The Time Ravagers (TV Story)

***The Time Ravagers*** was the third serial of Season 33 of *Doctor Who*. It was written by Nicholas Briggs, directed by Andrew Morgan and starred Nick Berry as the Ninth Doctor & Gillian Kearney as Lillian Truscott.

## Synopsis

The Doctor and Lillian land on Temperos. Could it be that the legendary Time being, the Temperon is not a legend after all? Or are the Daleks up to their old tricks again?

## Plot

### Part One

A repeating buoy broadcasts its beacon into space a light year from the Temperon research station, in the Temperos system. On an approaching supply ship, Captain Stride sends his engineer, Harlan, back to his post, before musing on military discipline. He tries to summon his science officer, Okkerby, but she belligerently refuses to come up before landing, and returns to the music to which she was listening. Harlan shortly joins her in her quarters, and discusses her professional affection for time travel—which, as it turns out, is what Temperon station is supposed to be researching. Harlan’s grandfather was alive at the building of the station, and Harlan finds it fascinating, though Okkerby has given up on any breakthroughs. The captain summons Okkerby again; all the ship’s chronometers have gone dead at relative 01:56. More, something is out there—in space.

No other malfunctions seem apparent, so Stride tells Harlan to follow the buoy signal in. However, the signal is gone; the buoy is dead. Harlan prepares a spacesuit for Stride to use in investigating the buoy, and takes the ship close to it; but he superstitiously warns that this is the work of the “Temperon”.

Stride lectures Harlan again, then heads out to examine the buoy.

Lillian finds the Doctor in the library—reading the Time Machine by H.G. Wells. They have a brief conversation but they are interrupted as the Doctor tells them the TARDIS is tipping into a time abyss, something he previously thought impossible. He pilots the TARDIS but is unable to stop it going through a time distortion.

Stride reports to Okkerby as he examines the beacon, where he can find nothing wrong—but no signal either. He investigates further, and find the battery corroded—and strangely, it seems aged far beyond its projected 50,000 year lifespan.

The Doctor brings them safely out of the distortion and to safety. They have a brief argument about what happened, the Doctor explains that there is some sort of time-creature—which seems to be in need of help. An alert from the TARDIS then goes off; the ship’s power cells are decaying beyond their practically-infinite lifespan. The Doctor realises the creature is taking them toward the end of time.

Okkerby is not receiving a signal from Temperon station, either; and the ship’s engines are experiencing fluctuations. Stride orders Harlan to make an emergency landing; but the base is nowhere to be seen. Stride orders Harlan to land where the base should be. Okkerby sees that the Temperon sun is going dark.

The TARDIS lands, but the Doctor doesn’t know where. At least there is a breathable atmosphere, so they head out to explore. They find a darkened landscape under a dying sun, with ancient ruins nearby. The whole world seems to be near the end of its life cycle. The trio goes to investigate the ruins, which prove to be millions of years old—though it was quite advanced in its day. As they head inside, a strange voice can be heard growling the Doctor’s name, and asking for help.

The ruin shows evidence of both violence and rapid aging. The Doctor speaks briefly with Lillian about what happened in the TARDIS, before the odd voice is heard again—and apparently only the Doctor can hear it.

As the ship comes in for a landing, its power continues to weaken; Okkerby notices the same ruin as the TARDIS crew, at the coordinates the station should occupy.

The ruin’s power cells have also been rapidly aged, and the Doctor begins to make a connection between this and his own situation. They see the ship coming in. Aboard ship, the crew struggles to get the ship down, with only three minutes of emergency power left. The ship lands hard, near the ruins, but everyone survives. Stride arms the three of them from the ship’s armory, over Okkerby’s objections.

The Doctor notes that the ship is suffering the same degradation, but he is unable to focus as he hears the voice again. Lillian notices that he is unwell, just before the Doctor passes out.

