Ace is still quite badly traumatised by watching David Tennant die, so she asks the Seventh Doctor to take her somewhere calm (and to stop calling her Ace). He brings her to Ibiza, where an old friend of his, Gustavo, is running a bar.
Gustavo first met the Doctor when he was still a kid, while the Doctor was fighting in the Spanish Civil War. While they reminisce and the Doctor plays barman for a bit, Ace checks out a nearby night club called the Rapture. Its glass wall shows the nearby island of Es Vedrà, where people throughout history claimed to have seen UFOs and angels. Two of those "angels", Gabriel and Jude, are working as the nightclub's DJs and promise an actual spiritual rapture.
Ace really tries her best to have fun, but of course it's never that easy. First of all, she runs into her younger brother Liam, whom she's never heard of before. It turns out that their mum was cheating on their dad when Ace was just a few years old, and their dad ran off with Liam in a blind rage and never returned. The only reason Ace wasn't taken along is because she was in preschool when it happened. Ace is absolutely horrified to find out just how different her life could have been with just a few hours' difference, and she yells at Liam to leave her alone.
To complicate matters, Gabriel and Jude turn out to be aliens who escaped from a devastating war on their home planet. Gabriel, suffering from PTSD after having been drafted against his will, completely lost his mind and found solace in his music. To help keep his brother somewhat sane, Jude decided to flee to Earth, use Gabriel's music to hypnotize masses of privileged, bored teenagers, and send them off to war in their stead, hoping that it would somehow help set things right. Gustavo helped them out, because he was horrified by the carefree and self-destructive way of life that today's youth seemed to be leading — without a war to fight for, without knowing what pain and hunger really are.
The Doctor and Ace eventually stop Jude, but both Gustavo and Gabriel die in the process. Jude tries to make a Heel–Face Turn, but decides not to, and starts a plan B involving email spam.
Ace and Liam reconcile and spend a few more days on Ibiza together. Both decide to grow up a bit, but Liam realises that interstellar time travel isn't for him.
Tropes:
- CallBack, both Dust Breeding and Colditz are recalled by Ace in her opening conversation with the Doctor. Later she namedrops Fenric.
- Call-Forward: Why the Doctor calls himself The Sandman in the fever dream is explained in the next Big Finish adventure The Sandman. (Which stars his Sixth self and Evelyn, making it a Callback too.)
- Does Not Like Guns: The Doctor laments what good weapons ever do.
- Drugs Are Bad: Gabriel's "angel dust" is, in fact, angel dust. As in, PCP.
- Epiphany Therapy: Invoked with Liam's friend Caitriona, who's suffering from depression. A lot of the characters imply that her depression stems from having no real problems in life (like war and poverty), and she makes an effort to become happier by the end of the episode. The Doctor, however, notes that her depression is clinical.
- Great Offscreen War: The Doctor alludes that Jude and Gabriel's race lived through it. He's sickened by people
who hide behind that as an excuse. - I Never Said I Used to Call Myself Ace
- The Lad-ette: Ace emphasizes her role as this by ordering a lager.
- Lady Drunk: Katherina.
- Last-Name Basis: Ace wants to be called Mc Shane.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Jude opens the episode playing the theme tune and mentions they probably haven't heard it for over a month, coinciding with the Big Finish release schedule.
- Legion of Lost Souls: Gabriel and Jude plan to recruit human beings as their soldiers, like the French foreign legion.
- Musical Episode: A variation — the majority of the plot takes place in a night club, leading to a very awesome soundtrack by Jim Mortimore.
- Religion of Evil: Played straight and inverted. Jude and Gabriel are using youngsters to become soldiers in their war, though Jude cites the reason why they are "worthless" is because they have no beliefs.
- Ace has shades of this because of her experience in Colditz.
- Gabriel and Jude as well. Also the reason for Gustavo's Face–Heel Turn.
- Shout-Out:
- Dorothy (Ace) says she's from "over the rainbow!!"
- The Doctor at one points ends a sentence with a partial question. "...Eh, Jude?
- Special Edition Theme Song: The iconic Doctor Who theme is re-arranged as a trance track.
- Talk Show: A bit slips in and out of existence..
- What Could Have Been: Ace laments this In-Universe and wonders if her parents hadn't lied to her she wouldn't have to go through all the hardships mentioned under Call-Back.
