'Out of the Darkness'

Three short stories, with added music and effects, read by the Sixth Doctor and his TV companion, Peri - Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant!

Moon Graffiti by Dave Stone
The Doctor and Peri become caught up in one of humanity's final fights for survival in the far future,battling against the all consuming power of the pararachnids...

Wish You Were Here by Guy Claperton
The Doctor investigates the disappearance of an old friend in an alien holiday camp. Is Lakksis, the cheery robot redcoat, as innocent as he seems?

Vigil by Michael Collier
When the Doctor and Peri arrive in Hastings, hideous deaths begin to occur. Can they really be linked in some way to a little girl in a coma?

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'Moon Graffiti' by Dave Stone

The Doctor decides to recalibrate his damaged TARDIS, and looks for a pocket sub-dimension in which to carry out the repairs. He and Peri arrive on Earth in the far future, after the planet has been invaded by Pararachnoids. Although the alien swarm has now left, it has left behind some of its number, that, although weak and crippled, are still capable of violently killing humans. After meeting a young man, Chimoani, the Doctor and Peri are attacked by Pararachnoids. The Doctor and Chimoani are captured, but Peri escapes, and discovers that the glowing disc the Chimoani was carrying is actually a tiny ship populated by a species of explorers called the Wibbly-Wee. Chimoani has escaped from The Line, a hideaway from the Pararachnoids, where humans are safely held in suspended animation by Monitor robots. Through a system fault, these Monitors have concluded that the best way to protect the humans is to keep them in The Line, where they will never encounter a Pararachnoid again. The Wibbly-Wee woke Chimoani from his slumber hoping that he could carry them to the materials they need to repair their damaged spaceship. The Doctor and Chimoani escape from the Pararachnoids, and find that Peri has been frozen. As the Pararachnoids break in, the Doctor and Chimoani take the Wibbly-Wee ship to the control room, where Chimoani takes the place of the dead operator, and reprograms the Monitors to repel the attacking Pararachnoids, before awakening the last members of the human race. The Wibbly-Wee help the Doctor to repair the TARDIS before going, and he leaves the human race to begin rebuilding.

Notes:
*Featuring the Sixth Doctor and Peri

*This occurs immediately after 'Vengeance on Varos', as the Zeiton-7 ore obtained by the Doctor is only the first step in his repairing of the TARDIS

*This story was first featured in 'More Short Trips'

*Duration: 60 minutes 37 seconds

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'Wish You Were Here' by Guy Clapperton

The Doctor visits a leisure complex on the planet Nestra, where holidaymakers are disappearing. The owners of the complex, the Thetrans, are a species whose economy is based entirely on service industries; however, after five thousand years, they have finally realised that they hate their jobs, and have instead put the complex under the control of Lakkis, a service drone. The Doctor and Janis Carma, a Thetran security agent sent to investigate the disappearances, are arrested as troublemakers by security drones. The Doctor discovers that Lakksis's programming has led it to view holidaymakers' requests for something that may cause them pain - such as insulin injections, or even the option to leave the pleasure complex and return to the perils of the outside world - as a psychosis. To this end, the drone has been restraining or killing people for their own good. The Doctor convinces Lakkis of its error, but the machine is destroyed by Janis, who then orders for the building of a replacement drone. As the Doctor leaves, Janis complains of a mild headache, and Lakksis-2 prepares to use the Doctor's arguments in order cut Janis' head open to ease the pain, for her own good.

Notes:
*Featuring the Sixth Doctor

*This story was first published in 'Short Trips'

*Duration: 33 minutes 54 seconds

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'Vigil' by Michael Collier

The TARDIS materialises in Hastings, Earth, where Peri meets her college friend Martin, and his domineering fiancé Meryl. The Doctor visits his friend Val Menard, but finds the pathologist mourning the loss of his young daughter Lizzie, who had been in a coma following a car accident. Lizzie's caregiver, Claire, was recently found battered to death, with her blood reduced to powder. While the Doctor investigates, Peri spends the night at Martin and Meryl's, where she tells them about their friend Claire's murder, and learns that Martin now hates his wife. After two more deaths occur in circumstances similar to Claire's, Menard falls into a pocket universe populated by images of his daughter. The Doctor realises that the last time he visited the Menards, he infected them with temporal microbes - tiny creatures from the space / time vortex with a taste for human life. After Lizzie fell into a coma, the creatures responded to her father's grief by attempting to resurrect her, using their link to the TARDIS to telepathically project Lizzie's entire life-span onto other people in the vicinity; unfortunately, the impact of all her childhood injuries inflicted on them at once killed them. The Doctor is forced to leave Menard in the pocket universe, where the memories of his daughter will keep him happy. Meanwhile, Martin snapped during the night, beat Meryl to death, and tried to make it look like the same madman who beat Claire had killed her. But Peri realises the truth, and tells the police, as she never told him about Claire's powdered blood.

Notes:
*Featuring the Sixth Doctor and Peri

*The Doctor suggests that the microbes infected the TARDIS after he experimented with changing its appearance, which suggests this occurs after 'Attack of the Cybermen', but before 'Trial of a Time Lord, as the Doctor and Peri still behave aggressively towards each other.

*Duration: 39 minutes 54 seconds


*Read by Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant

*Duration: 89 minutes 38 seconds

*Released October 1998