Short Trips: Zodiac

Short Trips: Zodiac is the first anthology released by Big Finish Productions. The theme is the signs of the Zodiac. Each story is associated with a particular sign of the zodiac, as mentioned in the title. There is also a brief introductory story, which is themed around astrology and the zodiac in general.

Introduction

Introduction
Author(s): Jim Sangster
Doctor(s): None
Companion(s): None
Season(s): None
Average: 5 (1 vote)

Goofs: The claim that Osirian pyramids first appeared in Egypt in 10,500 BCE puts them around 7000 years before Egyptian civilisation began, and 8000 years before the real pyramids began to be built. [Since this is from an in-universe text that claims astrology has a scientific basis, we can probably assume a rather weak connection to actual facts.]

In the same sentence, it claims that BCE stands for "Before Christian Era", when the acronym actually stands for "Before Common Era". [Perhaps in the future the meaning has changed, as people decide they might as well make the acronym reflect the fact that it is based on an old calculation of the year Jesus was born.]

If Kasterborus is a Gallifreyan constellation, as claimed here, then how can Gallifrey be in it (as seen in every previous use of the word)?

Continuity: Kasterborus is revealed to be a human astrologist, whose interpretation of the zodiac signs differs significantly from the legends on which the originals were based. Most of his calculations were destroyed in a horrific fire that devastated Cyrrhenis Minima's capitol (The Ribos Operation). His most famous work is Our Destiny is in the Stars. Species that have been influenced by Kasterborus' teachings include the Delphons (Spearhead from Space), Phreni, and Sirians.

Carval is the fourth planet out from the sun in the system that also contains Estellios. Carval is associated with war. The planet M'ii'e takes so long to orbit its sun that whole generations of its inhabitants are born completely under any one star sign. There are planets in the Fifth Galaxy where it is forbidden to make graphical depictions of members of the native races for fear of corrupting their spiritual essence.

Location: Not applicable.

Future History: Humanity's Great Breakout took place in the third and early fourth millennia, accompanied by resurgence in ancient faiths. Kasterborus lived during this era.

The Bottom Line: Functional, if rather indulgent, linking story. It's entertainingly written, but unfortunately only serves to emphasis how tenuously some of the stories are linked to the theme of the anthology.

ARIES: The True and Indisputable Facts in the Case of the Ram’s Skull

ARIES: The True and Indisputable Facts in the Case of the Ram’s Skull
Author(s): Mark Michalowski
Doctor(s): First Doctor
Companion(s): Ian Chesterton, Barbara Wright
Season(s): Season 2
Average: 3.7 (3 votes)

Roots: The works of Edgar Allen Poe.

Continuity: The nature of the evil force that attempts to manifest itself via the Ram's skull and Abigail's gift is not revealed, but it needs psychic energy to do so. It refers to its manifestation as reincarnation. The Doctor specifically travels to the house to stop the force from gaining a foothold, but doesn't seem to know what it was. [As he claims to have been invited by a friend, it is possible that he was given some information by a future incarnation.]

Also present at the house is Edgar Allen Poe, whom the Doctor, Ian and Barbara meet, and who narrates the story.

Location: Baltimore, Earth October 2nd 1849.

The Bottom Line: 'We came here to prevent...something. Something evil, from gaining a foothold on this world.' Good start, memorably creepy, and with an excellent evocation of Poe's writing style.

TAURUS: Growing Higher

TAURUS: Growing Higher
Author(s): Paul Leonard
Doctor(s): Eighth Doctor
Companion(s): Fitz Kreiner
Season(s): Unknown
Average: 3.5 (2 votes)

Goofs: The Doctor claims that no human being has been killed in war for 87 years. Other stories establish that humans die during the thousand-day war with Mars (2086-2088, mentioned in multiple novels - most notably Transit ), in the first Dalek war (as seen in The Dalek Invasion of Earth which the bulk of evidence says starts in 2157 and ends in 2167), The space between those wars is less than 87 years and other stories mention human wars between 1999 and 2086. Since this story is clearly not set as late as the late 22nd Century, there simply isn't a gap big enough to contain the Doctor's claim.

Fashion Victims: The Doctor is wearing similar eye-shadow to that seen in Warriors of the Deep.

Continuity: The Doctor and Fitz pose as Doctor John Smith of the UN Peace Corps and Sergeant Kreiner. The Doctor wears blue eye shadow, which was popular for men ten years before this time (Warriors of the Deep).

Humanity has colonized the Moon, and it is implied that at least one generation has been born and grown up there. Inhabitants of the Moon live longer than those of Earth, due to the reduced gravity.