Stride sends Harlan to scout ahead, against his objections. Lillian sees him coming, and tries to wake the Doctor; they also note that Stride and Okkerby have found the TARDIS. Okkerby doesn’t know what it is, but determines it at least won’t blow up. Lillian carries the Doctor behind a bit of cover and try to hide from Harlan. Harlan tells Stride he hasn’t found anything. Meanwhile, Okkerby concludes that the ruins are the Temperon station, though millions of years aged. The Doctor cries out, giving away their position to the others. Time begins to reverse around them, and the base begins to rebuild as the TARDIS disappears. Suddenly the situation reverses again, and the base disappears—but the TARDIS disappears fully as well.

Stride’s crew finds Lillian, and Stride tells Harlan to shoot them. The duo run; Stride insists they are saboteurs. The Doctor awakens to overhear this, and Stride demands answers from him as  Lillian manages to hide.

The Doctor agrees to try to help, but insists he may not be much help because of his recent metabolic change. Stride places Okkerby to watch the Doctor, and takes Harlan to go hunt down the companions. The Doctor introduces himself to Okkerby, who doesn’t think the situation is the result of sabotage. Conferring, they each learn that the same circumstance brought them there. She tells them they are on Temperos, the legendary home of the beast called the Temperon. The station crew was there to research time travel, which is connected with the Temperon. Meanwhile, Stride and Harlan lose track of Lillian. Harlan explains what his grandfather told him about the Temperon, which is consistent with what has happened to them; Stride calls it rubbish. The Doctor examines the damaged chronometers, and concludes they were damaged by the sudden onrush of time.

Lillian thinks they may be safe for the moment, and muse on the apparent approaching death of the world and its star. They realise that if the planet aged naturally, the atmosphere would have dissipated. They are interrupted by more weapons fire, as Stride and Harlan find them, and they run again.

The Doctor theorises that they are heading toward the end of time. A huge brain materialises; the Doctor concludes it is the Temperon. It speaks in the strange voice from before, and calls the Doctor friend. It warns the Doctor of danger that must be resisted. Stride and Harlan return with their captives, and Stride makes Harlan fire on the Temperon, which vanishes. The Doctor berates him as a fool. Harlan is seen to be aged; the Temperon struck in self-defence, it seems. The Doctor insists it is not their enemy, but has been dragging others here to help it defeat the force that is using it. Another time distortion begins, and the Doctor tells Stride to throw down his gun and apologise to the Temperon. However, it is not the creature that appears, but a band of Daleks.

### Part Two

The Daleks don’t know the Doctor’s new face. The Doctor stalls them as far as knowing which person is the Doctor, prompting the Daleks to capture them all, which knocks them out briefly. They awaken on a Dalek ship, with no Daleks in sight—but they won’t be gone long. Stride knows the Daleks, but insists they long ago surrendered in their war with the humans. The Doctor laughs at the thought, and insists that they must deal with the situation in front of them. Why do the Daleks want them? Unknown to them, the Daleks are monitoring them, and determine from the confrontation which one is the Doctor. The lead Dalek instructs the others to bring the Doctor to him, and kill the others. The Doctor surmises that this is the case, and plans to bargain with them—after all, the Daleks need him for their work with time travel, and that constitutes a powerful bargaining chip. Still, the Daleks are not to be trusted.

A Dalek come for the Doctor, and Stride’s crew opens fire on them. Okkerby is wounded. The Doctor helps them kill the Dalek, though it sounds the alarm before it dies. The group escapes, though Okkerby slows them down. Okkerby realises that they are not in a Dalek ship at all, but in the Temperon station, now fully restored. They are interrupted by the arrival of more Daleks, and run. They meet the Temperon again, with another time distortion in place; the Doctor urges the others into the distortion for their safety, but stays behind himself. Lillian stays with him, over his objections, and they are quickly captured by the Daleks. The Daleks try to restrain the Temperon, but fail, and it retreats to the time period from which the group was abducted by the Daleks. It tells the humans that the Daleks had imprisoned it, and then it departs, possibly pulled away by the Daleks. It has, in fact, been restrained to a time cell in the Daleks’ version of the base. The Daleks threaten Lillian as a motivation for the Doctor to help them.

Stride still refuses to believe that they have time traveled, despite Okkerby’s words. Meanwhile, the Daleks bring in the TARDIS and the Temperon, and insist that the Doctor will experiment on the beast—to isolate and extract its time travel abilities.

