Protect and Survive (audio drama) explained

Protect and Survive
Publisher:	Big Finish Productions
Series:	Doctor Who
Number:	162
Featuring:	Seventh Doctor Ace Hex
Director:	Ken Bentley
Production Code:	7W/AA
Date:	July 2012

Protect and Survive is a Big Finish Productions audio drama based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It was released on CD and download in July 2012, and was first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 Extra on 17 November 2013 as part of the Doctor Who 50th-anniversary celebrations.^[1]

Plot

The Doctor has disappeared, and the TARDIS is out of control. Ace and Hex find themselves marooned on Earth in the 1980s at the height of the Cold War.

Cast

• Seventh Doctor – Sylvester McCoy
• Ace – Sophie Aldred
• Hex – Philip Olivier
• Albert Marsden – Ian Hogg
• Peggy Marsden – Elizabeth Bennett
• Moloch / Patrick Allen (announcer) – Peter Egan

Continuity

• The exterior of the TARDIS was rendered white during the events of The Angel of Scutari. It remained as such for the previous trilogy of stories, Project: Destiny, A Death in the Family and Lurkers at Sunlight's Edge.
• The TARDIS with the black exterior was inexplicably seen in a trilogy of solo Seventh Doctor stories, Robophobia, The Doomsday Quatrain and House of Blue Fire, which, for the Doctor, take place between Lurkers at Sunlight's Edge and Protect and Survive. It is also in Project: Nirvana, which takes place just before Protect and Survive.
• Peggy Marsden returns in Gods and Monsters.

Notes

• In the Whovian timeline, this story takes place between Project: Nirvana and Black and White
• The Doctor is absent for most of the adventure. This was due to Sylvester McCoy appearing in the feature-film adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit at the time of Protect and Survives recording.
• Ian Hogg played Josiah Samuel Smith in the 1989 Seventh Doctor television story, Ghost Light.
• Peter Egan recreates the late Patrick Allen's original voice-over for the real-life Protect and Survive public information announcements, which form a key part of the plot.
• The commander of the Russian missile base is named Petrov. On 26 Sept 1983, Lt Col Stanislav Petrov averted a nuclear exchange by reasoning that an apparent American pre-emptive strike was a false alarm.

Critical reception

Doctor Who Magazine reviewer Matt Michael strongly praised the play, noting that it was "one of the bleakest" made by Big Finish.^[2]

External links

• Big Finish Productions – Protect and Survive

Notes and References

1. Web site: BBC Radio 4 Extra - Doctor Who, Protect and Survive, Episode 1.
2. Michael. Matt. October 2012. The DWM Review: Protect and Survive. Doctor Who Magazine. Panini Comics. Royal Tunbridge Wells, Kent. 451. 74–75.