Location: The Moon, [c2094 - discrete blue eye shadow was fashionable for men ten years earlier, which is probably a reference to Warriors of the Deep, which is set c2084].

Future History: Kuppam was an artificial world built in Earth's orbit by the Yamoyata Company. It was a steel and glass spheroid with a stationary casing of lunar rock. The hollow interior was inhabited, and boasted woodlands, rivers, hills, bridges and towns. One of the light-alloy bearings used to support the junctions between the static outer shell and the rotating interior snapped, causing the shell to be breached and to collapse. Fifty thousand, five hundred and ninety-five people died as a result.

There is a Copernicus College, which is implied to be on the Moon. The UN is still in existence, and its Peace Corps are able to travel to the moon, arrest colonists, and take them back to Earth for trial. There is an orbital tiger reserve called Khadri.

The Doctor claims that no human being has been killed in war for eighty-seven years (but see Goofs).

Technology in this era includes flycameras (possibly only on the moon), cybernetic implants allowing mental control of technology, and viewscreens in place of windows (which people from Earth are prone to looking at as if they are windows) and Aztex suits used for moonwalking (which come in red and have a thirty minute air supply).

Unrecorded Adventures: The lack of Sam, Compassion, Anji, or Trix suggests that this story happens during the middle of some other adventure, and that whichever of them the Doctor and Fitz are travelling with is doing something else as part of said adventure.

The Bottom Line: 'He wanted you to let him die' Well-written study of guilt, although the eye-shadow rather spoils things.

GEMINI: Twin Piques

GEMINI: Twin Piques
Author(s): Tony Keetch
Doctor(s): Second Doctor
Companion(s): Jamie McCrimmon
Season(s): Season 5
Average: 3.5 (2 votes)

Roots: There is a reference to James VII. The Doctor quotes Oscar Wilde.

Goofs: Jamie appears to agree with the Doctor's claim that James the Seventh was a tyrant and a bully. But if Jamie thinks that, then why was he fighting on the side of Bonnie Prince Charlie at Culloden?

Dialogue Triumphs: Then with the sound of a million elephants clearing their throats, the TARDIS shuddered to a halt.

Continuity: The Second Doctor and Jamie are travelling without Victoria or Zoe, probably placing this story in Season Six B with The Two Doctors. Jamie states that the unnamed world is the only one on which he's never been locked up or shot at. He enjoys wine. It is implied that the Doctor has an endless supply of recorders.

The TARDIS console room contains a Chippendale chair. There is a room in the TARDIS, which is so long that it has its own horizon. The walls and floor are covered with what looks like dimpled mattress, and a river, containing small life forms, runs down the middle of the room.

Doppelganger worlds are a very rare phenomenon; two planets, absolutely identical, with the same geology, flora and fauna and even individuals. The Doctor estimates that the probability of encountering doppelganger worlds is "a trillion billion to one". Moglan Beasts are native to at least one of the two worlds.

Location: Two doppelganger worlds, date unknown.

Unrecorded Adventures: This story happens immediately after the Doctor and Jamie intervene on one of the two worlds to ensure Gavin is king. At some point after this story they intervene on the other to ensure that Conrad is king.

The Bottom Line: 'One of you is enough, I couldn't cope with two of you.' Contrived and silly, although perhaps no more than most doppelganger stories.

CANCER: Still Lives

CANCER: Still Lives
Author(s): Ian Potter
Doctor(s): Third Doctor
Companion(s): Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, Liz Shaw
Season(s): Season 7
Average: 4 (2 votes)

Roots: The story opens with a quotation from Voltaire's Candide. Coca Cola is mentioned. The Doctor quotes Hamlet.

Goofs: On page 63 Helen's disappearance is dated to 22nd June. Every other reference has her disappearance on 22nd July.

Dialogue Triumphs: Liz's journal: "Dear Lord: AWOL! This organisation's getting to me. I'm starting to think like the military: little, and in initials"

Continuity: The UNIT HQ building in Maida Vale houses the European Axis Military Corps in many of the parallel universes between the parallel universes of Inferno and the Doctor's own. When the Doctor moved between universes in Inferno, UNIT member Helen was caught up in the effect and left sliding slowly and irreversibly between universes, a journey that will take her ten years of subjective time. Republican soldier Mark was similarly affected and sent in the opposite direction at the same rate. In some of these universes the TV show Playpals, where they do things like make pretend boats out of cardboard boxes.

