Kirith
Commander- Kirathi General (Wing Commander)
Dex
Jettster (Star Wars Ep 2)
Kirith
Subordinate- Kilrathi Pilot (Wing Commander)
Amanaman
(Star Wars vintage)
Alternate
9th Doctor (Richard E Grant)- custom
Rancor
Keeper (Star Wars vintage)
Alison
Cheney- custom
Benny
Summerfield- custom
9th Doctor
(Christopher Eccleston)- custom
As the biggest AFT Doctor Who
story ever The Infinity Program has a cast list
to match and many new figures were needed and made
specifically.
Benny Summerfield is a
Mara Jade with Princess Leia (Jabba's slave) head. Her
look is based on the cover of Love & War.
The Master was initially
based on the original, Roger Delgado but after painting I think
he looks more like Jonathan Pryce from the Comic Relief spoof The Curse of Fatal Death.
The Sentienz are new GI Joes with Sculpy
claws.
The Lady President uses Queen Amidala arms,
and my stock female head (based on Leia, Jabba's Slave)
with a sculpy body and collar.
Eldrex was a Chancellor Palpatine
figure from Star Wars: Episode 2, repainted and with
added sculpey collar.
The Kirith Ambassador had
originally been a Nyssa figure that hadn't quite worked
out. She was seen in another story Plants & Animals
as the scientist Jane.
Who's who in The Infinity Program?
There are a lot of characters in
the story, not just from the TV series but also from
the various new media that continued the story
while Doctor Who was off the air. If you're not
familiar with all of them, here's what you need
to know.
THE OTHER 9TH DOCTOR
The Infinity Program was a chance to sweep the
boards ahead of the new series and deal with any
outstanding continuity issues. One "issue" that had been
there since before the TV series was announced: The
Richard E Grant 9th Doctor.
Back in 2003, at the height of the 40th
Anniversary buzz, the BBC cult website unveiled
a new 6 part fully animated webcast featuring a
totally new Doctor voiced by Richard E Grant. At
the time he was hailed as the "official" 9th
Doctor with a recent past that was only hinted
at in
The Scream of the Shalka but which would be
explored as he travelled time and space with his
new companion Alison.
It was just before The Scream
of the Shalka part one aired that the BBC
announced a new TV series was in production. For
a while we all speculated that Richard E Grant's
Doctor would be made flesh for the new TV outing
with Shalka testing the waters, but it
soon became apparent that the webcast Doctor and
TV Doctor were entirely separate thus leaving
the REG Doctor (and the figure I made of him)
out in the cold before he had barely begun.
Some have postulated that rather than
the 9th he is actually one of the later Doctors. But he
does mention in Shalka that Andy Warhol wanted
"to paint all nine of me."
I always wanted him to have his own
story on the AFT but there just wasn't the time and
nowhere that it would fit in. The Infinity Program
(I hope) puts up a reasonable explanation for his
existence. With his stories undone, it may be necessary
to pit the new 9th Doctor against the Shalka one day
where he meets a young barmaid called Alison...
BERNICE S. SUMMERFIELD (BENNY)
Bernice S
Summerfield has the distinction of being the first companion to
be introduced in the New Adventures.
She first
appeared in Paul Cornell's Love and War and travelled with the seventh
Doctor until she left the TARDIS to marry Jason Kane in Happy
Endings but even then she continued to make guest
appearances from time to time.
When the Doctor Who
novel licence returned to the BBC, Benny
continued in her own adventures for
Virgin for a time and was then picked up
by Big Finish for a series of books and
audios that still continue. Benny
appeared with the 8th Doctor in the last
NA, The Dying Days.
Played on audio by Lisa Bowerman, Benny has appeared
with the 7th Doctor and Ace in The Summoning of the Scourge
and The Dark Flame. According to the AFT adventures,
Benny never met the Doctor before she was replaced by the
Sentienz Primary. It is not established whether the Primary
killed the real Benny or not.
ROMANA
THE MASTER
Romana is a Time Lady and former
companion of the fourth Doctor. She left the TARDIS with K-9
mark 2 to free Tharil slaves across E-Space (Warriors Gate).
The
Master, a fellow Time Lord has been the
Doctor's arch nemesis since his 3rd
incarnation. When last seen battling the
8th Doctor, he was absorbed into the
TARDIS.
The New Adventures establish that
she returned to Gallifrey from
E-Space and ultimately became Lord President- a
role she maintains in the BBC novels and Big
Finish audios. For the AFT though
she has lost the recent presidential elections.
The AFT 8th Doctor adventures
establish that the Master left the TARDIS and generated a new
body for himself. Clearly since then he
has been arrested by the Time Lords and
once again stripped of his physical
form. He is now a disembodied entity in
a containment field on the Time Lord's
prison planet Shada.
THE
SENTIENZ
The Sentienz are a new AFT
creation and
had been in
gestation for a number of years and in several permutations.
Originally they were conceived as an entity in another
dimension. The interfaces between their dimension and ours
resemble animated scarecrows. With one touch they suck out the
life force of an individual.
