Open the Box was the third and final story in the audio anthology Revisitations, produced by Big Finish Productions. It was written by Roy Gill and featured Jemma Redgrave as Kate Stewart, Ingrid Oliver as Petronella Osgood, James Joyce as Josh Carter, Ramon Tikaram as Vikram Shindi and Pik-Sen Lim as Doctor Chin Lee.

Publisher's summary[]

In the years since the Stangmoor Prison incident, Captain Chin Lee found a new calling. She now heads up an international organisation, dedicated to meditation and 'mental fortitude' training.

But there is a menace deep inside the Pandora Institute. And Kate, Osgood and Josh must face their darkest fears...

Plot[]

Osgood has a dream where Kate is disappointed in her for being unable to do the calculations necessary to assist her and Josh against alien vehicles similar to helicopters. She wakes up at the headquarters of the Pandora Institute, which she, Kate and Josh are investigating due to the Ministry of Defence mandating courses there. At breakfast, deputy director Seth Hyer takes Miles McLellan to discuss the panic attack he had on the helicopter and unsuccessfully invites Kate to fill in the psychometric report. Kate takes Osgood away from the surveillance and tells her that the real reason she brought her and Josh was because of the seemingly random deaths of the Pandora Institute's clients.

Josh listens to Pandora's meditation podcast, which aims to reconnect him with "his truest self", but hurries out of his room when he hears somebody scream. He forces his way past Seth and finds Miles's bruised body, which Seth claims is the result of him banging against the wall to kill himself. Josh is unconvinced and goes with Seth for his one-to-one coaching session and is forced to face his fear of being controlled. Overheard by Kate and Osgood, Seth welcomes Dr Chin Lee back to the island.

Kate, Osgood and Josh go to a pool that Lee and Seth discussed. Osgood abseils into it and falls, as does Josh, into the water where a creature roars. Kate finds herself in a session with Lee, who explains that Kate agreed to be treated with amplified alpha waves which made her enter a deep meditative state in which she faced her fear of losing her team. Lee points out that her vision has taught her that she will survive even without her team and that she is stronger than she knows, but Kate is dismissive of the process and confronts her about the deaths of her clients and her past. When Lee tells her that has been using a Keller creature's empathic powers at the institute, Kate notices and removes a tranceiver from her.

Osgood updates Colonel Shindi with her hologram projector and Josh tells her about Miles's death. At the mortuary, Osgood finds that Miles's time of death was at the same time that she and Kate saw Seth welcome Lee, meaning that Seth was in two places at once. Seth finds them and controls Osgood and Josh with hidden transmitters, but loses contact because of the removal of Lee's amplifier disc. He uses a matter transmitter to go and re-establish control with her. He tells Kate that everybody's neuroses are going to be drained into Container 1 and tries to control Osgood and Josh once again when they come after him. Lee orders him to stop, but he refuses.

Kate takes Osgood and Josh's hands and tells them that she trusts them, breaking Seth's hold and leading him to transmat away to his true physical form in Container 1. As Lee explains to Kate, Seth is only a projection. The Keller creature grows to an enormous size and tries to get free from the building. Shindi sends a helicopter, but Lee remembers that the creature has an aversion to its own reflection and Osgood deduces that they could create a reflective surface with the pool water and hologram matrix to cause a feedback loop, making the creature feed on itself.

The creature is diminished and disappears into the water, unable to drown. Lee still believes that she was right to treat it with kindness and goes to pay her respects; Kate regrets that UNIT did not do more for her after she was hypnotised by the Master, believing that they abandoned her.

Cast[]

• Kate Stewart - Jemma Redgrave
• Osgood - Ingrid Oliver
• Colonel Vikram Shindi - Ramon Tikaram
• Captain Josh Carter - James Joyce
• Doctor Chin Lee - Pik-Sen Lim
• Seth Hyer - Jonathan Christie
• Miles McLellan / Voice of Pandora / Server / Orderly / Pilot - Simon Hepworth

Crew[]

• Cover Art - Tom Webster
• Director - Ken Bentley
• Executive Producers - Jason Haigh-Ellery and Nicholas Briggs
• Music and Sound Design - Howard Carter
• Producer - David Richardson
• Script Editor - Matt Fitton
• Writer - Roy Gill
• Chin Lee created by Don Houghton

Worldbuilding[]

• Osgood turns down a kale and almond smoothie and drinks coffee.
• The server offers Osgood activated water, which she says is nonsense.
• Kate and Josh eat croissants.
• The Pandora Institute is located on an island off of the coast of Wales.
• Josh is meant to be spending his leave on Gran Canaria.
• The Brigadier took Kate to holiday camps when she was a child.
• Osgood has had her mobile phone confiscated.
• Osgood is working on her hologram projector.
• Kate likes custard creams.
• Shindi mentions Deal or No Deal.
• It has been at least thirty-four years since the Stangmoor Incident.
• Chin Lee's mother told her when she was young that evil cannot stand its own reflection.

Notes[]

to be added

Continuity[]

• Kate talks about the Stangmoor Prison incident and Chin Lee recalls being under the influence of the Keller Machine. (TV: The Mind of Evil)
• Josh and Osgood reference their doubles from a parallel universe. (AUDIO: False Negative)
• Kate mentions that as a girl she spent her holidays at an holiday camp in Cromer. (TV: The Three Doctors)

External links[]

• Official Open the Box page at bigfinish.com