In the Inferno universe, Swifty G. Singh's propaganda pulps from Australia are available on the black market; considered to be anti-Republican, anyone caught reading them can be sent to the camps. They are described as being four-coloured, so they might be comics rather than novels.

The Doctor takes coffee with a "filthy number" of sugars in it. The Doctor insists on spelling megawatts as "meggawatts" (an Inferno in-joke).

Liz Shaw keeps a journal. She read Plato at Cambridge, but no other philosophy. She is sceptical about the Doctor's story of a parallel universe (Inferno). The Doctor quotes Hamlet at her when she challenges him about it.

Location: Maida Vale, London, England, June 22nd to July 27th.

The Bottom Line: 'We've been doing this for five years, there can only be another five years to go!' Interesting study of guilt and the consequences of the Doctor's actions for those around him.

LEO: Constant Companion

LEO: Constant Companion
Author(s): Simon A Forward
Doctor(s): Second Doctor
Companion(s): Jamie McCrimmon, Zoe Heriot
Season(s): Season 6
Average: 4.5 (2 votes)

Roots: The story is presumably inspired by either the song The Cat Came Back or the twisted Canadian cartoon of the same name. Einstein is mentioned.

Continuity: The TARDIS contains a medical bay and a galley. Jamie keeps a set of bagpipes in his room. Zoe occasionally works on projects which she needs a keyboard for.

"Marmaduke" generates telepathic amplification in anyone with natural telepathic tendencies. The Sorceress describes him as her Id-Cat and claims that she created him to keep her company. The Sorceress is telepathic and isolated herself from her people to get away from their thoughts and to stop herself from eavesdropping on them. It isn't explained exactly who or what she is.

The Equatorial Bridge is one of the Seven Hundred Wonders of the Universe. Each of its support towers houses thousands of people. The planet it is located on is not named. The Doctor tries to leave Marmaduke there, as well as on a hyperspace cruiser bound for the Carmalan Domains, on the planet Moga, and on Karn with the Sisterhood (The Brain of Morbius). The Carmalan people are described as a generous, hospitable race.

Location: The TARDIS, the Equatorial Bridge on an unnamed planet, a hyperspace cruiser bound for the Carmalan Domains, Moga, Karn, and the domain of the Sorceress, all dates unknown.

The Bottom Line: 'Against that cat, curiosity would always come a poor second!' Irritating and facile; the cat quickly becomes as annoying to the reader as it does to the Doctor and his companions. Forward is capable of much better.

VIRGO: Virgin Lands

VIRGO: Virgin Lands
Author(s): Sarah Groenewegen
Doctor(s): Seventh Doctor
Companion(s): Ace, Bernice Summerfield
Season(s): Unknown
Average: 3 (2 votes)

Roots: There is a reference to the Beatles' song "Eleanor Rigby" and Harley Davidsons. Ace hears news reports of the Port Arthur Massacre.

Continuity: Bored with eternity, Death came to Australia when it was new and stayed for two hundred years. She has become so bored that she herself yearns for death, the Doctor telling her that he won't let her die. She has met the Doctor before (Love and War).

As a child, Ace used to dream about what it would be like to live in rich old mansions, and fill them with life or flames (c.f. Ghost Light).

Location: Sydney, Australia, 28th April 1996.

The Bottom Line: 'Bernice, what do you think of death?' The style of the New Adventures is well captured, and it's great to see the Doctor/Benny/"Neo-Ace" team again.

LIBRA: The Switching

LIBRA: The Switching
Author(s): Simon Guerrier
Doctor(s): Third Doctor
Companion(s): Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, Mike Yates, Jo Grant
Season(s): Season 9
Average: 3 (2 votes)

Roots: Face/Off and other body-swap stories.

Technobabble: The TARDIS's transuranic spectrum gauge is hooked up to the relative chronometer and the housing of its spatial dampeners has been taken apart.

Continuity: The Master manages to temporarily switch bodies with the Doctor. It is not explained how, but presumably has something to do with the device in his cell (a spiralled coil of steel attached to wisps of copper wire, a bit of stone, and something wrapped in tin foil).

Whilst in prison, the Master has been reading A History of the Plantagenets. After returning to his own body, he borrows a book on the Magna Carta (The King's Demons). He uses various lotions and hair ointments. He can't use the Doctor's TARDIS to escape from Earth whilst he's in the Doctor's body, because the controls are isomorphic; the Time Lords have programmed the TARDIS not to work for the Doctor during his exile. The Master drinks tea without milk or sugar, unlike the Doctor. Whilst in the Doctor's body, he suggests to the Brigadier that the Master be moved to a different facility, with a view (probably intended as a reference to The Sea Devils, but more appropriate to The Face of the Enemy) [this story is probably set just after Freedom (Short Trips) in which the Master demonstrates the ability to transfer his mind into another body, and during which he is imprisoned at Stangmoor Prison (The Mind of Evil)].

