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Big Finish Productions audio play
Invaders from Mars
Series	Doctor Who
Release number	28
Featuring	Eighth Doctor Charley Pollard
Writer	Mark Gatiss
Director	Mark Gatiss
Producer(s)	Gary Russell Jason Haigh-Ellery
Executive producer(s)	Jacqueline Rayner
Production code	8F
Set between	Minuet in Hell and The Chimes of Midnight
Release date	January 2002

Invaders from Mars is a Big Finish Productions audio drama based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. This audio drama was later broadcast on BBC 7 in four weekly parts (starting on the 29th of October 2005) and was later rebroadcast on the same channel once more (beginning on the 19th of November 2006).

Summary

In Manhattan 1938, the Eighth Doctor and Charley meet a crooked gangster, a Russian spy, a sinister fifth columnist and Orson Welles. Welles's broadcast of War of the Worlds is just a story, but maybe there really are aliens at loose.

Cast

• The Doctor — Paul McGann
• Charley Pollard — India Fisher
• Mouse — Ian Hallard
• Ellis — Mark Benton
• John Houseman — Jonathan Rigby
• Orson Welles — David Benson
• Bix Biro — Paul Putner
• Don Chaney — Simon Pegg
• Glory Bee — Jessica Stevenson
• Cosmo Devine — John Arthur
• Winkler — Ian Hallard

Trivia

• Mark Benton played conspiracy theorist Clive in "Rose".
• The Invaders from Mars was the original title for the 1970 Third Doctor story, The Ambassadors of Death.
• In episode one, Houseman reads from the War of the Worlds radio play. Welles responds with: "Who wrote this crap? I certainly didn't write this crap." Houseman responds "You will, Orson, you will." This is a reference to a famous witticism by James McNeill Whistler, who said "You will, Oscar; you will" to Oscar Wilde when Wilde said "I wish I'd said that". This incident was dramatised in the "Oscar Wilde Sketch" in an episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus.
• The radio ventriloquist mentioned several times during the play is Edgar Bergen, who was performing that night on the competing NBC Red Network along with his dummy, Charlie McCarthy.
• Don Chaney's name is a reference to horror actor Lon Chaney, his nickname is "Phantom" which is a reference to one of Lon Chaney's most famous film roles, The Phantom of the Opera; Bix Biro's name is a reference to the Bic and Biro. Cosmo Devine may be reference to determining what is in space.
• Jessica Stevenson and Simon Pegg are the creators and stars of the television comedy Spaced. Stevenson also has part in two episodes of the 2007 series of Doctor Who (entitled "Human Nature" and "The Family of Blood"), while Pegg appeared in "The Long Game".
• This is the first audio story to credit India Fisher as Charley on the front cover.
• Hadley Cantril's book on The War of the Worlds hoax was entitled Invasion From Mars, which is similar to the title of this story.

Deliberate Errors

The second season of Eighth Doctor audios featured a number of deliberate errors:

• There were 48 States in the United States in 1938, not 49 as Chaney claims.
• The CIA was not established until 1947, almost nine years after the events portrayed here.
• Welles fails to recognise a Shakespearean quotation.
• Don Chaney claims to own a 1929 Lamborghini previously owned by Al Capone, but Lamborghinis did not exist until 1963.

The first two "mistakes" in this list were deliberate, intended to be examples of anti-time contamination.) The third was also deliberate, but was explained in The Time of the Daleks. The last was not deliberate but was later retconned to be another example of anti-time contamination.)

Another possible example of anti-time contamination is the date. "The War of the Worlds" aired on October 30, 1938, yet, when he asks what day it is, the Doctor is told that it is October 31, 1938.

External links

• Big Finish Productions - Invaders from Mars
• Invaders from Mars at the Doctor Who Reference Guide

Reviews

• Invaders from Mars reviews at Outpost Gallifrey
• Invaders from Mars reviews at The Doctor Who Ratings Guide