Players
Doctor:	Sixth Doctor
Companion(s):	Peri Brown
Featuring:	Second Doctor
Main enemy:	The Players (Countess Malika Treszka / Andrea Razetki, Count Ludwig Kroner / Ludwig Praetorius) Wallis Simpson King Edward VIII Joachim von Ribbentrop
Main setting:	Rigel VII South Africa, Earth, November 1899 France, Earth, 18 November 1915 London and South England, UK and Berlin, Nazi Germany, Earth, December 1936
Key crew
Publisher:	BBC Books
Writer:	Terrance Dicks
Release details
Release number:	21
Release date:	April 1999
Format:	Paperback Book, 251 Pages
ISBN 0-563-55573-4
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Players was the twenty-first BBC Past Doctor Adventures novel. It featured the Sixth Doctor and Peri Brown. It was the first novel to mention and feature Season 6B - the period between the end of TV: The War Games and Spearhead from Space.

Publisher's summary Edit

1999 BBC Books summary Edit

Promising his companion, Peri, high society elegance in fin-de-siecle London, the Sixth Doctor manages to hit the right time, but the wrong place...

The TARDIS has landed on the sun-baked veldt in the middle of a Boer War skirmish. And soon the Doctor and Peri are involved in the adventures of a struggling politician and war correspondent who they know is destined for greater things - a certain Winston Churchill. But mysterious forces seem to be interfering in his potentially great career...

Arriving in London, the Doctor and Peri enter high society but find themselves in a world of intrigue populated by notorious figures from Wallis Simpson to Joachim von Ribbentrop. And behind everything, the Doctor senses the hidden hand of the Players - mysterious beings who regard human history as no more than a chess board. Can the Doctor and Peri find the right moves to defeat them - before it's too late?

2013 BBC Books summary Edit

Arriving on the sun-baked veldt in the middle of the Boer War, the Sixth Doctor is soon involved in the adventures of struggling politician and war correspondent Winston Churchill. Of course, he knows Churchill is destined for great things, but unseen forces seem to be interfering with Winston's historic career... The Doctor suspects the hidden hand of the Players, mysterious beings who regard human history as little more than a game. With time running out, can the Doctor find the right moves to defeat them?

Plot Edit

to be added

Characters Edit

• Sixth Doctor
• Second Doctor
• Peri Brown
• Winston Churchill
• Edward VIII
• King Adelebert

References Edit

Locations Edit

• Punishment Zone

Planets Edit

• Metebelis III

Species Edit

• The inhabitants of Rigel Seven, large and lumpy
• The Players, humanoid

Notes Edit

• The novel was reprinted in 2013 with a new cover to celebrate the Doctor Who 50th Anniversary.

Continuity Edit

• The Doctor uses a Gallifreyan Army knife to escape a dungeon on Rigel Seven. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus, Blood Harvest)
• Peri complains about "lousy caves", (TV: The Caves of Androzani) "paranoid gastropods", (TV: The Twin Dilemma) the Cybermen (TV: Attack of the Cybermen) and "a punishment dome dedicated to torture and death". (TV: Vengeance on Varos)
• The Pinkerton Private Investigation Agency first appeared in PROSE: Shakedown.
• Later in his personal timeline, the Seventh Doctor would meet Tom Dekker in Chicago in 1929. When Dekker mentions that he knew a "funny little fella" called the Doctor who ran a speakeasy with a girl named Ace, Peri speculates that he may be referring to a future incarnation of the Doctor. The Sixth Doctor dismisses the idea out of hand. (PROSE: Blood Harvest)
• The Doctor mentions that he has met Dracula. (AUDIO: Son of the Dragon)
• Winston Churchill meets the Doctor for the first time in his personal timeline in 1899 while he is in his sixth incarnation. He later meets the Second Doctor in November 1915 and the Sixth Doctor again in December 1936. He would later meet the Sixth Doctor for a third time in 1942 (PROSE: The Shadow in the Glass) and the Eleventh Doctor in 1941. (TV: Victory of the Daleks) Furthermore, the Eleventh Doctor would later meet a version of Churchill who existed in an alternative timeline in which all of history was occurring at once. In that timeline, Churchill was the Holy Roman Emperor. (TV: The Wedding of River Song)
• The Seventh Doctor would later meet Joachim von Ribbentrop once again in 1939. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus)
• The December 1936 sequences take place contemporaneously with the events of PROSE: Wolfsbane.
• The Eighth Doctor will meet the Players and the Countess again in (PROSE: Endgame)
• The Tenth Doctor would later meet Edward VIII's great-grandmother, Queen Victoria, in 1879 (TV: Tooth and Claw) and his grandfather, Edward VII, in 1902. (PROSE: Revenge of the Judoon)

External links Edit

• Detailed synopsis of Players at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
• The Discontinuity Guide to: Players at The Whoniverse