Sympathy for the Devil (Doctor Who audio)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Big Finish Productions audio play
Album cover
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 The War Games and Engines of Destruction
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.

Contents

[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

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, the Brigadier and Davros, though no details about the plot are currently known. Its working title is Engines Of Destruction.
  • In 2005, David Tennant became the tenth actor to play the Doctor on television.
  • In this audio drama, David Warner plays an alternative Third Doctor. He previously appeared with his "predecessor" Patrick Troughton in The Omen.
  • This audio's dialogue contains a number of quoted references to "Sympathy for the Devil", a well-known song by the Rolling Stones.
  • This is the first audio drama to feature a Time Lord regenerating.

[edit] External links

[edit] Reviews