Doctor Who - Audio Details

On New year's Eve, 1930, the Doctor lets Charley keep her appointment at the Raffles Hotel in Singapore.  But his unease at what he's done to time by saving her life soon turns into fear.  Sebastian Grayle: immortal, obsessed, ruthless, has come to the city to meet the Time Lord.  To the Doctor, he's a complete stranger, but to Grayle, the Doctor is an old enemy.

An enemy that, many years ago, he finally succeeded in killing.  And this is his only chance to gloat.

The Doctor and Charley  desperately search human history for the secret of Grayle's power and immortality.  Their quest takes in four different time periods, the Hellfire Club, the court of Edward the Confessor and the time vortex itself.  And when the monsters arrive, the stakes are raised from the life of one Time Lord to the existence of all humanity.

SEASONS OF FEAR IS AN attempt to resurrect an ancient Doctor Who tradition: it's a 'road' story like The Chase or The Keys of Marinus, where our heroes desperately dash from one location to another in order to prevent dome terrible disaster, in this case the death of the Doctor himself.  It's also an attempt at a very traditional Doctor Who story , an exciting adventure against the odds, with moments of humour against a very dark background.  And it makes use of one of my favourite features of the 1996 TV movie: Paul McGann's formidable gift for narration.  It wouldn't have been like this without the intervention of my co-author.  When I was in the midst of a deadline crisis she took on a draft to sort out what was then a meandering plot, and ended up re-structuring the whole thing and providing a good half of the dialogue.  Caroline's a academic, and her career aims are ecclesiastical rather than literary.  The value she brought to this one-off experiment include seriousness of intent, historical detail and a turning away from the overt humour of my more recent Doctor Who work.  So if it's not silly enough for you, blame her!

Paul Cornell, December 2001

I WAS VERY SURPRISED WHEN I received a phone call from Paul asking me if I would write the second draft of Seasons of Fear, especially as I've never done anything like a Doctor Who audio before.  A surprise that turned to nerves when I realised who I would be writing for!  Nonetheless it was vastly exciting, working on a script and then hearing Paul McGann speaking the words I'd written.  Paul Cornell, of course, was the guy with the ideas and the good dialogue, but I hope my contribution of logic and a little more structure helped.  So thank you to everyone involved for giving me the chance to do something like this, and here's hoping that you all like the end result!

Caroline Symcox, December 2001