When it came to find a monster not
only for this story but that could return, I found the original Sentienz idea and decided that now would be their time. I
decided against the Scarecrow look, at least for this
incarnation of them. The true horror of their nature is not
revealed in this story leaving some things for a later story.
The story was originally posted
between November 2004 and March 2005. The two
prologues were posted a week apart and the four
episodes posted every six weeks ahead of
transmission of the New Series on TV in March
2005.
Music
Opening Theme-
Arrangement by David Arnold
Incidental
music from The TV Movie by John
Debney
The 9th
Doctor's theme by Russell Stone
is from Scream of the Shalka
Some lucky AFT readers were sent
a CDROM containing the whole story ahead of
transmission of the final episode providing a
sneak peak of the custom made 9th Doctor and
Rose figures.
This CD Rom also contained
original opening titles and music that
accompanied each page.
The story was taken
down (along with the entire AFT site) in January
2007. It was restored in its entirety, along
with the CDRom music sections and titles for
Christmas 2008.
The main story
behind it all- a way of clearing the boards to make way
for a new series had been around for many years.
Back when I made
my first custom 'dapol style' 8th Doctor
figure I knew that he would be superseded if Dapol ever
did their own version. There was also always the
possibility that given the apparent failure of the TV
Movie, any new production of the show might ignore the
McGann Doctor.
Legacy of the Time Lords featured
all the Dapol Doctors (3rd, 4th, 7th) and my 8th Doctor.
Combining their adventures they would come to realise
that the seventh Doctor had been manipulated into
altering the timeline and the 8th Doctor should never
have existed in this form.
While the 8th
Doctor sacrifices himself, it's up to
the other Doctors to convince the 7th
that he was duped and must put things
right. But can he overcome his own pride
in order to do it?
The
Infinity Program is as much a story about Doctor Who as it is a
Doctor Who story. The title
refers to the motivation of the Sentienz but it also represents
the ongoing nature of Doctor Who itself, especially poignant as
this was the last AFT story before the show returned to our
screens.
Since the
end of Doctor Who on TV, the Doctor’s adventures had continued
in other media- books, comics and audios, not to mention
hundreds of fan made productions. One of the things I wanted to
address was which one of these was correct. As with the
TV movie in 1996, the new TV series is something that every
medium will agree upon and each will find their own way to get
the 8th Doctor there but there will always be a
dispute about which of them was the RIGHT one. What
The
Infinity Program suggests is that they are ALL right, each as
valid as the next and all occurring simultaneously but
independently. Another
thing that needed to be examined was The Scream of the Shalka
and it's formerly 'official' 9th Doctor. The Infinity Program aimed to provide a
possible explanation for him within the context of the show.
See above.
Breaking
the rules
One of the great dangers of
fan-fiction is an over reliance on the show's past. Too often,
stories involve previous Doctors, former companions and a mix of
old monsters, tying themselves up in continuity knots for
reasons that add nothing to the story. The AFT tries to avoid
such self referential stories but I will be the first to admit
that The Infinity Program breaks all my rules.
Hopefully that
the story explains itself all the way along and doesn’t alienate
new readers but at the same time delights long-time fans with
it’s inclusion of Romana, Benny and the (now alternate) 9th
Doctor. But as well as reusing
elements of the series' ongoing continuity, I hope I’ve added to
it by introducing a new monster, the Sentienz who was intended
to return to battle the Doctor and Rose but who may yet
return.
The biggest
thing about The
Infinity Program is it's a regeneration story. Speaking of
the new series, producer Russell T Davies said that there will
not be an on-screen regeneration. That, he said will be left to
Big Finish or fan-fiction. I am happy and immensely proud to say
that while it will never be considered 'canon', the AFT did get
there first.
This story features some of the
biggest and most elaborate sets ever produced for the AFT. The
greatest of all is the TARDIS console room. We’ve had the
console for some time as well as a backdrop featuring the doors.
For the final appearance of the TARDIS interior in this form, I
decided to pull out all the stops and create the console struts,
steps leading up to the main entrance doors and even a small
office area as seen in the TV movie.
The TARDIS interior complete with support
struts and entrance doors.
Jess's room in the prologue.
Hypertemperon
control room
Shada was just this platform. The
background was added in photoshop
Eldrex's Type
70 TARDIS interrior with central console
The hall
on Gallifrey where the League of Time Enabled Races meet.
The Kirith
ship, bridge and corridor
Sadly the PC
with all the sets on was stolen so none of them are
available for download.
The streets
of the planet Revus. Also used in Star Wars: The Insidious
Threat
The planet
where we see the 9th Doctor is little more than a backdrop. The
photos for this were taken on Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh.
The story was first brought to the attention of AFT readers as
the final section of The Complete 8th Doctor (a magazine
style over view of all the 8th Doctor's AFT adventures) in July 2004
in the form of a flash trailer previewing specially created
scenes from the story. While the basic elements and storyline
were in place at that time, the actual script had yet to be written.
