The Sirens of Time is a 1999 audio drama based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It was the first Big Finish Productions audio drama based on the series and became the first in the company's Main Range. The story was written and directed by Nicholas Briggs, and stars Peter Davison, Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy, who reprise their roles as three incarnations of the Doctor. In the story, the three Doctors team up to defend their home planet of Gallifrey.
The audio drama was recorded in March 1999 and released on CD in July 1999. Davison and Baker were praised for their vocal performances, while the story itself received mixed reception for its format. The story would be followed by over 200 later audio dramas in Big Finish's Main Range, as well as more than twenty other ranges of stories based on Doctor Who, with Davison, Baker and McCoy reprising their roles in subsequent releases.
Plot
Part 1
Vansell, a member of the Celestial Intervention Agency, arrives on Gallifrey with an urgent message for the President of the Time Lords – an invasion fleet threatens the planet and Time Lord technology will not be able to repel them. History has somehow been distorted, and the only clue is the artron energy of a Time Lord in the distortion, which belongs to the Doctor.
The Seventh Doctor hears the cloister bell tolling within the TARDIS and changes the coordinate setting. A message comes through from the Time Lords but is too garbled for the Doctor to make out its content. He then hears a mysterious sound coming from outside the TARDIS, and exits to investigate. He hears a woman, Elenya, drowning in quicksand and rushes to her rescue. He is waylaid by a cackling hag who says both he and Elenya will die. Arriving at the quicksand, the Doctor wonders why the hag had not tried to save Elenya, and takes her back to the TARDIS.
The hag, Ruthley, returns to attend to a crippled old man named Sancroft, her prisoner. Over a communicator, she reports to a commandant who questions her over ion trails he has detected in her sector but she denies knowledge of them. At the TARDIS, the Doctor is not able to enter his ship. He asks Elenya how she arrived on the world. Sensing some familiarity about her he asks if they have met before. Elenya says that she crash landed on the planet. They set out to search for the hag's residence, as another space craft crash lands nearby.
Hearing the crash, Sancroft asks Ruthley if the planet's shields are failing, but she then taunts him that no one is coming to his rescue. The Doctor and Elenya see a ship that somehow makes it through the shields. Ruthley is heard communicating with an alien voice on the ship, which informs her that bio-assassin cultures will activate on landing. The Doctor and Elenya desperately dive for cover as a further ship makes a landing nearby. They arrive at its crash site as something alive emerges. Elenya thinks she is looking at a dying creature, but the Doctor believes the opposite – it is something being born.
Ruthley speaks to a planetary security robot, a Drudger, and commands it to eliminate the Doctor and Elenya, but it tells her that that procedure is not permitted. Ruthley, talking to herself, says that does not matter because all will be dead soon. The Doctor and Elenya come across the robot which commences to do a mind scan which knocks them out. The Doctor awakes to find himself with Sancroft, but Elenya is still unconscious. He is surprised that the Doctor is not afraid of him.
The Drudger reports to Ruthley that it has found bio-engineered life forms emerging from the wreck. The robot confronts the life form and commands it to surrender; its reply is to open fire. Ruthley comes to the cell and tells them they cannot escape, as in the distance they hear the Drudgers being destroyed. Ruthley cackles and tells them that "they" will kill all of them. The Doctor asks if there is anywhere in the house they can all hide, and Sancroft suggests Ruthley's bedroom.
Thinking she has done a deal with them, Ruthley approaches the bio-assassins and tells them that infamous Sancroft, First Knight of Velyshaa, is there for ready them to kill. However, the bio-assassins eliminate her so there will be no witnesses. The bio-assassin plays a recorded message – Sancroft has been sentenced to death for war crimes against the people of Calfadoria. When the Doctor pleads with the assassin to spare their lives, it tells him that it has no quarrel with anyone but Sancroft. However, there must be no witnesses, and the assassin opens fire.