### Part Three

They put the Doctor and Lillian under guard, and leave the room. The Doctor insists they must get answers from the Temperon, though that will be hard with the Dalek guard watching them. He takes Lillian into the TARDIS, reminding them that it’s incapable of travel at the moment; but here they can speak freely, and they may be able to meet the Temperon at the time rotor again. He reroutes power from the environmental controls to the time rotor, to draw the creature in. He muses that the Temperon has given them all a sort of dimensional cocoon, protecting them from the effects of time dislocation. They activate the power, generating a time field to attract the Temperon.

The Daleks send a squad to recapture the humans. Stride tells the others to run for his ship; the group makes it safely inside, where there are greater armaments—though it is doubtful that any of it can stop the Daleks. The Daleks issue an ultimatum to them; if they do not surrender in one minute, the Daleks will attack the ship.

The Doctor manages to make contact with the Temperon, and is not aged this time; he learns what the Daleks want.

Harlan sets up a cannon at a porthole to attack the Daleks, but worries over the possibility of not getting them all. Harlan fires on them from the porthole, and the crew escapes through an escape hatch in the confusion. Okkerby uses grenades to clear the Daleks pursuing them, and the group escapes into the mountains. The remaining Daleks call for transolar disks with which to make an aerial patrol. Their leader orders the death of the “squad leader”, or Stride.

The Doctor has yet to come up with a solution to their predicament. He and Lillian exit the TARDIS to meet a Dalek demanding a report. He hedges as long as possible, making the Dalek angry. He says that he has communicated with the Temperon, which says it will give the information they want if they turn off its time cell. He argues with the Dalek, insisting they don’t have the right to interfere with time this way—that is, by taking its DNA into themselves to gain the Temperon’s abilities. The Dalek departs, and the Doctor begins to get an idea of how to proceed.

Daleks on transolar disks patrol the skies, in search of the humans, who see them coming.

The Doctor and Lillian quietly reroute power so that the Daleks’ next use of the restraint equipment will destroy the Temperon’s time cage.

The Daleks send more of their numbers to reclaim the escapees. They also prepare for genetic engineering. The Doctor says that they have the DNA information the Daleks want. Short on time, he calls out to the Temperon; the Daleks announce that they will kill Lillian if he communicates with it again. They fire up the restraint system, and the Doctor and Lillian duck into the TARDIS as the time cage collapses, freeing the Temperon. It turns on the Daleks, before reappearing in the TARDIS and replenishing its power. The TARDIS escapes—but the Daleks are thrilled to see that the genetic data has been left behind. They order their patrols to exterminate the humans on sight.

The Temperon is in control of the TARDIS, and is too busy to talk to the Doctor. The Doctor tries anyway, attempting to get it to take them to the others. The TARDIS materialises there just as the Daleks approach, and the humans go towards the TARDIS as Stride provides cover fire. Stride is killed by the Daleks just as the others enter the TARDIS. The Temperon flies the ship away.

The Doctor has insisted that the genetic data he gave the Daleks was junk…but suddenly he’s not so sure. After all, the knowledge came to him very easily. He suspects he may have subconsciously given them the real information, quite unintentionally. Suddenly the TARDIS stops—in space—and the Doctor and the Temperon vanish. Daleks begin appearing out of nowhere, apparently charged with the Doctor’s data. However, the Doctor reappears and reassures the humans that the Daleks are harmless, because they overlooked something: while they can travel in time, they are not protected from aging accordingly. These are therefore greatly aged; and before the crew’s eyes, the Daleks die and fade away. With the Temperon’s help, the plan has been thwarted; but of course the Daleks will be back, as always.

The power cells are recharged, but the Temperon has locked them into a course for one of the humans’ relay stations, where Okkerby and Harlan can be dropped off safely..

## Cast

* The Doctor - Nick Berry
* Lillian Truscott - Gillian Kearney
* Captain Stride - Nicholas Gleaves
* Harlan - George Harris
* Okkerby - Lisa Faulkner
* Space Buoy - David Graham
* Daleks - Nicholas Briggs