You Are the Doctor was the first story in the audio anthology, You Are the Doctor and Other Stories, which comprised the two hundred and seventh release in Big Finish's monthly range. It was written by John Dorney and featured Sylvester McCoy as the Seventh Doctor and Sophie Aldred as Ace.

It took the form of a "choose-your-own-adventure" story.

Publisher's summary[]

YOU are the Doctor, a mysterious traveller in time and space. Will YOU succeed in foiling the ghastly plans of the horrible Porcians, the most inept invaders in all the cosmos? Or will you get yourself killed, over and over again?

Plot[]

Time Track 1[]

The Doctor has allowed Ace to try and fly the TARDIS to Australia, but they have instead landed in the hull of a grounded, and rather unhygienic, spaceship, with piles of rubbish lying around the place. The Doctor wants to investigate, but Ace wants to leave in the TARDIS. A disembodied voice asks the Doctor what to do. To leave, go to Time Track 2. To stay, go to Time Track 3.

Time Track 2[]

The Doctor decides to leave, but the pair are discovered by noticeably porcine guards and shot dead before they have the chance to escape. Go back to Track 1!

Time Track 3[]

The Doctor ignores Ace and they start looking around. They come across a woman who refuses to speak to them, before being discovered by guards. To follow the guards, go to Time Track 5. To try and escape, go to Time Track 4.

Time Track 4[]

The Doctor and Ace try to run, but the guards shoot them dead. Go back to Track 1!

Time Track 5[]

The Doctor and Ace follow the guards to the bridge, with the Doctor noting to Ace that they all have ear implants. On reaching the bridge, they come face to face with Chimbly of the Porcians, who the Doctor has already met and who has been the story’s narrator thus far. The Doctor explains that the Porcians are the most inept invaders in the galaxy - which Chimbly’s wife Keith takes offence to, given that they have somehow managed to take over an entire planet. To try and set up a feedback loop through the main controls and destroy the guards’ ear implants, go to Time Track 6. To follow the guards to the prison cells, go to Time Track 7.

Time Track 6[]

The Doctor sets up a feedback loop, but Chimbly orders Keith to open the trapdoor under their feet. They drop to the planet’s surface and die. Go back to Track 1!

Time Track 7[]

The Doctor and Ace allow themselves to be led to the cells. The Doctor points out a sentry outside a door, and notes how it is the only guarded door they’ve seen on the ship. Ace suggests making a break for that room. To try for the protected room, go to Time Track 8. To go to the cells, go to Time Track 9.

Time Track 8[]

The Doctor and Ace enter the room and find a strange creature, who appears to be in pain. Before the Doctor can explain, however, Chimbly shoots both of them. Go back to Track 1!

Time Track 9[]

The Doctor and Ace are thrown into a cell, to await being given control implants. Ace comments on how strangely passive they’ve been thus far, and the Doctor gets a strange sense that he is being manipulated. Chimbly’s voice says that that doesn’t mean anything. Go to Time Track 10.

Time Track 10[]

The surgeon, Katrice, enters their cell. To submit to implantation, go to Time Track 13. To resist, go to Time Track 11.

Time Track 11[]

Chimbly’s disembodied voice angrily gives the Doctor another try. To submit, go to Time Track 13. To resist, go to Time Track 12.

Time Track 12[]

Chimbly makes up an ending where the Doctor and Ace refuse and are strangled to death by a random bystander. Go back to Track 1!

Time Track 13[]

The Doctor submits to the implants and notices that they are not control devices but instead psychic amplifiers. Katrice explains that nobody has been able to get close to defeating the Porcians. Chimbly comes in and asks Katrice to hold a probe, which he switches on, killing her in the process. Chimbly shoots the Doctor and Ace dead. Chimbly’s voice asks that the Doctor ignore that. Go to Time Track 14.

Time Track 14[]

This time, the Doctor sees nothing unusual about the implants. Katrice puts the implants into the Doctor and Ace and Chimbly sets them to work: Ace in admin, and the Doctor assisting Katrice. To follow Ace, go to Time Track 15. To follow the Doctor, go to Time Track 16.

Time Track 15[]

Ace does some filing alongside the clerk that she and the Doctor ran into when they first arrived on the ship. Just outside, Chimbly enters the security suite that Ace and the Doctor came upon earlier. Despite Ace’s implant, she considers following him. To enter the security suite, go to Time Track 17. To keep working, go to Time Track 18.

