Doctor Who - Audio Details

The human race is locked in deadly combat with the 'Android Hordes' in the Orion System.  Light years from the front line, the Doctor and Charley arrive to sample the dubious delights of a galactic backwater, little suspecting that the consequences of the Orion War might reach them there.  But High Command's lust for victory knowns no bounds.

Trapped aboard a mysterious, derelict star destroyer, the Doctor and Charley find themselves facing summary execution.  But this is only the beginning of their troubles.  The real danger has yet to awaken.

Until, somewhere in the dark recesses of the Garazone System, the Cybermen receive the signal for reactivation…

Although, for some strange reason, the tried and trusted formula of a Doctor Who story seems as familiar as a well loved old friend to me - and Sword of Orion itself is an adventure from a previous 'existence' of mine - this story was a grand opportunity for re-invention and re-imagining.  Producers Gary and Jason had often spoken to me of their wish to bring back Sword of Orion - as a crackling, hissing amateur analogue audio venture buried back in the 1980s, it had been flatteringly popular, but surely it wouldn't simply be a case of transcribing the original cassette and handing the result to Paul McGann, would it?

I have to admit that a surprisingly large amount of the original, fervently typed with two sore fingers on an Olivetti portable typewriter, does survive.  However, the re-invention centres around the new Doctor himself.  Not just because Paul's interpretation of the character has its own unique flavour, but because the only on-screen template for these new adventures was distinctly cinematic in nature.  So, in a way, I set out to write an audio movie.  Certainly in the opening episode, I wanted there to be the feeling that this could have been the next Doctor Who movie to be made.  Just a little bit of indulgence on my part, but my aim was to stitch this claustophobic Cyber encounter onto a broader, futuristic tapestry.

As for directing the new Doctor himself, my chief memory is of Paul's sense of fun and the slightly suspicious look he used to give me when I said, "Give me more 'foreboding', Paul."  Mind you, I have no idea of the expression on his face when I was directing him from a sound proof booth, with my voice Cyber-distorted.  How could the Doctor be expected to take direction from the Cyberleader himself?  Somehow, Paul managed it with consummate ease.

Nicholas Briggs, December 2000