Audio Visuals

  • Audio Visuals (0)

    Audio Visuals were a group of fans who started making audio plays while the original series of Doctor Who was still running. The recordings were copied to cassette by the crew themselves and mailed out to people. They ran for 4 seasons from 1984-1991.

    Many of the people involved went on to work at Big Finish Productions including John Ainsworth, Nigel Fairs, Gary Russell, Jim Mortimore and Nick Briggs (who played the Doctor from the second play onwards).

    Some of the ideas from the Audio Visuals have also appeared in Big Finish plays, such as drudgers and the Temperons. Big Finish remade 5 of them – The Mutant Phase, Minuet in Hell, Vilgreth (as Last of the Titans), Sword of Orion and Cuddlesome. Additionally the play Frozen Time, whilst not a direct remake, was loosely based on Endurance.

    Cuthbert, a recurring villain in the Audio Visuals and played by Barry Killerby, has been re-created in the 4th Doctor Adventures and played by David Warner.

    Nigel Fairs went on to remake More than a Messiah as a BBV audio and video.

    They can be seen, with hindsight, as the seeds from which Big Finish was sown, and where some of their major players learned their craft. Heavily experimental, they were often darker and more complex than the TV show as they were aimed at an older audience and, much like audios in general, at fans who wanted more depth in their stories. They also wrote stories to fit the audio format, unlike a lot of audios by others, including the BBC, which were more like an attempt to do TV on audio.

    Thank you to Jim Mortimore for providing a link to download them all. As he worked on them this link is completely legal and you can download all of the plays freely. Enjoy.

    Download the Audio Visuals

     

  • 01 – The Space Wail (1)

    The Doctor and Greg land on a death ship. It is transporting condemned prisoners across Space to their point of execution. Also on board, the enigmatic sentient computer known as BABE.

  • 02 – The Time Ravagers (1)

    A newly regenerated Doctor and his companions Greg and Nadia land on Temperos. Could it be that the legendary Time being, the Temperon is not a legend after all? Or are the Daleks up to their old tricks again?

  • 03 – Connection 13 (1)

    The Doctor, Greg and Nadia arrive on Earth in the 1990s. They soon discover an alien conspiracy to fundamentally alter the planet for colonization. The key to defeating the Rigellons lies in Earth’s orbit. The connection of 13 satellites could signal doom for humanity.

  • 04 – Conglomerate (1)

    The Doctor and his companion Greg arrive in a deserted subway – but this isn’t Earth. The trains are without crew or passengers. A shapeless horror is waiting to induce a ghastly compulsion.

  • 05 – Cloud of Fear (1)

    The Doctor and his companion Greg are trapped in a labyrinth of underground tunnels. They discover a deadly foe which lurks in the darkest recesses. Can the Doctor defeat an unseen enemy that will strike at the very heart of his resolve?

  • 06 – Shadow World (1)

    On the planet Kelfer the Doctor encounters a stranded Time Lord, Askran, who has synthesized a narcotic called Sargol. The Doctor finds himself in the employ of an evil and warped intelligence.

  • 07 – Maenad (2)

    While Greg recovers from Sargol poisoning, the Doctor visits Cal 2, a research facility dealing with the mentally unstable.

    There he is alarmed to discover that the lunatics have taken over the asylum!

  • 08 – The Mutant Phase (1)

    Analyas VII offers a world of contentment – an escape from the galaxy’s hurly-burly… Or is it the breeding ground for a hideous nightmare instigated by the implacable Daleks in their struggle against the dreaded Mutant Phase?

  • 09 – The Destructor Contract (1)

    The TARDIS is penetrated by the jettisoned flight recorder of a recently destroyed starship. Cuthbert, President of Conglomerate, intends that the recorder’s message will never be heard – and he has an army of Temperons to do his bidding.

  • 09a – Vilgreth (1)

    An extra story on the Destructor Contract tape. The Doctor finds himself aboard a ship with only one occupant – a strange creature called Vilgreth who shares the Doctor’s passion for engineering and tea.

  • 10 – The Trilexia Threat (1)

    Establishing orbit around the planet Greenovia the crew of the starship Shapiro discovers the formerly lush world a barren, blasted, wasteland peopled only by memories of the personnel of Outpost Colony Five.

  • 11 – Minuet in Hell (1)

    A crucial period for British Imperial Expansion; and for the influential members of the Hell Fire Club Bedlam is where we find The Doctor – not as a visitor – but incarcerated. Drugged and bound, the Doctor is so panic stricken that even his own identity is in question.

  • 12 – Blood Circuit (1)

    When the TARDIS is critically damaged during and impromptu flight through a spacio-temporal maelstrom, the Doctor and Ria are forced to crashland on the planet Llandros. Here the Doctor discovers a shattering truth: the race of biological engineers who are the Ship’s only hope of repair have suffered a massive ecological disaster which has reduced them to a state of total genetic chaos.

