The Boy That Time Forgot (audio story)

was the one hundred and tenth story in Big Finish's monthly range. It was written by Paul Magrs and featured Peter Davison as the Fifth Doctor and Sarah Sutton as Nyssa.
It was a sequel to both Earthshock and The Haunting of Thomas Brewster. It described not only how the Fifth Doctor and Nyssa retrieved the TARDIS after letting it fall into Brewster's hands at the end of Haunting, but also rewrote Adric's Earthshock ending. Although it definitely retconned Adric's earlier death, it allowed the original to stand, if only as "half of the story".
Like Earthshock it was notable for clever secrecy in its marketing. Most 2008 purchasers had no idea that the story involved Adric at all, thanks to his listing in the credits as the "Scorpion King", and the fact that the character was played here by Andrew Sachs, not Matthew Waterhouse.
Though Brewster did not appear until the closing minutes of the story, Boy was important to the development of that character by highlighting important similarities with Adric, and for being the adventure in which Brewster was formally invited to join the TARDIS crew.
The story was also significant for its heavy use and expansion upon Block Transfer Computation, a significant concept from Logopolis and Castrovalva.
== Publisher's summary ==
In a weird jungle valley, the Victorian explorer Rupert Von Thal saves Bloomsbury novelist Beatrice Mapp from a ghastly death in the grip of a monstrous mantis. But this is no Lost World of the dinosaurs. According to their travelling companions, the Fifth Doctor and Nyssa, all four have been transported back to a primitive Earth that should never have existed!
Further down the valley is the vast city where the scorpions live. Walking, talking, intelligent scorpions, ruled over by their cruel and sinister master. The Doctor and Nyssa are being drawn ever tighter into the clutches of... the boy that time forgot.
== Plot ==
to be added
== Cast ==
* The Doctor - Peter Davison
* Nyssa - Sarah Sutton
* The Scorpion King - Andrew Sachs
* Mrs Beatrice Mapp - Harriet Walter
* Rupert Von Thal - Adrian Scarborough
* Kranlee / Lohkaar / Grandfather Scorpion / Professor Quandry - Oliver Senton
* Madam Teegarana / Grandmother Scorpion / Brenda - Claire Wyatt
=== Uncredited ===
* Thomas Brewster - John Pickard
== Crew ==
* Cover Art - Barry Piggott
* Director - Barnaby Edwards
* Executive Producers - Nicholas Briggs and Jason Haigh-Ellery
* Music and Sound Design - Steve Foxon
* Producer - David Richardson
* Script Editor - Alan Barnes
* Writer - Paul Magrs
== Worldbuilding ==
=== The Doctor ===
* During the block transfer computations the Doctor's subconscious sleepwalks through time to Briggs' freighter, assisting Adric in breaking the computations on the Cybermen's computer.
=== The Doctor's age ===
* The Doctor says he is "hundreds of years" older than the elderly Adric. However, he makes this statement before Adric reveals that he is over 500 years old.
=== Individuals ===
* The Doctor mentions Iris Wildthyme would be around in London in 1868 but they would not ask her for help.
* Teegarna means "mouth on legs", matching Tegan Jovanka's description of herself. (TV: Earthshock)
* Kranlee is probably named for Lord Cranleigh. (TV: Black Orchid)
* The Doctor compares Brewster to Adric.
=== Locations ===
* The Scorpion King creates a city out of pure computations, the City of Excellence, watched over by Star, the remains of the alien computer the Cybermen left in control of the freighter.
=== TARDIS ===
* The Scorpion King mentions the Doctor's TARDIS has a "flux capacitor" (perhaps as a joke), which is the time-travel component from Dr. Emmett 'Doc' Brown's time-travelling DeLorean in the Back to the Future film trilogy.
=== Time travel ===
* The Doctor attempts to use Block Transfer Computations to time travel. It requires a quorum of twelve people.
* The Doctor describes the version of reality created by Adric's survival as existing "In its own bubble of time." Adric's departure seals the bubble off from the rest of the universe.
== Gallery ==
The Boy that Time Forgot cover.jpg|Original cover art
The Boy That Time Forgot DWM 397.jpg|Illustrated preview by Anthony Dry in DWM 397
== Notes ==
* The Boy That Time Forgot was released on 30 July 2008.https://web.archive.org/web/20081010234921/http://www.bigfinish.com/News/?Page=2
* This story marks the first appearance of Adric in an audio drama, though an illusory version of him created by the Kro'ka appeared in AUDIO: The Last. He would later appear in AUDIO: The Darkening Eye and AUDIO: The Invasion of E-Space, although not portrayed by his original actor Matthew Waterhouse, who would not reprise the role until AUDIO: Psychodrome and Iterations of I in 2014.
* Rupert Von Thal and Beatrice Mapp also appeared in Paul Magrs' novel The Bride That Time Forgot, the fifth instalment in his The Brenda and Effie Mysteries series.
* This audio drama was recorded on 15 and 16 April 2008 at The Moat Studios.
* This story is set between Time-Flight and Arc of Infinity.
* This story was originally released on CD and download.
* This story was previewed in DWM 397 with an illustration from Anthony Dry.
== Continuity ==
* The Doctor has shaved the beard which he had grown at some point between November 1866 and November 1867 as the scientists at the British Royal Academy were not taking him seriously due to his youthful appearance. (AUDIO: The Haunting of Thomas Brewster)
* The Doctor and Nyssa recall Adric's supposed death. (TV: Earthshock)
* Tegan was left at Heathrow Airport in 1982. (TV: Time-Flight)
* The Doctor states that "time is circular", possibly alluding to the AUDIO: Circular Time.
* The Doctor, Nyssa and Adric all speak of Logopolis and the Logopolitans. (TV: Logopolis)
* Thomas Brewster stole the TARDIS on 14 November 1867. (AUDIO: The Haunting of Thomas Brewster)
* The Doctor is reluctant to ask the renegade Time Lady Iris Wildthyme for assistance. She had previously spent Christmas with the Doctor, Adric, Nyssa and Tegan Jovanka on one occasion. She came to dislike Tegan, later describing her as "that shrill Australian woman." Later in his fifth incarnation, the Doctor would encounter Iris once again on Excelis. (AUDIO: Excelis Dawns)
* Later in his personal timeline, specifically during his seventh incarnation, the Doctor would meet Adric on one further occasion in PROSE: Cold Fusion. Those events occurred shortly after the events of TV: Castovalva and therefore prior to Adric's apparent death from the perspective of his fifth incarnation, whom the Seventh Doctor also met on that occasion.
* The Doctor wishes, on meeting Adric's pet spider, that he would meet normal sized spiders for once. (TV: Planet of the Spiders)
== External links ==
* 
Category:Fifth Doctor audio stories
Category:Stories set in the distant past
Category:Stories set in London
Category:Stories set in 1868
Category:Stories set in alternate timelines
Category:Fifth Doctor Main Range audio stories
Category:2008 Main Range audio stories
Category:Audio stories that use the Peter Howell theme
Category:Stories that crossover with non-DWU series