Smoke and Mirrors ( audio story ) Smoke and Mirrors was the fifth release of the " Destiny of the Doctor " audio series , produced by Big Finish Productions for AudioGO . Publisher ' s summary . The Doctor answers a psionic distress call being sent from England in the 1920s . There , in the environs of a fairground , he is reunited with an old friend : Harry Houdini . To Adric and Nyssa the name means very little , but to the Doctor ' s companion Tegan he is a legend . Escape artist extraordinaire , Houdini ' s reputation will last for decades . But how come Harry knows so much about Tegan herself ? Is it really just guesswork , as he says ? Is Harry right to be concerned about the fairground ' s fortune teller , who claims to have supernatural skills ? Both he and the Doctor suspect an alien influence they know of old . What neither the Doctor nor his friends realise is that , somewhere in the shadows , a far more sinister and familiar presence is lying in wait for them . . . Plot . While attempting to take Tegan to Heathrow airport for her flight attendant job , the Doctor diverts to London in the 1920s . Tegan , Nyssa and Adric are of the opinion that the Doctor has once again failed to pilot the TARDIS properly , but for once they are wrong ; he has followed a psionic distress call received via the telepathic circuits . It leads them to a fairground , and an old and famous friend : Harry Houdini . Tegan is suitably impressed , and thrilled to meet the renowned escape artist and illusionist . The reference is lost on Nyssa and Adric , but even they are caught up in his charisma ; and when he knows more than he should about Tegan , they are intrigued . Houdini plays it off , however , and diverts to another matter : He has come to the fair to debunk its fortune teller , who has inexplicable abilities of her own , but he has not been able to do so . Now he wants the Doctor ' s help . Something is not right , though . Houdini seems intent on drawing information from the Doctor which he should not have , regarding his own future and the workings of the TARDIS . Before it can be addressed , however , the group is split up ; Houdini and the Doctor go to check out the fortune teller , and the three companions find themselves inside the fair ' s menagerie . The Doctor and Houdini don ' t find the fortune teller , but they do find something else — her crystal ball . It proves to be no ordinary prop . The Doctor recognises it , and refers Harry back to a previous adventure they shared ( in the Doctor ' s first life , along with Ben Jackson and Polly Wright ) in which they encountered the Ovids , beings of pure thought . The Ovids used crystal spheres to communicate and influence the world ; spheres just like this one . And this one is already in use . In the menagerie , the companions are menaced by animals that have been released from their cages , including a tiger . Adric runs , leading the tiger away from the others , giving them time to try to escape . Tegan shouts for the Doctor , but to no avail . Adric is rescued , however , by a group of fairground workers and performers ; but it is short - lived , as it becomes clear that they are under some kind of mind control . They escort him to a theatre on the grounds . Meanwhile , Nyssa also has an odd encounter , with a man wearing the face of her lost father : The Master . He takes hypnotic control of her , and forces her to abduct Tegan and bring her to the theatre as well . The Doctor tries to make telepathic contact with the sphere , and is successful , though it hurts him . As he is about to make progress , he is interrupted by the image and voice of a young man wearing a bow tie — the Eleventh Doctor . He tells the Fifth Doctor that he will soon be tempted to destroy the sphere , but he must not . Instead , he must return it to its rightful owners , the Ovids . At the same time , he is interrupted by Tegan ' s scream , which the sphere has also picked up ; he realises that they are in danger , and he has failed to help them . The Doctor and Houdini hurry toward the theatre ; but Houdini attacks him and takes him captive . He places the Doctor inside a crate that is intended to be used in his famous underwater escape trick , and tells him that he has met an old friend of the Doctor , who revealed to him that the Doctor has manipulated him and withheld information . It ' s all a lie , of course ; and the Doctor recognises the source as the Master . Nevertheless , in an effort to persuade the Doctor to tell him more , Houdini pushes the crate into the water . . . and watches as the Doctor fails to escape . On the theatre ' s stage , Adric is seized by the Master , but he cannot see him . In the struggle , he sees a mirror propped up on the stage , and realises that the Master is visible in the mirror , and their reflections are struggling . It defies science , but there ' s little time to think about it , as he struggles to break free . Tegan intervenes , and sees the situation , and starts to throw a chair to break the mirror ; Adric shouts at her to stop , not knowing what effect it may have on him . Instead , she throws the chair at the spotlight that is trained on the mirror , creating the reflections ; it breaks , and the Master vanishes . All is not saved , though . Enraged , the Master starts to use the Ovid sphere to release massive amounts of electricity through the fairground , setting things on fire and destroying buildings . Houdini catches up with the companions as they try to escape , but they are cut off . Suddenly the Doctor returns , and reveals that he picked Harry ' s pockets for his lockpicking kit , using that — and his Time Lord ability to bypass respiration — to escape the trap . He had suspected Harry was not himself all along . They make their way back to the fortune teller ' s booth , the Doctor explaining that the Master was never corporeally there at all ; he seems to be still trapped in the collapsing dimension where they last saw him . Instead he was using the sphere to exert his will remotely , and even project himself . He locates the sphere , and is tempted to destroy it — just as promised — but instead , he makes contact with it to try to soothe it and end the energy discharge . It isn ' t enough , however , and Tegan joins the link , adding her own thoughts to bring the crisis to an end . As the smoke clears , the fairground workers awaken from their trance , having no memory of the last twelve hours . Houdini convinces them they have been unwitting participants in an experimental new act , which seems to satisfy them . He again attempts to persuade the Doctor to let him see inside the TARDIS , but is gently rebuffed , and admits that it ' s better to make his future than to know it . As the Doctor and companions leave , Tegan again asks to be taken to Heathrow , but the Doctor tells her they must first make a stop : to return the sphere to the Ovids .