Invaders from Mars (audio story)

Invaders from Mars was the twenty-eighth monthly Doctor Who audio story produced by Big Finish Productions. It was the first in a series of 6 audio stories that begins the second "season" of Eighth Doctor stories. It featured Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor and India Fisher as Charlotte Pollard.

Publisher's summary

Hallowe'en 1938.

A month after a mysterious meteorite lit up the skies of New York State, Martian invaders laid waste to the nation. At least, according to soon-to-be infamous Orson Welles they did. But what if some of the panicked listeners to the legendary The War of the Worlds broadcast weren't just imagining things?

Attempting to deliver Charley to her rendezvous in Singapore 1930, the Eighth Doctor overshoots a little, arriving in Manhattan just in time to find a dead private detective. Indulging his gumshoe fantasies, the Doctor is soon embroiled in the hunt for a missing Russian scientist whilst Charley finds herself at the mercy of a very dubious Fifth Columnist.

With some genuinely out of this world 'merchandise' at stake, the TARDIS crew are forced into an alliance with a sultry dame called Glory Bee, Orson Welles himself and a mobster with half a nose known as 'The Phantom'.

And slowly and surely, something is drawing plans against them. Just not very good ones...

Plot

to be added

DWM 313 INVADERS — Illustration preview by Martin Geraghty in DWM 313

Cast

References

The Doctor tells Charley that, in the 11th century, an "amoral Time Lord" (possibly the Monk) altered history by providing King Canute with technology which allowed him to turn back the tide and gain greater influence over Saxon England than he would have done otherwise. The Doctor set history back on its correct course.
H. G. Wells' novel The War of the Worlds is mentioned and referenced several times due, of course, to it being the basis for Orson Welles' radio play.
The Doctor is astonished that Orson Welles is ignorant of William Shakespeare's identity. (Moreso considering Welles was known for his Shakespearean work, even in the 1930s.)
Orson Welles' radio series is sponsored by Campbell Soup. Perhaps this is due to the changes in the timeline, but in the real world Campbell Soup didn't begin sponsoring the show until several months after the broadcast of War of the Worlds.
The Laiderplacker are the invaders.

Notes

The first episode was specially released as a bonus on the original CD of The Ratings War.
The title references the 1953 science fiction film Invaders from Mars.
One of Houseman's lines - "George, what are you doing with those keys?"- is aimed at George Coulouris, who appeared in Welles' broadcast as well as Citizen Kane and later starred as Arbitan in TV: The Keys of Marinus.
The headline on the Invaders from Mars cover is from a real newspaper reporting the War of the Worlds panic. The imitation poster on the CD booklet was drawn by Mark Gatiss.
This audio drama was recorded on 16 and 17 January 2001.
Invaders From Mars has several connections to the TV series Spaced Not only was it written by, and starred cast members Simon Pegg and Jessica Stevenson, but Invaders writer/director Mark Gatiss, and Paul Putner also had guest appearances. The two also both revolve around the idea of audience reactions to popular culture.
Actors David Benson and Ian Hallard both appeared in the Doctor Who episode Robot of Sherwood, which was also written by Mark Gatiss.

Continuity

The Sixth Doctor previously met H. G. Wells, the author of The War of the Worlds, in Scotland during the summer of 1885 and subsequently took him on a trip to the planet Karfel. (TV: Timelash) Many years later in his personal timeline, the Tenth Doctor would meet Wells once again in 1889. He intimated that they would have a third encounter later in Wells' personal timeline which occurred earlier in his own. (COMIC: The Time Machination)
The Doctor once again speed reads a book in a matter of seconds. (TV: City of Death, TV: Rose, TV: The Time of Angels)
The reason for Welles' ignorance of Shakespeare is revealed in AUDIO: The Time of the Daleks.
In AUDIO: Neverland, it is revealed why there are forty-nine states in the USA (instead of forty-eight in 1938) and how the CIA, which was actually founded in 1947, can exist in 1938.
The Celestial Toymaker would later refer to Orson Welles in a riddle while Charley was playing his games in the Celestial Toyroom. (AUDIO: Solitaire)
Later during his eighth incarnation, the Doctor and his companion Tamsin Drew would become embroiled in the events surrounding an actual Martian invasion in the 23rd century, though not of Earth but Mars itself. After the settings on their suspended animation chambers in the Deimos catacombs were altered by the Monk, one of the Doctor's fellow renegade Time Lords, to ensure that they awoke several centuries early, nine Ice Warriors led by Lord Slaadek captured the moonbase located on Mars' moon Deimos. Their intention was to use the atmospheric re-ioniser stored in the base to return Mars' atmosphere to the state in which it had existed millions of years earlier so their ancestral home planet would be once again amenable to their physiology. However, their plan was ultimately defeated by the Doctor and his former companion Lucie Miller. (AUDIO: Deimos / The Resurrection of Mars)

External links

Official Invaders from Mars page at bigfinish.com
Invaders from Mars at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
DisContinuity for Invaders from Mars at Tetrapyriarbus - The DisContinuity Guide

Tardis

Invaders from Mars (audio story)

Contents