Sympathy for the Devil
Main character(s):	The Doctor
Featuring:	Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart (Unbound)
Main enemy:	The Master (Unbound)
Main setting:	Hong Kong, 30 June to 1 July 1997 (alternative timeline)
Key crew
Publisher:	Big Finish Productions
Writer:	Jonathan Clements
Director:	Gary Russell
Producer:	Gareth Jenkins
Release details
Release number:	2
Release date:	June 2003
Format:	1 CD
Production code:	DWUN02
ISBN 1-84435-013-4
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Publisher's summary Edit

1997... and a lone exile arrives on Earth, years later than planned.

On the eve of the Handover, an advanced Chinese stealth bomber crashes in the hills above Hong Kong. The discredited United Nations Intelligence Taskforce has just 24 hours to steal the technology, rescue the passenger and flee to international waters.

Down by the harbour, there’s big trouble in Little England -- a bar owned by an old soldier who simply wants to forget the past. But an ancient evil is stirring in a place of peace.

The Doctor finds a world on the brink of terror. A world that has lived without him for years. A world that is frighteningly like our own...

Plot Edit

to be added

Cast Edit

• The Doctor - David Warner
• Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart - Nicholas Courtney
• Colonel Ross Brimmicombe-Wood - David Tennant
• The Master (Colonel Ke Le) - Sam Kisgart
• Ling - Liz Sutherland
• The Abbot - Trevor Littledale
• Marcus - Mark Wright
• Captain Zerdin - Peter Griffiths
• Adam - Stuart Piper

References Edit

The Doctor Edit

• The Doctor says he can speak Mandarin, Cantonese, Manchu, Mongolian and Haikun.
• To the Chinese, he is known as Hu: the Tiger, for his courage; Hu: the Fox, for his cunning and Xue: Doctor (he who tends to the sick). The last is his personal favourite.

History Edit

• The Boxer Rebellion is said to have been the result of the mind parasites.

The Master Edit

• The Master briefly worked as a United Nations advisor before defecting to China.
• The defection, along with UNIT trying to seize Chinese technology, imply China has left the UN.

Notes Edit

• This is the first on audio regeneration.
• The original idea was drastically different: "My first idea was to do something that capitalised on the world over-run with Silurians and dinosaurs, with no plastics available; a kind of post-holocaust situation. I had this idea for an opening sequence inspired by Aliens, with a UNIT squad decimated by shrieking raptors, and a group of medics dragging a mortally wounded Brigadier to safety while an officer screams: "Somebody get me a doctor!" And then you hear the TARDIS materialising, and the theme music kicks in." [1]
• This audio drama was recorded on 24 March 2003.

Continuity Edit

• The events of DW: The War Games have just taken place with the Doctor being exiled to Earth.
• Alternate versions of Third Doctor stories include: the Autons resulting in the "plastic purges", an economically damaging action; the there was an attack by the Silurians ("the lizards"), stopped by Mike Yates travelling back in time to nuke the Silurians before they awoke in the 1970s (at the cost of a crater in the middle of London); the events of DW: The Ambassadors of Death lead to a line of mile-wide craters across the United States of America; Stahlman Gas (DW: Inferno) is still an ongoing project; lives lost whenever UNIT handled a peace conference, a dual reference to DW: The Mind of Evil or Day of the Daleks.
• Every alien attack has been repulsed by more draconian and destructive methods than in the show, leaving the Brigadier disgraced due to the lack of evidence of alien threats. Brimmicombe-Wood states that the Brigadier also once ordered the saturation bombing of Surrey, that he's known for "a mad story about dinosaurs" to describe the London crater, and that tabloid The Sun had a headline "Barmy Brig in Fake Flower Fiasco" (referring to the events DW: Terror of the Autons). Notably, Brimmicombe-Wood doesn't believe the stories about aliens, despite being a high-ranking UNIT officer.
• Clements has stated that DW: The Mind of Evil is "the critical moment" in the alternative timeline. [2] The Master defected to China after the (alternate) events of this story, the Mind parasites are the same creatures used in the Keller Machine, and the Master's alias (Ke Le) is a Chinese version of his "Emil Keller" one.
• As established The Mind of Evil, the Doctor once knew Chairman Mao. There, while talking to a Chinese ambassador, the Doctor claims he was with Mao on the Long March in 1936. However, the Doctor says he only knew Mao as a librarian, indicating he was lying in The Mind of Evil to get into the ambassador's good graces. The Master informs the Doctor that Mao "spoke ever so highly of you", and the Doctor's reply indicates that he knew about Mao's future when he met him.
• The Master, upon entering what he thinks is the Doctor's TARDIS, mutters "a new TARDIS ... at last", referring to DW: The Keeper of Traken where he mutters "a new body ... at last" upon possessing Tremas.
• Adam mentions watching Professor X. (NA: No Future)
• In the proper timeline, the Seventh Doctor would also visit Hong Kong at the time of the Handover of the island to Chinese rule and was reunited with his former travelling companion Sarah Jane Smith. (PDA: Bullet Time)
• In the proper timeline, Colonel Brimmicomb-Wood succeeded Brigadier Winifred Bambera as the head of the British division of UNIT in 1997, serving that position until his apparent kidnapping by ICIS. In reality, he was a double agent and the commanding officer of ICIS who faked his own kidnapping to create chaos in UNIT. He was involved in attempts to bring down the British government for reasons of ultra-nationalism, and was imprisoned for his actions. (BFU: Time Heals, BFU: The Wasting)

