Bide-a-Wee is the 9th story in the Big Finish

Big Finish Productions

Big Finish Productions is a British company that produces books and audio plays based, primarily, on cult British science fiction properties...

 anthology Short Trips: Past Tense

Short Trips: Past Tense

Short Trips: Past Tense is a Big Finish original anthology edited by Ian Farrington and based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. The collection's theme is history with each story being set before the year 2000...

, written by Anthony Keetch and based on the long-running British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 science fiction television

Science fiction on television

Science fiction first appeared on a television program during the Golden Age of Science Fiction. Special effects and other production techniques allow creators to present a living visual image of an imaginary world not limited by the constraints of reality; this makes television an excellent medium...

 series Doctor Who

Doctor Who

Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...

 which features the First Doctor

First Doctor

The First Doctor is the initial incarnation of the protagonist of the long-running BBC television science-fiction series Doctor Who. He was portrayed by the actor William Hartnell from 1963 to 1966. Hartnell reprised the role in the tenth anniversary story The Three Doctors in 1973 - albeit in a...

 and Susan

Susan Foreman

Susan Foreman is a fictional character in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. The granddaughter and original companion of the First Doctor, she was played by actress Carole Ann Ford from 1963 to 1964, in the show's first season and the first two stories of the second season...

.

Plot

The Doctor is relaxing at a B&B named Bide-a-Wee in Keelmouth, 1933, while his granddaughter spends time at the beach—or so it seems until the Atkins family arrives in town. Jeff and his wife Ujwala are taken aback by the locals’ casual racism appalled reactions to the Atkins’ mixed marriage and their son, Craig—but soon, Jeff and Ujwala seem to have grown accustomed to this treatment, and Ujwala has even forgotten that she used to be a brain surgeon, which of course is just silly. The Doctor decides that the time has come to put an end to his vacation, and confronts another of the B&B’s residents, Prentice. Prentice admits that he used to roam through time and space, fighting the forces of evil, but that he has since retired to Keelmouth—and, finding it a pleasant and quiet place in which to spend his retirement, he’s frozen the community in the year 1933. Outside Keelmouth, it’s the year 1999; a flaw in Prentice’s technology caused the Atkins family to slip through the cracks, and now they are subconsciously acclimatising to the social standards of 1933. Prentice is reluctant to put an end to his peaceful retirement, but the Doctor convinces young Craig to pretend that he has whooping cough, a disease that can be easily cured in 1999 but is fatal in 1933. Prentice accepts that it’s time to put things right, and the Doctor helps him to bring Keelmouth back in synch with the outside world, leaving the Atkins family in their proper time period and returning everyone else to 1933.

Story Chronology

The Doctor

First Doctor

The First Doctor is the initial incarnation of the protagonist of the long-running BBC television science-fiction series Doctor Who. He was portrayed by the actor William Hartnell from 1963 to 1966. Hartnell reprised the role in the tenth anniversary story The Three Doctors in 1973 - albeit in a...

 and Susan

Susan Foreman

Susan Foreman is a fictional character in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. The granddaughter and original companion of the First Doctor, she was played by actress Carole Ann Ford from 1963 to 1964, in the show's first season and the first two stories of the second season...

 are at ease with humanity suggesting that they have had previous encounters. However, the pair have not yet established themselves in 1960's London - placing this story after Frayed

Frayed

Frayed is an original novella written by Tara Samms and based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It features the First Doctor and Susan. It was released both as a standard edition hardback and a deluxe edition featuring a frontispiece by Chris Moore...

 and before the first TV episode 100,000 BC

An Unearthly Child

The serial that became An Unearthly Child was originally commissioned from writer Anthony Coburn in June 1963, when it was intended to run as the second Doctor Who serial. At this stage, it was planned that the series would open with a serial entitled The Giants, to be written by BBC staff...

Reception

Paul Clarke of the website Whoniverse.net reviewed the short story as "A charming little story that sees the Doctor taking a traditional English holiday. Hartnell's Doctor railing against racism is deeply ironic."

External links

• Bide-a-Wee at the http://www.drwhoguide.com/ Doctor Who Reference Guide

fan Reviews

• Bide-a-Wee at whoniverse.net