Short Trips: Past Tense

Short Trips: Past Tense
Author Ian Farrington
Series Doctor Who book:
Big Finish Short Trips
Release number
 6
Publisher Big Finish Productions
Publication date
 April 2004
Pages 242
ISBN 1-84435-046-0
Preceded by Short Trips: Steel Skies
Followed by Short Trips: Life Science

Short Trips: Past Tense is a Big Finish original anthology edited by Ian Farrington and based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. The collection's theme is history with each story being set before the year 2000.

List of stories

Title Author Featuring Plot
The Immortals Simon Guerrier 5th Doctor, Adric, Nyssa and Tegan
Far From Home Alison Lawson 8th None
All Done with Mirrors Christopher Bav 4th Sarah
CHAOS Eric Saward 6th Peri
Ante Bellum Stephen Hatcher 7th Ace
The Thief of Sherwood Jonathan Morris 1st Ian, Barbara and Susan
Come Friendly Bombs... Dave Owen 3rd Jo
Graham Dilley Saves The World Iain McLaughlin and Claire Bartlett 5th Peri and Erimem
Bide-a-Wee Anthony Keetch 1st Susan Foreman
Mortlake Mark Wright 6th Evelyn
White Man's Burden John Binns 5th Turlough, Ian and Barbara
Of the Mermaid and Jupiter Ian Mond and Danny Heap 7th Benny
The Man Who Wouldn't Give Up Nev Fountain 6th Mel
One Small Step... Nicholas Briggs 2nd Jamie and Zoe
To Kill a Nandi Bear Paul Williams 4th Sarah and Harry
Fixing a Hole Samantha Baker 6th Tegan
That Time I Nearly Destroyed The World Whilst Looking For a Dress Joseph Lidster None Polly

Notes:

Bide-a-Wee

Bide-a-Wee is the 9th story in the anthology, written by Anthony Keetch, which features the First Doctor and Susan.

Plot

The Doctor is relaxing at a B&B named Bide-a-Wee in Keelmouth, 1933, while his granddaughter spends time at the beach—or so it seems until the Atkins family arrives in town. Jeff and his wife Ujwala are taken aback by the locals’ casual racism appalled reactions to the Atkins’ mixed marriage and their son, Craig—but soon, Jeff and Ujwala seem to have grown accustomed to this treatment, and Ujwala has even forgotten that she used to be a brain surgeon, which of course is just silly. The Doctor decides that the time has come to put an end to his vacation, and confronts another of the B&B’s residents, Prentice. Prentice admits that he used to roam through time and space, fighting the forces of evil, but that he has since retired to Keelmouth—and, finding it a pleasant and quiet place in which to spend his retirement, he’s frozen the community in the year 1933. Outside Keelmouth, it’s the year 1999; a flaw in Prentice’s technology caused the Atkins family to slip through the cracks, and now they are subconsciously acclimatising to the social standards of 1933. Prentice is reluctant to put an end to his peaceful retirement, but the Doctor convinces young Craig to pretend that he has whooping cough, a disease that can be easily cured in 1999 but is fatal in 1933. Prentice accepts that it’s time to put things right, and the Doctor helps him to bring Keelmouth back in synch with the outside world, leaving the Atkins family in their proper time period and returning everyone else to 1933.[1]

Story chronology

The Doctor and Susan are at ease with humanity suggesting that they have had previous encounters. However, the pair have not yet established themselves in 1960's London - placing this story after Frayed and before the first TV episode 100,000 BC

Reception

Paul Clarke of the website Whoniverse.net reviewed the short story as "A charming little story that sees the Doctor taking a traditional English holiday. Hartnell's Doctor railing against racism is deeply ironic."[2]

References

  1. ↑ Bide-a-Wee at the Doctor Who Reference Guide. External link in |title= (help)
  2. ↑ "Discontinuity Guide - Short Trips: Past Tense". Whoniverse.net. Retrieved 2010-05-27.

External links

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