Timeline Edit

• Sympathy for the Devil occurs after DW: The War Games (for the Doctor) and an alternative version of DW: Invasion of the Dinosaurs (for humanity)
• Sympathy for the Devil occurs before BFDWU: Masters of War

External links Edit

• Official Sympathy for the Devil page at bigfinish.com
• Detailed synopsis of Sympathy for the Devil at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
• DisContinuity for Sympathy for the Devil at Tetrapyriarbus - The DisContinuity Guide

v • e Regeneration stories For the purposes of this list, a "regeneration story" is one in which a regeneration is actually and initially depicted. For this reason The War Games is not included below, even though it is commonly thought of as a "regeneration story". It doesn't actually include a clear scene of regeneration, and the preponderance of stories in other media confirm that the Second Doctor did not regenerate at the end of it. Additionally, immediate post-regeneration stories, like the 2005 Children in Need Special — and ones like Castrovalva, where the regeneration sequence was replayed — are not included. The Doctor Television The Tenth Planet  • Planet of the Spiders  • Logopolis  • The Caves of Androzani  • Time and the Rani  • Doctor Who  • The Parting of the Ways  • The Stolen Earth / Journey's End  • The End of Time Comics TVC: The Night Walkers Non-canonical Comic Relief: The Curse of Fatal Death, BFDWU: Sympathy for the Devil, Full Fathom Five Others Television Planet of the Spiders  • Underworld  • Destiny of the Daleks  • Mawdryn Undead  • Utopia  • Day of the Moon  • Let's Kill Hitler Prose MA: Cold Fusion  • NA: First Frontier  • NA: Happy Endings  • NA: Lungbarrow  • EDA: The Scarlet Empress  • EDA: Interference - Book Two  • EDA: The Taking of Planet 5  • EDA: The Shadows of Avalon  • BNA: Tears of the Oracle Audio BFA: Unregenerate!  • BFBS: The Adventure of the Diogenes Damsel Regeneration is usually considered a biologic process exclusive to Time Lords and a few other species. However, some consider K9TV: Regeneration and The Eclipse of the Korven to also be "regeneration stories", though neither describes anything close to a biological process. Korven is a particularly hard one to include in this list, because K9 is said to "regenerate" but is largely physically unchanged.

v • e The Master's stories Delgado Pratt Beevers These actors are linked because EDA: Legacy of the Daleks asserts they're the same incarnation and no licensed story contradicts this. Television DW: Terror of the Autons  • The Mind of Evil  • The Claws of Axos  • Colony in Space  • The Dæmons  • The Sea Devils  • The Time Monster  • Frontier in Space  • The Deadly Assassin  • The Keeper of Traken Prose MA: Who Killed Kennedy  • MA: The Dark Path  • EDA: The Eight Doctors  • EDA: Legacy of the Daleks  • PDA: The Face of the Enemy  • PDA: Deadly Reunion  • PDA: Last of the Gaderene  • PDA: Verdigris  • PHS: Smash Hit  • DWY: Reconnaissance  • TVC: The One Second Hour  • DWAN: Doorway into Nowhere  • DWAN: Listen - The Stars  • DWAN: Out of the Green Mist  • VD: The Duke of Dominoes  • ST: The Seismologist's Story  • ST: Hidden Talent  • ST: The Switching  • ST: Freedom  • Doctor Who Fights Masterplan "Q" Audio BFA: Trail of the White Worm Comics PHS: Fogbound  • DWM: The Man in the Ion Mask Ainley Television DW: The Keeper of Traken  • Logopolis  • Castrovalva  • Time-Flight  • The King's Demons  • The Five Doctors  • Planet of Fire  • The Mark of the Rani  • The Ultimate Foe  • Survival Video games Doctor Who and the Mines of Terror  • Destiny of the Doctors Prose PDA: Prime Time  • PDA: The Quantum Archangel  • RT: Birth of a Renegade  • DWAN: Night Flight to Nowhere  • DWAN: The Creation of Camelot  • DWAN: The Time Savers  • DWAN: The Fellowship of Quan  • DWAN: The Radio Waves  • ST: Stop the Pigeon  • ST: A Town Called Eternity First Frontier Novels NA: First Frontier  • Happy Endings  • VD: Housewarming Big Finish Audio BFA: Dust Breeding  • Master Roberts Television DW: Doctor Who Prose EDA: The Eight Doctors (cameo)  • ST: Prologue (deathworm)  • ST: Forgotten (deathworm) DWM Comics DWM: The Fallen  • The Glorious Dead Jacobi Television DW: Utopia Simm Television DW: Utopia (cameo) / The Sound of Drums / Last of the Time Lords  • The End of Time Prose DWF: Speech Day  • NSA: The Story of Martha (cameo) Incarnation unclear Television DW: Doctor Who ("Old Master") Prose EDA: The Eight Doctors  • The Adventuress of Henrietta Street  • Sometime Never... (cameo)  • The Deadstone Memorial (cameo)  • The Gallifrey Chronicles (cameo) Non- canonical (but BBC licensed) Pryce Television Comic Relief: The Curse of Fatal Death Gatiss Audio BFDWU: Sympathy for the Devil Jacobi Webcast WC: Scream of the Shalka Prose WC: The Feast of the Stone  • PDA: Scream of the Shalka