Peri and the Piscon Paradox (audio story)

Peri and the Piscon Paradox was the seventh release of the fifth series of the Companion Chronicles produced by Big Finish Productions. It was also the first Companion Chronicles release to feature an actor who played the Doctor, with Colin Baker playing his role of the Sixth Doctor. However, Nicola Bryant provides narration as well as the Fifth Doctor's dialogue.

Publisher's summary

The Doctor and Peri journey to Los Angeles 2009 to do battle with a Piscon. His name is Zarl, and he's a fish of utmost evil.

Zarl is going to steal all the water of Earth and sell it to the highest bidder. Or blow up the San Andreas fault. Or the planet. Or something like that. He's a bit vague on that point.

Fortunately, to stop him there's help from an unexpected source: a future version of Peri. She knows Zarl's dark secret.

But should the future Peri be on Earth at all? Something smells fishy — and it's not just Zarl.

Plot

to be added

Cast

Peri Brown - Nicola Bryant
The Doctor - Colin Baker

Characters

References

Cultural references from the real world

Peri says there was panic about diseases during the 1980s.
The Peri of 2009 mentions the "credit crunch".
Peri compares the expression on Carburetor's face to a face on a Picasso painting.

Music

Peri wonders if Frankie Goes to Hollywood is still popular in 2009.
Peri remembers the Dolly Parton song Diamonds in the Stream.

Films and TV series

Peri mentions the game show Jeopardy!.
On seeing her older self for the first time, the young Peri wonders if she is an actress who used to play the Fonz's girlfriend in Happy Days or a "green good time girl" in Star Trek.
Peri compares the future Peri to Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's.
Peri nicknamed her first boyfriend 'Curious George'.
The older Peri tells her younger self that she is in the employ of a secret government organisation known as the X-Files. The younger Peri, being from 1984, is totally unaware that The X-Files is a science fiction television series from the 1990s and takes her at her word. The Fifth Doctor, however, is familiar with the series. He comments that it was never as good after David Duchovny left. He commends the older Peri for her quick thinking and for not revealing anything to her younger self about her personal future.
Carburetor says the explosion of the car is like an Industrial Light and Magic special effect. She says it is almost as good as Star Wars.
The older Peri's relationship counselling TV series has a higher Nielsen rating than Dr. Phil.

Literature

Peri compares the Fifth Doctor's actions to a character in a P. G. Wodehouse novel.

The Doctor

The Doctor is able to defeat Zarl by throwing his cricket ball.
Peri compares the Doctor's accent to Prince Charles's.
The Peri of 2009 wonders if the Doctor could regenerate into George Clooney, and compares regeneration to the reinvention of Madonna.

Peri

Peri's parents, Janine and Paul Brown, were married on 21 November 1962.
Peri's aunt Mona dresses in a similar manner to the Sixth Doctor. She collects golliwogs, which she orders from England.
The present day Peri is in her 40s and has been married three times.
Peri has a degree in botany.
Peri has previously worked as a Samaritan.
Peri eats Doritos.

Theories and concepts

Both the Fifth and Sixth Doctors mention the Blinovitch Limitation Effect.
The Sixth Doctor mentions the web of time.

Notes

This story explains in more detail what happened to Peri after the Trial of a Time Lord story arc. Specifically, it reveals that there are no less than five versions of Peri Brown in existence, each created by Time Lord interference in her timeline - not including the original, who was killed in TV: Mindwarp. One of the five rescued Peris married Yrcanos and became a warrior queen (TV: The Ultimate Foe, PROSE: Bad Therapy), while another version narrates Part 2 of this story, only remembering the events of TV: Planet of Fire. The nature of the other three versions is not revealed, though one may be the version who remained on Krontep after marrying Yrcanos (PROSE: Reunion) as opposed to returning to Earth (PROSE: Bad Therapy); in addition the Target novelisation of Mindwarp has Peri and Yrcanos returning to Earth in the 20th century. Another version of Peri who is only married to Yracnos for seven days and rejoins the Doctor in his travels appears in the audio story The Widow's Assassin. It is also possible one of the "other Peris" may have been created with the encounter between the younger and older Peri, since no reference is made to this rather disturbing incident in The Caves of Androzani or any other Peri story.
This story features several meetings and even a physical altercation between the Fifth and Sixth Doctors, though the Fifth Doctor remains unaware of his future self's identity.
Disc 1 tells the story from the Fifth Doctor and the younger Peri's viewpoint whereas Disc 2 re-explores the story from the Sixth Doctor and the older Peri's view. Although Nicola Bryant performs the voice of the Fifth Doctor, Colin Baker himself performs the Sixth Doctor, becoming the first Doctor actor to appear in a Companion Chronicles release. Also, befitting a story set in two different eras, Part 1 uses the Peter Howell theme arrangement in place at the time that Bryant joined the series during Season 21, and Part 2 uses the Dominic Glynn theme used at the time she left during Season 23.
The first and second halves of this story take place at the same time. The same is true of both AUDIO: Flip-Flop and AUDIO: The Veiled Leopard.
This audio drama was recorded on 11 and 12 November 2009.

