Season 18, Episodes 8-9

Episode 8: The Girl Who Knew Too Much

London, 1967. Less than one year ago, Polly Wright returned to her ordinary life, working as a PA in the Post Office Tower. And although everybody else seems to have forgotten (thanks to the Torchwood Institute’s diligent coverup), she still remembers WOTAN and its War Machines. And somewhere, an all-too familiar signal has woken up… Enter the Time Lady.

Episode 9: Sound

Summer 1967. The Beatles’ Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album has changed everything, redefining the very paradigm of pop music. Is this the end for John Smith and the Common Men? Is electronic music really the answer? And what weird entities inhabit the Plane of Sound? Penelope is about to find out, with a little help from one Delia Derbyshire.

Set in 1967 London, these two episodes had a very different atmosphere.

The Girl Who Knew Too Much felt a bit like an old B&W episode of The Avengers and was also a veritable feast of Classic DW references: in addition to WOTAN, the War Machines and Polly, it featured the character of Dodo and the Counter Measures group, plus some nifty (if I may say so myself) retcon tying the anachronistic tech of The War Machines to the events of Remembrance of the Daleks, all this by the way of Torchwood (who else?).

Sound was a much more psychological affair, with a hefty dose of pop music references and (thanks to Sylvie’s roleplaying talent) some very moving scenes. In the end, the story had an almost poetic feel – with the Beatles’ A Day in the Life providing the perfect soundtrack for its final scene. Its plot resulted from the mix of three separate ideas: the cultural phenomenon of the Sergeant Pepper LP, the electronic music of Delia Derbyshire & co and one of Ramsey Campbell’s early Cthulhu Mythos short stories, The Plain of Sound, from which I borrowed the idea of my plane of sound (and the look of its inhabitants).

Both stories also allowed us to develop the characters of Antonia and Modesty, Penelope’s new protégées and travelling companions, who are now ready to make their first journey to another world – or perhaps the far future?  See you soon for our next episode!

Season 18, Episodes 5-7

Episode 5: The Substitute

Victoria (Australia), 1907. What is happening at the esteemed Bainbridge College for Young Ladies? What dark secrets does Miss Jones, the enigmatic governess, hide behind her severe façade?  And speaking of secrets, the new history and science teacher, Miss Ashworth, does seem to have quite a few of her own in store… A mystery, two strange rocks and no picnic!

Episode 6: The Chemistry of Ghosts

Paris, 1907. One year after the tragic death of her husband Pierre, Nobel prize scientist Marie Curie is about to reveal her latest, extraordinary discovery to a chosen assembly of thinkers and seekers – a discovery involving radium and invisible, psychic presences. Luckily for history as we know it, Lady Penelope (with her three new protégés!) is among the audience…

Episode 7: The Beauty and the Beast

Paris, 1768. As King Louis XV is looking for a new favorite and aristocrats busy themselves with their games of intrigue, a monstrous shadow wolf is stalking the Parisian nights, spreading death and terror in its wake. Could the dreaded Beast of Gévaudan have returned to wreak its vengeance on the kingdom of France? The Time Lady decides to investigate!  

So, our intended mini-series having morphed into a full-fledged season, things have taken a new turn, as demonstrated by our three last episodes!

As can be gathered from its blurb, episode 5 was directly inspired by Picnic at Hanging Rock, with two typically Whovian twists. The first was that the secretive governess Miss Jones was in fact… the Master!  Yes, a new incarnation of everybody’s favorite Time Lord arch-villain (my own variation on Missy, if you will, but with a very different personality and demeanor)… and NOT the Master of Penelope’s own continuum (who, for all intents and purposes, is supposed to be Forever Dead) but the Master from the alternate continuum visited by the Time Lady a few episodes ago (in The Napoleon Stratagem).

At the end of said episode, this alternate Master had been mortally wounded (by Time Agent Jill Harkness – yes, Jack’s own female alternate double) and was starting to undergo the regeneration process – but something (tied to the meta-temporal energies of Abraxas, which he had started to “distillate” in his TARDIS) unexpected obviously happened off-stage, resulting in this new female incarnation AND (more importantly) in her relocation in Penelope’s own continuum… Could the two Time Ladies (who both owe their latest regeneration to the same meta-temporal energies) be tied in some mysterious, Beyond-Space-and-Time way? Only Time (of course) will tell.

The second ‘twist’ tied to episode 5 is that it ended in Penelope taking three young ladies from the Bainbridge College on board of her TARDIS as her new travelling companions (yeah, three’s a crowd – but see the notes on episode 7 below)… removing them from recorded history and actually creating the (imaginary) mysterious disappearances behind the (equally fictional) Picnic at Hanging Rock story!

Episode 6 was based on two ideas I’ve had in store for quite some time: re-use the gaseous (and somewhat underused) Gelth as a story’s main villains and concoct a scenario based on Nobel Prize winners Pierre and Marie Curie’s little-known (but well-documented) interest in mediumship and psychic phenomena – as well as Marie’s very moving expressions of grief (from her private journal) after Pierre’s tragic accidental death. The result was a very enjoyable period piece, complete with the usual DW mix of historical facts, scientific acrobatics (I invented a new, Gelth-related property for radon...) and wild imaginings – and a top-notch performance by Penelope’s player. It was, of course, quite reminiscent of The Unquiet Dead, with a dash of The Girl In The Fireplace for that extra touch of emotion.

Stephen King once defined a story as the encounter of “two previously unrelated ideas coming together and making something new” – and that was the recipe I decided to use for episode 7. The only thing I knew was that Penelope wished to travel to France in the late (but pre-Revolutionary) 18^th century (i.e., somewhen in the 1760s or 1770s). So I asked myself: what are the two (preferably unrelated) things I’d readily associate with this setting?  

Answers: Les Liaisons Dangereuses and the Beast of Gévaudan.

So I proceeded to mix these two ingredients, adding a few echoes from Penelope’s previous trip to this historical era (Lost In Versailles, waaaay back in season one!) and her recent discoveries about the ‘self-aware nightmares’ also known as the Vishklar and the result was a very atmospheric, quite dark tale of sordid intrigues, monster hunting and psychic possession (in powdered wigs). It ended with the departure of one of Penelope’s three new companions, who chose to stay in 18^th century Paris with her newfound paramour, adding an extra touch of melancholy to the story’s conclusion. 

Another great time, with some excellent salon banter by Penelope’s player.

Next stop: London, 1967!

Happy New Year... and a New Season!

Greetings everyone!

Happy new year 2024 - and for Lady Penelope, this new year starts with... a new season!

After much ruminating, I've finally decided that Penelope's recent (and somewhat unexpected) regeneration was, well, a game-changer... The basic, 6-part plotline I had in mind for the ongoing miniseries was somehow derailed / sidetracked by this dramatic development. In other words, the two remaining episodes would have felt like a rushed job.

So the four episodes we've played so far (yes, we played a fourth one a few weeks ago - see below for the blurb) have been 'retro-fitted' to become the first four episodes of a whole new season!  In other words, the miniseries has regenerated into season 18!

Here is the blurb of the latest episode...

Episode 4: The Mirrie Dancers

November 2023. Suffering from a bout of post-regeneration melancholy, Lady Penelope (now in her eighth incarnation) decides to take some R&R time among friends, on the mainland of Shetland – but there can never be such a thing as time off for a Time Lady!  Soon, she is drawn to a centuries-old mystery involving unexplained disappearances, ghostly apparitions, local folklore and the majestic, eerie Northern Lights. A tale of past lives and new beginnings.

See you soon for the next episodes!