Sympathy for the Devil (Doctor Who audio)
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| Big Finish Productions audio play | |
 |
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| Sympathy for the Devil | |
|---|---|
| Series | Doctor Who Unbound |
| Release number | 2 |
| Featuring | David Warner as the Doctor Nicholas Courtney as the Brigadier |
| Writer | Jonathan Clements |
| Director | Gary Russell |
| Producer(s) | Jason Haigh-Ellery John Ainsworth |
| Executive producer(s) | Jacqueline Rayner |
| Production code | DWUN2 |
| Set between | after The War Games |
| Release date | June 2003 |
Sympathy for the Devil is a Big Finish Productions audio drama based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. The Doctor Who Unbound dramas pose a series of "What if...?" questions.
[edit] Plot
What if... the Doctor had not been UNIT's scientific advisor?
The Doctor arrives on Earth for his exile, not in the 1970s but in 1997, on the eve of Hong Kong's handover back to the Chinese government. He finds a world that has faced some three decades of alien invasions and other incidents without him to help, and old friends and enemies bitterly transformed.
It is revealed that under the alias Ke Le, the Master defected to China and used a machine based around alien parasites (as in The Mind of Evil) to brainwash political prisoners into the zombie-like Ke Le Division soldiers.
[edit] Cast
- The Doctor — David Warner
- The Brigadier — Nicholas Courtney
- Colonel Brimmicombe-Wood — David Tennant
- Ke Le — Sam Kisgart (an anagram of "Mark Gatiss", designed to conceal that actor's presence in the story before its release)
- Ling — Liz Sutherland
- The Abbot — Trevor Littledale
- Marcus — Mark Wright
- Captain Zerdin — Peter Griffiths
- Adam — Stuart Piper
Other parts played by members of the cast.
[edit] Notes
- Tennant's character Colonel Brimmicombe-Wood reappears in UNIT: The Wasting.
- Without the Doctor being UNIT's scientific advisor, several stories in this alternative universe had different outcomes, mentioned in passing in dialogue. The Auton invasions of Spearhead from Space and Terror of the Autons were dealt with by the "plastic purges", which caused a shortage; Captain Mike Yates took a UNIT team back into the past with several nuclear warheads to prevent the Silurians from awakening, and half of present-day London suddenly became a crater; the "Probe 7 fiasco" lead to a line of radioactive craters across America; lives were lost whenever UNIT provided security at a peace conference (Day of the Daleks, The Mind of Evil); and Stahlman's Gas is considered a hot investment tip.
- A sequel to this audio is slated for future release. It will feature David Warner's Doctor and the Brigadier, though no details about the plot are currently known. Its working title was The Dark Palace.
- In 2005, David Tennant would become the tenth actor to play the Doctor.
- In this audio drama, David Warner plays an alternative Third Doctor. He previously appeared with his "predecessor" Patrick Troughton in The Omen.
| Doctor Who Unbound audio dramas |
|---|
| Auld Mortality | Sympathy for the Devil | Full Fathom Five | He Jests at Scars... | Deadline | Exile | A Storm of Angels |