Time Track 16[]

The Doctor assists Katrice with a surgery. He tries to ask her a question. If you are successful in asking the question, go to Time Track 19. If not, go to Time Track 20.

Time Track 17[]

Ace discovers Chimbly and Keith alongside a strange creature, but Chimbly shoots her. He and Keith go off to kill the Doctor. Go back to Track 1!

Time Track 18[]

Ace finishes her work and goes to meet up with the Doctor. Go to Time Track 21.

Time Track 19[]

The Doctor manages to ask Katrice how the Porcians succeeded in their invasion. She tells him that they kept making silly mistakes, as if they had no choice but to make them. He gets a strange feeling that they’ve had that conversation before, but before he can think on it, Keith enters and she kills him. Go back to Track 1!

Time Track 20[]

The Doctor cannot ask the question, but feels as if he is missing something. Chimbly’s disembodied voice assures him that he isn’t. Go to Time Track 21.

Time Track 21[]

Ace arrives at the Doctor and Katrice’s surgery. Ace thinks the strange feeling they both have is due to the security suite, and the Doctor deliberates over entering it. Chimbly’s voice desperately asks them to ignore it. Go to Time Track 22.

Time Track 22[]

The Doctor insists on entering the security suite. Chimbly’s voice tries to dissuade him again. Go to Time Track 23.

Time Track 23[]

The Doctor wonders why they aren’t just going to the security suite. Chimbly’s voice makes one final attempt to prevent them from going, with a spurious question about hot drinks. The Doctor ignores him and they enter the security suite. Go to Time Track 24.

Time Track 24[]

The Doctor and Ace find the strange creature - a Resurrectionist. Chimbly had been using her to control the populace, but she has another ability: to resurrect the recently dead, and steer them away from the path that led to their deaths. However, in doing so, she absorbs each death into herself and so languishes in immense pain. The Porcians had been using her to kill both the planet’s inhabitants and the Doctor and Ace over and over again, until they got the outcome they wanted. Chimbly and Keith find the Doctor and Ace and try to kill them, but the Doctor dives out of the way and Chimbly instead hits the Resurrectionist’s cage, freeing her. The newly freed populace go after Chimbly and Keith, and the two try to make a hasty getaway. The Doctor asks Ace if she’d like another shot at flying the TARDIS - after all, doesn't everyone deserve a second chance?

Cast[]

• The Doctor - Sylvester McCoy
• Ace - Sophie Aldred
• Chimbly - Kim Wall
• Keith / Guard - Jon Culshaw
• Katrice - Nadine Marshall
• The Resurrectionist / Clerk - Amrita Acharia

Crew[]

• Director - Ken Bentley
• Executive Producers - Nicholas Briggs and Jason Haigh-Ellery
• Music and Sound Design - Steve Foxon
• Producer - David Richardson
• Script Editor - Alan Barnes
• Writer - John Dorney

Worldbuilding[]

• Ace says that Chimbly's ship smells like "King Kong's gym locker".
• Ace was attempting to pilot the TARDIS to Australia.

Notes[]

• This story uses the conventions of a "choose-your-own-adventure" story, a device that has previously been used in earnest in the Decide Your Destiny and Make Your Own Adventure/Find Your Fate series. However, unlike with those books, this story makes the deviations based on the listener's choices a part of the narrative through the use of the Resurrectionist, meaning there are no real choices made by the listener, and no alternative sequences of events.
• John Dorney, the writer, originally planned on using a different villain for this story. However, this "obvious" villain, presumably the Ogrons, were already being used in one of Dorney's stories in a different range.

Continuity[]

• The Doctor first met Chimbly during his sixth incarnation on Transmission. (AUDIO: The Fourth Wall)
• Chimbly refers to a pair of humans who sold them rotten food. (TV: Dragonfire) The Doctor would later determine that the two humans who escaped from Chimbly the previous week were Melanie Bush and Sabalom Glitz. (AUDIO: A Life of Crime)
• The Doctor is teaching Ace how to fly the TARDIS. She would later be in control of her own TARDIS. (AUDIO: Intervention Earth) The Tenth Doctor would later teach his companion Donna Noble how to control the TARDIS. (TV: The Sontaran Stratagem)
• The TARDIS console room is in the form adopted by the Doctor's seventh and eighth incarnations. (AUDIO: The Settling, TV: Doctor Who et al.)