'Short Trips': 'The Horror at Bletchington Station' (1 Part) by Chris Wing

Arriving in Bletchington in the Eighteenth Century, the Doctor and Dodo seek shelter from a storm at a nearby inn. Curiously, the innkeeper is uneasy because the plate-layers for the new railway line have rented his rooms rather than stay in their huts at the new station; hearing talk of a mysterious beast roaming the area, Dodo is all for investigating, but strangely the Doctor refuses to get involved. The next morning Dodo sets off alone to question the plate-layers; they are terrified of a terrible bear-like creature that was apparently unleashed by building work at the new station. Back in the TARDIS, the Doctor is torn between saving his skin and helping the humans; finally choosing the latter, he returns to the inn, only to learn that Dodo has gone off without him. Hearing a noise in the woods, Dodo convinces the workmen to accompany her in a search; it isn’t long before the creature attacks, sending Dodo and the men running for their lives. Dodo is reunited with the Doctor, who promptly gives her a scolding for her actions; to the old man’s continued annoyance, Dodo follows him in his search for the creature in the tunnel under the bridge. Inside the duo find a strange metal capsule embedded in the earth; as the creature returns, the Doctor uses the capsule’s controls to shrink the beast to its normal form – that of a simple mole. The Doctor explains that the machine is an old unmanned time capsule used for surveying the Vortex; when it was damaged by the builders laying the foundations for the new station, it acted in self-defence by hyper-evolving the mole to act as a guard. The Doctor re-programs the capsule to self-repair and return to its point of origin. As the capsule departs, the Doctor urges Dodo into the TARDIS; they leave just as a noise similar to the ship’s materialisation is heard nearby – a narrow escape for the Doctor…

Stephen Critchlow (Narrator)

Release Date:
March 2016

Notes:

*Featuring the First Doctor and Dodo

*A Big Finish Audio Production