  • 13 – Second Solution (1)

    Receiving a garbled Time-Space distress call, the Doctor returns to Earth, in 1986 – but all is not as it should be! The Doctor and Ria find themselves in peril on a Moon base which should not exist, and in a version of November 5th 1605 which is all wrong.

  • 14 – The Secret of Nematoda (1)

    “Journeying out into space, forging an empire, the pioneering spirit taught the human race to expect the unexpected, as long as the unexpected was that which they had expected.”
    Cornelle’s “Study of tellurian Expansion” 5097

    “When the job made no sense, some just marked time and some defied defeat. It took the man who delivered the tea to wonder why the job made no sense.”
    H. S. Posedor in his report to Earth Centre 4083

  • 15 – Enclave Irrelative (2)

    A riddle: What would be left if right were wrong, a rectangle broader than it’s long, nine sixes that exceed six nines, the crunch of colliding parallel lines.

    A trap: More deadly than any enemy.

    A piece of classic advice: This above all; to thine own self be true. The Doctor in catch 22.

    Is there a solution? Is there an escape?

  • 16 – More than a Messiah (1)

    The Doctor needs a rest, and the tranquil beaches of Majus Seven would seem to be the ideal place. But paradise has its darker side.

  • 17 – Sword of Orion (0)

    GARAZONE SPACE PATROL. REPORT K/5703.

    Classification: Security rating red. Unidentified, non-classified space vessel located in Garazone system…….
    Salvage option vetoed by military intelligence…….
    “…..I’ve hauled guys out of space hulks before, but this was….. what I’m trying to say is….. something got to them before we did….. I…..”

    (DUTY OFFICER 750/I4 Transcript extract. Military intelligence holo-vid.)

  • 18 – Carny (0)

    A lost time, An abandoned place. Filled with confusion, This is the Carny…. But is it carnival, or……..carnivore?

  • 19 – Planet of Lies (0)

    As the effects of Sargol poisoning come back to plague the Doctor he lands on a desert planet hoping to find Ria, who has vanished. Although the planet isn’t one he recognises, it seems strangely familiar.

  • 20 – Deadfall (0)

    A group of convicts, sent to inhospitable planets to scavenge what they can and secure themselves an early release, land on a devastated world only to become victims of an evil experiment.

  • 21 – Requiem (0)

    A string of planets suffer catastrophe while a famous composer goes on a concert tour of the galaxy. How are these events connected?

  • 22 – Cuddlesome (0)

    One of the last of the Time Lords lies dying in a graveyard in the suburbs of London. England is gripped by a bizarre plague, whose victims are mostly children. And within the colourful walls of the Cuddlesome Pleasure Palace, a genetic engineer plans an operation which will bring about a major change in the development of our species and society…

  • 23 – Endurance (0)

    History has forgotten the lost Howberry expedition to the Antarctic… It is as if this fine old scientist had never set out to solve the mystery of a lost civilisation. Perhaps he never did. Is it coincidence that the Doctor and Truman appear at this point in time and space? Perhaps we’ll never know…

    One thing’s for sure: coincidence plays no part in the schemes of Justyce, a being whose purpose is as unknown as his identity.

  • 24 – Mythos (0)

    The Doctor and Truman find themselves in a fantastical world of elves and goblins. A world where science makes way for spells. A world called Mythos. There they meet a benign wizard who enlists their aid and together with some of the enchanted inhabitants of Mythos, they are pitted against the wicked Necromancer and his evil hordes.

  • 24a – Truman’s Excellent Adventure (0)

    An extra short story on the Mythos tape. Truman is left on Earth for a while and gets a job in a cafe while he waits for the Doctor to come back for him. He discovers that even within such an apparently mundane existence, the extraordinary is never far away.

  • 25 – Subterfuge (0)

    “Justyce Will Be Served”

    Those words – etched into the TARDIS console, daubed on the doors and burnt into the scanner – now have more meaning than ever as the Doctor and Truman seem to lose track of themselves. They feel they have experienced something terrible – but what? As massive and complex galactic events unfold, they begin to realise the diabolical extent of the subterfuge which has ensnared them.

    Who is Justyce? Why is Justyce hounding the Doctor throughout Time and Space? Cuthbert, the self-styled President of Conglomerate, may well have the answers… but before the Doctor and Truman can discover the truth, they have to face education by ordeal…

  • 26 – Geopath (0)

    Justyce infiltrates the all-powerful computer MAGOG, and destroys countless lives on Earth by detonating tiny heart implants in the population. The Doctor traps Justyce in the TARDIS. Fearing for Truman’s safety, the Doctor leaves his companion on Earth. This is the final battle… and the Doctor must fight it alone…

  • 27 – Justyce (0)

    Finally, the Doctor turns to fight the foe who has hounded him throughout Time and Space. He thinks he knows what Justyce is. He thinks he knows how Justyce was created. He dares to think that, now, he can defeat Justyce.

    But what if all is not what it seems?

    Haunting dreams, Solaadon terrorism and evil human ambition conspire to thwart the Doctor. And time is running out…