Continuity

The Fifth Doctor compares the Piscons to the Pescatons, however he believes the Pescatons are more violent. He says they both originated from the Piscos star system and that their world was destroyed by an expanding sun. (AUDIO: Doctor Who and the Pescatons)
The younger Peri wonders if her mother Janine Foster is still alive in 2009. (AUDIO: The Reaping)
The older Peri claims that the disappearance of the crew of the Mary Celeste was caused by Piscons wanting to take over human forms. This was later revealed to be completely made up. In reality, the First Doctor and his companions Ian Chesterton, Barbara Wright and Vicki Pallister were indirectly responsible for their disappearance. (TV: The Chase) The Doctor had discovered his own involvement with the crew's disappearance by the time of his second incarnation. (AUDIO: The Forsaken, The Rosemariners) Earlier in his personal timeline, the Fifth Doctor told Alan Fitzgerald, a student summer intern at the Gogglebox, that he was "sort of" responsible. (AUDIO: The Gathering)
Following their encounter with the older Peri, the Fifth Doctor and the younger Peri travel to Androzani Minor in the Sirius star system. (TV: The Caves of Androzani)
In an attempt to jog the older Peri's memories, the Sixth Doctor mentions Sil (TV: Vengeance on Varos, AUDIO: Mission to Magnus, TV: Mindwarp), the Tractators (AUDIO: The Hollows of Time), the Ice Warriors (AUDIO: Red Dawn, The Bride of Peladon, Mission to Magnus) and Davros (TV: Revelation of the Daleks).
The Sixth Doctor claims that he has been having difficulty with his memory since his most recent regeneration. This could account for the fact that he did not remember meeting Kathy Chambers for the first time in his personal timeline in Brisbane, Australia in September 2006 while in his fifth incarnation (AUDIO: The Gathering) when they met for the second time (from his perspective) in Baltimore, Maryland in September 1984 while in his sixth incarnation (AUDIO: The Reaping).
The older Peri remembers her first encounter with the Doctor involving a "robot with an identity crisis", "some religious types", a "crazy guy with a beard" and Turlough. (TV: Planet of Fire) She only remembers their first encounter because of interference from the Time Lords, as happened with Jamie McCrimmon and Zoe Heriot. (TV: The War Games)
The Sixth Doctor remembers his previous incarnation and the younger Peri encountering the older version of Peri defeating Zarl in Los Angeles in 2009. This is similar to PROSE: Cold Fusion in which the Seventh Doctor remembers the events of the novel from the perspective of the Fifth Doctor and uses this knowledge against his younger self.
Though it is not stated directly, the older Peri was presumably returned to Earth at some point after September 1984. (AUDIO: The Reaping)
An unidentified Doctor, likely the seventh, would later visit the version of Peri serving as princess, who would not forgive him for abandoning her. (PROSE: Reunion)
The Doctor says that humanity had conquered half the galaxy by 2050. (TV: Kill the Moon, The Waters of Mars)
Peri wonders if Earth is being invaded all the time by 2009. (TV: Aliens of London/World War Three, The Stolen Earth/Journey's End et al.)
The Doctor offers the older Peri a chance to travel with him in the TARDIS again. He would later give the same offer to the version of Peri on Krontep. (AUDIO: The Widow's Assassin)
The Time Lord tells Peri that the Peri living with King Yrcanos has three children, something she wanted but could not have as this version lost the ability to reproduce through abuse from her husband Davey Silverman, and was content that a version of her was able to have it. In another version of events, Peri had been rendered infertile through her exposure to spectrox toxaemia on Androzani Minor. (AUDIO: The Widow's Assassin)

External links

Official Peri and the Piscon Paradox page at bigfinish.com
Peri and the Piscon Paradox at the Doctor Who Reference Guide

Tardis