The tag line "It's the end, but the moment has been
prepared for..." is a direct steal from the dying
moments of the 4th Doctor in Logopolis.
complete 8th doctor cover
The first draft was written in August and went through several
rewrites to tighten it up. The first episode was
originally much longer and more of a run around with the Doctor
and Benny being chased by the mercenaries. The Doctor would
demonstrate how the hypertemperon siphons off time channels by
using a fountain in the street. The facility at Revus would be
hit by time disruptions that ultimately destroy the Doctor and
Benny's
pursuers and the Doctor and Benny would have to ride a speeder
bike to escape the disruption wave before being picked up by the
Refractors.
The different “time channels”
representing the different media were originally called
‘divergences’ but when Big Finish sent the 8th Doctor into the
Divergent Universe, it was felt this might be too confusing so they
were
changed to ‘Disjunctions’.
Theses ‘disjunctions’ are
established to have begun after Survival and come together for
the 1996 TV Movie. Removed from the script was the idea that
they were brought back together by the Master. In that draft of
the script, the Master establishes that they had to be brought
together and sealed with a death- his own. The Doctor realises
that to seal them permanently requires not only a death, but
also a birth- prompting his self sacrifice and regeneration at
the end of the story. The whole death/ birth idea
seemed way too complicated so it was dropped.
Benny
was included because she is present in every Time Disjunction,
having appeared in the novels, comics and the audio
series.
The original storyline would see the Doctor go back and meet up
with Ace to discuss differing versions of events. Benny was always intended to
be the Sentienz Primary in disguise with the Kirith Ambassador
as the main suspect. (During the Sentienz scenes, the hologram
of the Primary deliberately uses the Kirith ambassador figure).
But during the scripting it became obvious that the Lord
President was also a prime suspect and she was given a more
prominent role including the confrontation with Romana at the
end.
In the first draft, Alison is also
taken out of time with the 9th Doctor. I had always intended
that the companion who died (mentioned in The Scream of the
Shalka) had been Rose.
The frame showing the Doctor's regeneration was a very late
addition and used images already taken for the story of the 8th
Doctor standing at the console onto which I added the 9th
Doctor's head- the result, the Doctor apparently standing while
regenerating was unintentional and something that some readers
found rather amusing at the time. The last laugh must go to the
AFT though as every regeneration seen in the New Series thus far
has been done standing up.
While The Infinity Program
may be enjoyed as a stand alone adventure, to
appreciate it fully does require a knowledge of
a lot of Doctor Who continuity as it is (rarely
for the AFT) deeply rooted in lore not just from
the TV show but also from the various media that
had sprung up since Survival.
The
Infinity Program refers to many differing Time Disjunctions
each relating the different media's versions of events. As a bench
mark to the different storylines, Eldrex has taken Ace out of
time and we learn of her differing fates.
"I
left your side to patrol a crack in time."
This was
Ace's fate in the New Adventures Set Piece where she ends
up riding a time travelling motorbike. It is also similar to a
fate that my stories had for her.
"I
enrolled at Prydon Academy"
For the last
two seasons of Doctor Who, script editor Andrew Cartmel was
working on a long term plan for the series. Had it played out it
would have revealed that the Doctor had been grooming Ace,
making her more aware of the larger picture of time travel. At
the culmination of their adventures she was to enrol in Prydon
Academy on Gallifrey- where the Doctor himself graduated. The
Doctor's plan for Ace is mentioned in Lungbarrow.
"I
died in your arms Professor."
This tearful
fate befell Ace in the DWM comic strip.
When
identifying some of the Disjunctions, Eldrex cites the Big
Finish audios (where the Doctor currently traveled with Charley
Pollard and C'Rizz), the BBC novels (where his companions were
Fitz and Trix) and the DWM comic strip (where he was at the time
accompanied by Destrii)
Continuity of the 8th
Doctor
On the AFT, the 8th Doctor and his custom made
companions Dari and Jess had just established themselves
and would have embarked on a new story arc together. Rather than
cut the 8th Doctor off there and then, The Infinity
Program is set further in the 8th Doctor's future to a point where that
arc has already played out.
Jess's ultimate fate was alluded to in her very first
episode- that she becomes her own great grandmother, a star of
silent movies. Her husband, it was intended was to have been a
fellow time traveller whom she meets in the course of
their travels. He settles in Hollywood with her.
I had
always planned that Dari would probably die in the course of her
adventures. Some of the
planned adventures are mentioned in Prologue One. The
scene where Dari tells Jess that she is gay and the character of
2wo were from the same story.
THE NEW SERIES
While it may have swept the
Whoniverse clean of continuity, what The Infinity
Program failed to predict was that the new series
would have it's own backstory. It's not at all clear how
the Time War between the Time Lords and the Daleks fits
into this version of events unless it somehow occurs
after the Doctor's regeneration. Rose however
seems to suggest that his regeneration is a very recent
event, certainly following the climax of the war. It
could even be that all the 'dsjunctions' occur as a
result of and 'along side' the Time War. But then it
gets REALLY confusing.