The Doctor has been working on a strange sample of metal found by UNIT. He writes notes on the TARDIS console in felt tip, including "this button closes the doors!" [probably a joke about the fact that in The Edge of Destruction the Fast Return Switch is labeled as such in felt tip pen].

Jo has an apartment at the top of the UNIT building, which is a tiny room with a sloping ceiling. She spends some of the story sunbathing in a bikini, and paints her toenails yellow.

Location: UNIT HQ and the Master's prison, England, [summer 1971].

The Bottom Line: 'The Doctor wasn't unpleasant when he came and spoke to me.' The almost obligatory Master story works extremely well here, Guerrier poking fun at the Master's charm and the Doctor's garrulousness to great effect.

SCORPIO: Jealous, Possessive

SCORPIO: Jealous, Possessive
Author(s): Paul Magrs
Doctor(s): None
Companion(s): K-9 Mark I, K-9 Mark II
Season(s): Season 18
Average: 5 (2 votes)

Roots: Tolstoy is mentioned.

Goofs: If Leela is pregnant, then this is set around the time of Lungbarrow, by which point Romana has returned from E-Space, (as seen in Blood Harvest) and become President of Gallifrey. But if the Doctor is about to regenerate following a fall, then it's around the time of Logopolis. Unless all of the fifth, sixth, and seventh Doctor's travels to Gallifrey are massively out of order this makes no sense at all.

It seems rather odd that the K9s are using Earth's calendar to date their correspondence, when neither of them live somewhere that would use it.

Continuity: The two K9s correspond with each other between E-Space and Gallifrey. The Time Lords place a statue of K9 in the Panopticon in honour of his role in defeating the Sontaran invasion (The Invasion of Time). K9 Mark I can no longer remember Professor Marius [he's been ordered to delete his memory of him]. K9 Mark II has a birthday on the day the first message is received (1st November).

Leela is pregnant (Lungbarrow). The Matrix contains no record of the Key to Time.

Location: Gallifrey and E-Space. 1st-12th November.

The Bottom Line: 'Dear Prototype.' As might be expected from Magrs, witty and well-written, but ultimately extremely silly; the premise is amusing, but it's difficult to imagine either K9 writing bitchy letters.

SAGITTARIUS: Five Card Draw

SAGITTARIUS: Five Card Draw
Author(s): Todd Green
Doctor(s): First Doctor, Second Doctor, Third Doctor, Fifth Doctor, Sixth Doctor
Companion(s): Peri Brown
Season(s): Season 21
Average: 2.5 (2 votes)

Goofs: The bow is repeatedly claimed to be both useable and made out of solid gold. The two claims are not compatible. If a solid gold bow was large enough to be usable then it would be too heavy to carry, let alone use.

Continuity: The Fifth Doctor is travelling with Peri, who remains in the TARDIS library throughout. The First Doctor is travelling with Ben and Polly, who are visiting friends. He can sense that he will soon regenerate (The Tenth Planet). The Third Doctor mentions Sarah, so for him this story takes place between The Time Warrior and Planet of the Spiders. The Sixth Doctor is also travelling with Peri, who briefly meets the Fifth Doctor again and gets rather confused; this makes the Fifth Doctor realize that he will regenerate sooner that he was expecting.

The First Doctor obtained the bejeweled bow and arrows from the third emperor of the Cresap dynasty of Gallutia as thanks for persuading their enemies to lay down their arms at the battle of Andromeda; his second incarnation vaguely recalls this, but his later incarnations have no memory of it. Trapped in the castle, the First Doctor telepathically summoned his future selves; the Fourth refused to come [a joke about Tom Baker's refusal to appear in The Five Doctors], the First Doctor considers his Seventh incarnation too manipulative [due to an unrecorded adventure where they met?], and the Eighth Doctor seemed confused (see The Ancestor Cell and The Burning).

The power of the golden bow and arrows is not explained, but once it is given away its former owner forgets ever having owned it (which is why the Doctors don't remember their first incarnation owning it) [it is possible that it also affects the Doctor's memory so that subsequent incarnations don't recall the meeting that takes place here].

The Doctor believes that beheading or a double knife blow, one to each heart, would prevent a regeneration.

Location: An unnamed planet, date unknown.

