Invaders from Mars (Doctor Who audio)
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| Big Finish Productions audio play | |
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| Invaders from Mars | |
| Series | Doctor Who |
| Release number | 28 |
| Featuring | Eighth Doctor Charley Pollard |
| Writer | Mark Gatiss |
| Director | Mark Gatiss |
| Producer(s) | Gary Russell Jason Haigh-Ellery |
| Executive producer(s) | Jacqueline Rayner |
| Production code | 8F |
| Set between | Minuet in Hell and The Chimes of Midnight |
| Release date | January 2002 |
Invaders from Mars is a Big Finish Productions audio drama based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. This audio drama was later broadcast on BBC 7 in four weekly parts (starting on the 29th of October 2005) and was later rebroadcast on the same channel once more (beginning on the 19th of November 2006).
Contents |
[edit] Summary
In Manhattan 1938, the Eighth Doctor and Charley meet a crooked gangster, a Russian spy, a sinister fifth columnist and Orson Welles. Welles's broadcast of War of the Worlds is just a story, but maybe there really are aliens at loose.
[edit] Cast
- The Doctor — Paul McGann
- Charley Pollard — India Fisher
- Mouse — Ian Hallard
- Ellis — Mark Benton
- John Houseman — Jonathan Rigby
- Orson Welles — David Benson
- Bix Biro — Paul Putner
- Don Chaney — Simon Pegg
- Glory Bee — Jessica Stevenson
- Cosmo Devine — John Arthur
- Winkler — Ian Hallard
[edit] Trivia
- Mark Benton played conspiracy theorist Clive in "Rose".
- The Invaders from Mars was the original title for the 1970 Third Doctor story, The Ambassadors of Death.
- In episode one, Houseman reads from the War of the Worlds radio play. Welles responds with: "Who wrote this crap? I certainly didn't write this crap." Houseman responds "You will, Orson, you will." This is a reference to a famous witticism by James McNeill Whistler, who said "You will, Oscar; you will" to Oscar Wilde when Wilde said "I wish I'd said that". This incident was dramatised in the "Oscar Wilde Sketch" in an episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus.
- The radio ventriloquist mentioned several times during the play is Edgar Bergen, who was performing that night on the competing NBC Red Network along with his dummy, Charlie McCarthy.
- Don Chaney's name is a reference to horror actor Lon Chaney, his nickname is "Phantom" which is a reference to one of Lon Chaney's most famous film roles, The Phantom of the Opera; Bix Biro's name is a reference to the Bic and Biro. Cosmo Devine may be reference to determining what is in space.
- Jessica Stevenson and Simon Pegg (are the creators and stars of the television comedy Spaced. Stevenson also has part in two episodes of the 2007 series of Doctor Who (entitled "Human Nature" and "The Family of Blood"), while Pegg appeared in "The Long Game".
- This is the first audio story to credit India Fisher as Charley on the front cover.
- Hadley Cantril's book on The War of the Worlds hoax was entitled Invasion From Mars, which is similar to the title of this story.
[edit] Deliberate Errors
Big Finish audio scripts are renowned for their lack of continuity and being full of errors. However, for the first season of the eighth Doctor audios, some of these were deliberate. These included:
- There were 48 States in the United States in 1938, not 49 as Chaney claims.
- The CIA was not established until 1947, almost nine years after the events portrayed here.
- Welles fails to recognise a Shakespearean quotation.
- Don Chaney claims to own a 1929 Lamborghini previously owned by Al Capone, but Lamborghinis did not exist until 1963.
The first two "mistakes" in this list were deliberate, intended to be examples of anti-time contamination.) The third was also deliberate, but was explained in The Time of the Daleks. The last was not deliberate but was later retconned to be another example of anti-time contamination.)
[edit] Errors
Aside from the deliberate mistakes inserted into the script, many unintentional ones also appeared, including:
- The story is set on October 31st, 1938. However, the real radio broadcast (and the subsequent panic) happened on October 30th.
- The Mercury Theater Show did not have Campbell Soup as a sponsor until after their production of The War of the Worlds.
- Halliday is killed in an alley near a train track. However, his body is found out in the open on the corner of a road, nowhere near a train track. No mention is made of how his corpse got there nor the lack of attention it receives from the general public walking and driving past it in broad daylight.
- Americans do not say "Good morning" when ringing off from a phone call.
- There has never been a Professor John Morris on faculty at the University of Minnesota.
- Contrary to popular belief (and what this story claims) King Canute actually did not ever claim to turn back the tide. Instead, he claimed he could not, even as king.
- The gangsters are all remarkably dumb. Not only does one faction gather all of its members together in a single public place, the opposing faction sends men there to kill them... but only two.
- The male character Luigi is played by a female actor, with no effort made to disguise the voice.
- The Doctor knows exactly where Halliday's office is located without being told.
- There was no actress named Celoris in the Mercury Theater group.
- Orson Welles is described as "America's favourite Renaissance man", which is untrue. Welles was still fairly unknown until this broadcast.
- The theater group is descibred as "the Mercury Theater of Nevada", which is bizarre. The last word is almost covered up by a bad sound effect.
- The Doctor's slang is completely incoherent. (Admittedly, this is the joke.)
- At several times in the story, characters tell each other secrets in loud voices and with other people (usually the person they're trying to keep the secret from) nearby.
- Glory Bee cannot decide whether to call the Doctor "Doctor" or "Mister".
[edit] External links
[edit] Reviews
- Invaders from Mars reviews at Outpost Gallifrey
- Invaders from Mars reviews at The Doctor Who Ratings Guide
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