The Forbidden Time ( audio story ) The Forbidden Time was the forty - first release in the Companion Chronicles audio range . It was the ninth story of season 5 . It was written by David Lock and featured Polly Wright and Jamie McCrimmon . Publisher ' s summary . Time Walkers have descended upon the Earth . This alien race , known as the Vist , has claimed an area of time for itself — any species entering into the immediate future will pay the most terrible forfeit . The human race is in a state of panic , but one woman knows the truth . Her name is Polly Wright and she visited that future many years ago , with the Doctor , Jamie and Ben . She has stepped into the Forbidden Time — and this is her story . . . Plot . A telepathic message is broadcast to every human on Earth stating that they are entering a restricted time zone and that they must either bypass it or pay tolls using their life energy . Polly Wright calls some people together for a conference , some of whom already know about the Doctor and the TARDIS . Using some recordings of Jamie McCrimmon , she explains of how she travelled in time and space with the Doctor and how they , along with Ben Jackson , had visited the restricted time zone , which existed as a " wall " built within the Time Vortex : everything in the universe from 2011 to 2019 is controlled by the Vist . Polly is showing Jamie how to use the dictation machine when something hits the TARDIS , knocking it off 35 years . It arrives in a grey " shadow Earth " , which the Doctor explains exists sideways in time . There is enough energy to have structures like houses , but there is no animal life ; the " shadow " is created by the intelligent life of the real Earth , shining like a bright star . Everything crumbles to dust when touched but the Vist attack and seemingly kill Ben before the Doctor and Polly run in one direction with Jamie running in another . The Doctor explains to Polly that since this is a shadow of reality , Ben may still be alive and just need to find an anchor that will bring him back . Because of the Vist ' s nature , the Doctor and Polly see a hazy scene of the future where they are captured by two Vists . Seeing that they won ' t be killed , the Doctor leads Polly to surrender . All three are eventually taken to the Vist ' s dome because they smell of time energy . They meet the leader and it explains that the Vist walk the fields of time while other races drift across it . It occurred to them one day to fence off sections of time to feed , and then it occurred to them to charge other creatures to enter different times . Jamie attacks the leader and is subsequently killed , reduced to dust like Ben . The Doctor proclaims that his people will not allow them to do this , claiming they were the first to evolve and so had a right to time . Having already told them no one owns time , the Vist retort that they will travel back in time to before his people evolve and claim ownership of time . The Doctor doesn ' t believe they can do it , but they leave anyway . Even though his people weren ' t the first to evolve , he tricked the Vist into travelling so far back that they become trapped before the Big Bang where there is no time for them to move across . Without the Vist to sustain it , the shadow Earth will be destroyed once the time wind s break down the wall in the Vortex . The Doctor and Polly hurry to the TARDIS as the world shifts between grey , colour , and people returning to the streets . When they get back to the TARDIS , they find Jamie and Ben returned from " nowhere " as the image of the TARDIS and a car drifted in their consciousness , respectfully , allowing them to come back . The telepathic message was pre - recorded , meaning that humanity will enter the restricted time zone with no ill - effects . Polly thanks everyone for coming and leaves without taking questions . In a side room , she listens to Jamie ' s recorded voice and hopes he ' s well wherever he is .