6th Doctor
Out of the Darkness
Read by Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant
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Cover Blurb
Out of the Darkness

Three short stories, with added music and effects, read by the Sixth Doctor and his TV companion, Peri - Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant!

Moon Graffiti by Dave Stone
The Doctor and Peri become caught up in one of humanity's final fights for survival in the far future,battling against the all consuming power of the pararachnids...

Wish You Were Here by Guy Claperton
The Doctor investigates the disappearance of an old friend in an alien holiday camp. Is Lakksis, the cheery robot redcoat, as innocent as he seems?

Vigil by Michael Collier
When the Doctor and Peri arrive in Hastings, hideous deaths begin to occur. Can they really be linked in some way to a little girl in a coma?


Notes:
  • Read by Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant, with added music and effects, these short stories feature the Sixth Doctor and Peri.
  • Out of the Darkness was first released as a double CD, then on cassettes
    • Released: November 1998
    • ISBN: 0 563 55848 2
 
 
Stories
Moon Graffiti by Dave Stone Drn: 60'37"

Seeking a pocket sub-dimension with which to recalibrate the damaged TARDIS, the Doctor takes Peri to Earth in the far future after an invasion by Pararachnoids. The swarm has now departed Earth, leaving behind only the weak and crippled of its race -- although even they are still capable of tearing a human limb from limb. The Doctor and Peri encounter a young man in the ruins and are attacked by Pararachnoids, and the Doctor gives himself up to give Peri time to get to safety. She takes with her the glowing disc the young man was carrying, which turns out to be a tiny ship populated by a species of explorers called the Wibbly-Wee. Unfortunately, she is then captured by the monitor robots sent to return the young man to his place on the Line -- a conveyer belt of humans in suspended animation, who retreated underground to escape the Pararachnoid invasion. Due to a fault in the system the Monitors have concluded that the best way to protect their charges from the Pararachnoids is to keep them here, where they will never encounter a Pararachnoid. The Wibbly-Wee woke young Chimoani from his slumber hoping he could carry them to the materials they needed to repair their damaged ship. The Doctor and Chimoani manage to escape from the Pararachnoids, but they are followed back to the Line, which to the Pararachnoids seems like a giant buffet; and Peri has now been installed in Chimoani's place. The Doctor and Chimoani take the Wibbly-Wee ship to the control room, where the Line's organic operator died of a heart attack some time ago. Chimoani takes his place, and is able to reprogram the Monitors to drive off the attacking Pararachnoids. He then awakens the remnants of the human race. The Wibbly-Wee help the Doctor to repair the TARDIS before going, and he leaves the human race to begin rebuilding.

Time-Placement: Immediately after Vengeance on Varos, since the Doctor refers to the acquisition of zeiton-7 ore as only the first step in repairing the TARDIS.

Wish You were Here by Guy Clapperton Drn: 33'54"
See Short Trips

Vigil by Michael Collier Drn: 39'54"

The Doctor and Peri arrive in Hastings, where Peri is reunited with her college friend Martin and his domineering fiancee Meryl. The Doctor sets off to visit his own friend, pathologist Val Menard, only to find him mourning the loss of his 12-year-old daughter Lizzie, who has been in a coma since a recent car accident. Lizzie's caregiver, Martin and Meryl's friend Claire, was recently found battered to death in her car, but when Val performed an autopsy he found her blood had been powdered. The Doctor decides to investigate, and Peri spends the night at Martin and Meryl's, where she tells them about Claire's murder -- omitting the details of the powdered blood -- and learns that Martin now hates Meryl and can't imagine spending the rest of his life with her. Meanwhile, two more people die in exactly the same manner as Claire, and Val falls into a pocket Universe, populated by images of Lizzie. The Doctor realizes that the last time he visited the Menards he infected them with temporal microbes, tiny creatures from the Vortex with a taste for human life. When Lizzie fell into her coma the creatures responded to Val's grief by trying to bring her back -- by using their link to the TARDIS to telepathically project Lizzie's entire lifespan onto others in the near vicinity, killing them with the impact of all of Lizzie's childhood injuries inflicted at once. The Doctor is forced to leave Val in the microbes' pocket Universe, where the memories of Lizzie will keep him happy. He returns to find that Peri has just finished speaking to the police; Martin snapped during the night, beat Meryl to death, and tried to make it appear that she'd been killed by the same madman who beat Claire -- but failed since Peri hadn't told him about Claire's powdered blood.

Time-Placement: Val recognizes the Doctor instantly, which suggests he and Lizzie first met the Doctor's sixth incarnation; and since the Doctor suggests that the microbes infected his TARDIS after he experimented with changing its appearance, that first visit must have taken place after Attack of the Cybermen. Enough time has passed since then for Val to be regarded as an "old friend" of the Doctor's, but the Doctor and Peri are still somewhat harsh around each other, unlike their warm banter at the start of The Trial of a Time Lord. So I have put this towards the end of Season 22 but not immediately before "Trial".

Source: Cameron Dixon
  
 
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