first meeting with live, intelligent vegetation. He would later encounter the Weed creature, (TV: Fury from the Deep) Krynoids, (TV: The Seeds of Doom) the Vervoids, (TV: Terror of the Vervoids) and the Forest of Cheem. (TV: The End of the World)
• Susan refers to her time at Coal Hill School. (TV: An Unearthly Child)

External links Edit

• Official Here There Be Monsters page at bigfinish.com
• Here There Be Monsters at the Doctor Who Reference Guide