The Boy That Time Forgot (audio story)

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***The Boy That Time Forgot*** 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.

## Cast

* The Doctor - Peter Davison
* Nyssa - Sarah Sutton
* The Scorpion King - Andrew Sachs
* Mrs Beatrice Mapp - Harriet Walter
* Rupert Von Thal - Adrian Scarborough
* Kranlee - Oliver Senton
* Madam Teegarana - Claire Wyatt

## References

### 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.

## Notes

* 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.
* This audio drama was recorded on 15 and 16 April 2008 at The Moat Studios.

## 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

* Official ***The Boy that Time Forgot*** page at bigfinish.com
* ***The Boy That Time Forgot*** at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
* DisContinuity for ***The Boy That Time Forgot*** at Tetrapyriarbus - The DisContinuity Guide