The Bottom Line: 'I could feel the presence of my own mind - of my future selves - across time and space.' The first of many ill-advised multi-Doctor stories to blight the Short Trips volumes, Five Card Draw is utterly dreadful, a limp excuse for a reunion with only the barest hint of a plot.

CAPRICORN: I Was A Monster!!!

CAPRICORN: I Was A Monster!!!
Author(s): Joseph Lidster
Doctor(s): Fourth Doctor
Companion(s): Romana II
Season(s): Season 18
Average: 2.5 (2 votes)

Roots: The story opens with a quotation from Alexander Pope's An Essay On Man.

There are references to Student Bodies, USA High, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Roy Keane, Big Brother, Sean Connery, Guinness, Google, NYPD Blue, MTV, EastEnders, Bridget Jones' Diary, Thomas Hardy, Ant and Dec, I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!, Pop Idol, Popstars, Hear'Say, Fight Club, Edward Norton, Tony Blackburn, John Lennon, David Beckham, Kylie Minogue, Pizza Hut, Amber's Sexual, and 9/11.

Goofs: There's a brief reference to the Washington Sniper attacks of October 2002, even though the date is explicitly given as Summer 2002.

Whilst there's no direct contradiction, it seems a bit odd that the Doctor and Romana encountered a vampire before State of Decay.

Continuity: The Capricorn Killer is a vampire. He was turned into a vampire by a female vampire. He cannot see his reflection, but can be caught on camera. The media dubs him the Capricorn Killer because security camera footage of him shows that he has a goatee, which makes journalists connect him with goats and the Devil. The Doctor and Romana kill him with a stake through the heart. Following his death, his diaries were published and a film was based upon them in 2003, entitled I Was a Monster! and starring Leonardo Di Caprio. A novel of the same name is based on the film.

The Doctor and Romana appear to have set out to find the Capricorn Killer, and know that he is a vampire.

Location: Dublin, Earth, Summer 2002.

The Bottom Line: 'This is the only help we can give you.' Lidster's first, but not last, vampire story for a Short Trips anthology bears all of his trademarks; snappy dialogue, pop references, and lots of wit.

AQUARIUS: The Invertebrates of Doom

AQUARIUS: The Invertebrates of Doom
Author(s): Andrew Collins
Doctor(s): Seventh Doctor
Companion(s): Melanie Bush
Season(s): Season 24
Average: 2.5 (2 votes)

Roots: Mel misquotes "Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft".

Continuity: The Cnidarians are aggressive and intelligent alien jellyfish of varying sizes. Their spaceships are filled with water. If Commander Hydra Sowerbii is to be believed they have an empire. His ship is called the Water Carrier, it detects the reactivation of the probe and is able to locate it on Earth - and travel there - in a few days.Their invasion of Earth is rather ill-thought-out; they live in fresh water, not salt water, and they launch their initial attack over dry land.

Many thousands of years ago, the Cnidarians sent a probe out into space, which eventually landed on Earth. The probe looks like its made of stone, is engraved with information about their species and their planet, and uses artron energy. It carries microscopic zooplankton, which are capable of turning human beings into jellyfish-like creatures who want to co-operate with the Cnidarian invasion. This infection can be cured by administering a saline drip.

Mel doesn't like drizzle because it makes her hair frizz. A jellyfish on a beach at Bournemouth once stung Mel.

Location: England, 1978

The Bottom Line: 'I never thought I'd say this, but it's raining jellyfish.' Amusingly written, and capturing the feel of Season Twenty-Four perfectly; whether or not this is a good thing depends purely on personal taste.

PISCES: The Stabber

PISCES: The Stabber
Author(s): Alison Lawson
Doctor(s): Sixth Doctor
Companion(s): Peri Brown
Season(s): Season 23
Average: 2.5 (2 votes)

Roots: Signs (alien invaders vulnerable to water).

Goofs: How is a fish farm allowed to develop and use its own steroid/vaccine mix to inject into fish that are destined for human consumption without proper testing? [They aren't, but the managers are betting on not being caught doing it.]

Continuity: The TARDIS lab is currently messy, and there is a fair bit of equipment (including Bunsen burners, retort stands, and old petri dishes) that haven't been used for a long time. It includes a microscope.

Peri doesn't mind children, but doesn't like the way some parents talk half to an adult and half to their child.

Location: A salmon farm in the borders (southern Scotland), between October and January [c2002].

The Bottom Line: 'It does the fish no harm.' Daft, annoying and pointless, The Stabber is a weak end to an otherwise promising anthology.

Discontinuity Guide by Paul Clarke and Stephen Gray

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