The Cold Equations was the twelfth and final story of the fifth series of The Companion Chronicles, produced by Big Finish Productions. It was written by Simon Guerrier and featured Peter Purves as the First Doctor and Steven Taylor and Tom Allen as Oliver Harper.
Publisher's summary[]
In the remnant of a shattered satellite, far above the ruined planet Earth, Steven Taylor and Oliver Harper are dying. As time runs out, they face their pasts... and a secret long kept is revealed.
The borrowed time is elapsing, and they realise they are facing an enemy that cannot be defeated. The cold, hard facts of science.
Plot[]
The Impassable Sky (1)[]
to be added
The Cold Equations (2)[]
to be added
Cast[]
Characters[]
- First Doctor
- Steven Taylor
- Oliver Harper
- Odgar
- Abaya
Crew[]
- Cover Art - Simon Holub
- Director - Lisa Bowerman
- Executive Producers - Nicholas Briggs and Jason Haigh-Ellery
- Music and Sound Design - Richard Fox and Lauren Yason @ FoxYason Studios
- Producer - David Richardson
- Script Editor - Jacqueline Rayner
- Writer - Simon Guerrier
Worldbuilding[]
- This is Oliver's first trip in the TARDIS.
- Remembering how the titular time machine traveled in the 1960 film The Time Machine, Oliver assumes the TARDIS stays put spatially. He is therefore surprised to step out into the space station, having expected to see Shoreditch in the "time of the dinosaurs" or the 21st century.
- Oliver compares the experience of seeing the future to Dan Dare.
- Oliver learned trigonometry in school.
- Callions are tall, twitchy humanoids with reddish skin, compared by Steven to fire and sunsets, and thick, sandy hair. Canny, good with details, and exacting in any deal, they were often encountered by Steven at trading posts.
- Long after the fall of its many empires, the Earth is a desolate place whose remaining population survive through lives of sustenance. It is orbited by a mass of space junk navigated by scavengers, like those of the True Jank Callion Empire, to claim what treasures lay on the surface.
- Radio waves carry in space.
- Steven retrieves the TARDIS by thinking in 6 dimensional codes, like trying to "catch a ball."
- Periapsis refers to an object's orbit.
Textless cover art
Notes[]
- This audio drama was recorded on 13 September 2010 at the Moat Studios.
- In the special features, writer Simon Guerrier cites inspiration for Oliver's character and experience of homosexuality in the 1960s from the 1961 film Victim, about a homosexual man on the run from the law, and the television series Mad Men, which featured a gay character.
- This story is set between The Daleks' Master Plan and The Massacre.
- This story is told from Steven and Oliver's perspective.
Continuity[]
- Oliver Harper reveals to Steven that he was on the run from the law for engaging in homosexual practices. (AUDIO: The Perpetual Bond)
- The Sixth Doctor would visit Earth again during a technological dark age, by that time known as Ravalox. (TV: The Mysterious Planet) In addition, the Doctor and Steven's recently deceased friend Sara Kingdom had her mind copied by the House on Ely during one of their travels, and she would end up regaining her corporeality during a dark age on Earth as well. (AUDIO: Home Truths, The Drowned World, The Guardian of the Solar System)
- The Doctor mocks Oliver's assumption that the TARDIS would travel in time, not space. In his eighth regeneration, the TARDIS, healing from the damage it suffered during AUDIO: Day of the Master, was constrained this way for a time. (AUDIO: Dead Time, UNIT Dating, Baker Street Irregulars, The Long Way Round)
External links[]
- Official The Cold Equations page at bigfinish.com
- The Cold Equations at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
