Time-Burst (audio story)

was the third and final story in the audio anthology Purity Unleashed, produced by Big Finish Productions. It was written by Ian Potter and featured Colin Baker as the Sixth Doctor, Bonnie Langford as Melanie Bush, Ruth Madeley as Hebe Harrison, Toby Hadoke as Ron and Imogen Stubbs as Patricia McBride.
== Publisher's summary ==
Tracking the anomaly that erased Hebe from history, the Doctor and Mel find an instability in Sheffield, 1864. Who is Mrs Virtue, the mysterious owner of the new steelworks? And can the Doctor untwist history before a natural disaster washes them all away...?
== Plot ==
=== Part one ===
With the TARDIS damaged and thrown millennia off-course, the Doctor is unable to follow Patricia's time track and instead heads to Neepsend, the still point within a temporal anomaly stretching from 1864 to Hebe's time in the 21st century. The Doctor remembers a book concerning Samuel Harrison, a possible ancestor of Hebe's from the 19th century, but he and Mel find that the 19th and 20th century Earth history books in the TARDIS library are being constantly rewritten.
Patrick visits the newly-completed Patrician Works in search of better pay to support his wife, Mary, and their unborn child and argues with Mr Colton about the comparatively low wage on offer. Patricia, owning the business and calling herself Eugenia Virtue, is impressed and offers to pay him to bring together a gang to impede her competitors, but he is shocked upon seeing the cables of the time-suit entering her skin and only agrees when promised a better future.
The Doctor briefly moves forward in time without Mel noticing, after which they meet Mary and learn of an S. Harrison who writes for the Sheffield Times. The Doctor goes to Sheffield to investigate and again shifts into the future where he uses a security guard's mobile phone to research Harrison and realises that he has left Mel stuck in the path of the Great Flood, which will kill hundreds of people at Neepsend in the night.
=== Part two ===
The Doctor gets a taxi to take him to Neepsend but slips through time again and returns to 1864 and escapes from pursuing police on a horse, Samson. When he gets back to Neepsend, Mary tells him that Mel has gone to the Patrician Works after recognising Patricia's alias and he goes after her, but Patricia has Colton hold a sword to Mel's throat. Patricia intends to benefit from the Great Flood by having the works be the only factory in Sheffield to survive, giving her a monopoly and allowing her to reshape the future through industrialisation.
The Dale Dike Dam starts to burst and Colton tries to kill Patricia for her betrayal, but he is killed by touching live cabling and the Doctor and Patricia are pulled through time. The time-suit is failing as it tries to maintain the altertaions of the timeline and the TARDIS is using the Doctor to re-stitch 1864 and Hebe's time together, so their journey is slow and the Doctor warns Patricia not to activate her suit. Patricia activates her suit regardless and is ripped apart in the Time Vortex whilst the Doctor arrives at the other end of the temporal link and deactivates it, after which he returns to 1864.
The Doctor runs with Mel back to the TARDIS before it can be swept away or buried and assures her that Patricia is gone and that any anachronistic technology at the Patrician Works will be lost in the Sheffield Outrages. Patrick and Mary, whose surname is McBride, escape the flood and plan to use knowledge gained from the Doctor to bet on Blair Athol and amass a fortune to build a better future. When the Doctor and Mel arrive at Hebe's flat, they find that Hebe and Ron do not know them and are prepared to kill them in the name of Purity.
== Cast ==
* The Doctor - Colin Baker
* Mel - Bonnie Langford
* Patricia McBride - Imogen Stubbs
* Patrick - Luke R Francis
* Mary - Billie Fulford-Brown
* Colton - Connor Williams
* Security - George Bukhari
=== Uncredited cast ===
* Hebe Harrison - Ruth Madeley
* Ron - Toby Hadoke
== Crew ==
* Cover Art - Claudia Gironi
* Director - Helen Goldwyn
* Executive Producers - Nicholas Briggs and Jason Haigh-Ellery
* Music and Sound Design - Howard Carter
* Producer - Jacqueline Rayner
* Script Editor - Robert Valentine
* Writer - Ian Potter
* Senior Producer - John Ainsworth
== Worldbuilding ==
* The Doctor loses Patricia's time track.
* The TARDIS has a system alarm to alert the Doctor when the Cloister Bell is not working.
* The Doctor mentions Fortran.
* Patrick mentions the Cutlass Company and the Alliance of Organised Trades.
* The TARDIS's causal dampeners have "taken a bashing".
* The Doctor says that it took some time to convince Descartes that to think is to be.
* The Bradfield reservoirs have been being worked on for five years, but Dale Dike Dam remains incomplete.
* Colton describes Patricia as a Galvanist.
* The Doctor once spoke to Catherine of Genoa.
* Good Friday is two weeks away.
* Patrick and Mary are observing Lent.
* Harrison writes for the Sheffield Times, which is based on Bow Street in Sheffield.
* Harrison wrote A Complete History of the Great Flood at Sheffield.
* The Doctor uses Venusian aikido.
* The Doctor believes that the Sheffield Outrages will deal with any anachronistic technology at the Patrician Works.
== Notes ==
* Time-Burst was recorded at the Soundhouse in 2022.
* Ian Potter was originally to script the first episode of the next Sixth Doctor Adventures box set, but he wanted to script this story in part due to him living in Sheffield. (BFX: Time-Burst)
== Continuity ==
* The Doctor did a lot of travelling to and from Sheffield when he was travelling with Evelyn. (AUDIO: The Marian Conspiracy, Doctor Who and the Pirates)
* The Doctor met Mel in the wrong order. (TV: The Ultimate Foe)
* Mel spent six months living with her ancestors. (AUDIO: Catch-1782)
* Mel studied at West London. (PROSE: Millennial Rites)
* Patricia uses the name "Eugenia Virtue". (AUDIO: Purification)
* Patricia's time-suit has been damaged by the Doctor's vortex tether. (AUDIO: Purification)
* Mel mentions going to the University of West London to get away from her family. (PROSE: Business Unusual)
== External links ==
Category:Purity Unleashed audio stories
Category:Stories set in Sheffield
Category:Stories set in 1864
Category:2023 audio stories
Category:Sixth Doctor audio stories
Category:Stories set in the 2020s
Category:Stories set in alternate timelines