The 100th Big Finish Doctor Who release, this is an anthology of four Sixth Doctor stories with the number "100" worked into their plots in a different way.
100 B.C.
The Sixth Doctor and Evelyn land in 100 B.C., where they prompty bump into one Julius Caesar, senior. They get mistaken for old friends of Caesar's wife and end up invited over for dinner. Once they get there, though, they realise that Aurelia had rather different things in mind for the evening (such as the conception of a baby), and that they accidentally prevented Julius Caesar from being born. Evelyn convinces the Doctor go look in on the date of Caesar's birth nine months later. Arriving in 101 B.C., they find that a baby has indeed been born... a happy baby girl named Julia. Evelyn firmly grasps hold of the Idiot Ball and decides, in a fit of misaimed feminism, that this could revolutionise the world. So while the Doctor, back in 100 B.C., tries to get Caesar sr. and his wife to hook up on that fateful evening after all, Evelyn tries to prevent them doing so. Eventually, Aurelia gets so annoyed with her guests that she scolds them for always interrupting in her life: first during the birth of her daughter, and now again with their ridiculous antics. Six and Evelyn sheepishly realise that 101 B.C. comes before 100 B.C., and slink off back to the TARDIS as Caesar sr. gets on with conceiving his second child.
My Own Private Wolfgang
Written by Robert Shearman
The TARDIS interrupts an invitation for a concert by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, so the Sixth Doctor and Evelyn decide to go see it. Evelyn's not exactly a huge fan of Mozart: his early work was alright, but throughout the 20th century, all he's focused on is rap and bad film scores. She doesn't actually believe that he's a real person (after all, no one can live that long), and supposes that Mozart has to be a kind of brand name.
At the concert, Mozart's 100th birthday party, Six and Evelyn are the only ones not wearing masks, which rather upsets the butler. So does the fact that Mozart ends up shooting himself in the face a few times over. It doesn't help much, and he continues to live, tormented by his own mediocrity. It's soon discovered that Mozart made a Deal with the Devil on his deathbed many years ago. Well, with a masked guy from the future. Well, with himself. As it turns out, everyone at the party is Mozart, including the butler. Evelyn is forced to spend a few weeks in the future with one particular Mozart — a household clone, he reveals, modelled after the famous composer. There are millions such menial clones throughout future human culture, a fad that eventually ended and left them all discarded. The original Mozart lived on forever because one clone travelled back into the past, to Mozart's death bed, and made him immortal in order to eventually sap his creativity. A Mozart who died after his greatest symphony was completed would have inspired all those poor clones; a Mozart who lived for centuries and degenerated into a mediocre film composer would never be cloned, and would thus prevent the suffering of millions of poor clones.
The Doctor travels to Mozart's death bed, together with the butler, who reveals that he invited all the other clones so they could see Mozart's mediocrity and how inhuman the plan of the other time-travelling clone would be. Six warns the dying Mozart not to trust a future version of himself, who'd promise to make him immortal. Evelyn and the butler arrive, who also warn Mozart not to trust the earlier version of the butler. Mozart, who hasn't the faintest idea what's going on, consents to simply die (mostly out of sheer confusion) and the Doctor destroys the final part of Mozart's great symphony: without Mozart's greatest work being complete, he'd still be known as a great composer, but the number of clones inspired by him would be drastically reduced. It's a compromise everyone can live with. After all, no one likes a story without an e—
Bedtime Story
The Sixth Doctor and Evelyn visit a funeral, of the father of one of Evelyn's dearest students. Jacob has some trouble understanding why Evelyn suddenly vanished from university, as well as why she's suddenly so docile and obsessed with tea. He's got other things on his mind, though: his father only died because Jacob just had his first child, and Jacob's mother soon dies as well. It's an old family curse, still in full effect. The Doctor realises that it's not death at all, but suspended time, meaning the "dead" are still alive and screaming internally. Jacob rushes to go dig up some no doubt terrified ancestors while Six confronts Evelyn about not being Evelyn at all. Her body is "dead" somewhere, and the imposter is an Eldritch Abomination who simply just wants to see this family suffer. Six and Jacob's wife (Talia) bluff the monster into admitting its plans, and bluff Jacob into killing himself, hoping to break the curse.
A much older Jacob relates the rest of the story to his own grandchild. The Doctor took the dead, including Evelyn, along in his TARDIS and showed them all the wonders of the universe. After 100 years, they all woke up and lived happily ever after. ... No, not really. Older Jacob is the monster, who wasn't fooled for a moment, and fully intents to have his revenge after waiting patiently for the next generation to be born.
The 100 Days Of The Doctor
One day, the Sixth Doctor's mouth starts talking on its own and informs him and Evelyn that he's been infected with a sentient virus. He's got 100 days before he'll die. The Doctor, very ill, gets the TARDIS to show him all possible locations he visited around the time/place he was infected. Unfortunately, since the TARDIS has a bit of Time-Travel Tense Trouble with the idea, she also shows all the locations that the Doctor will visit in the future. So, in tracking down the assassin, Six and Evelyn observe Five, Peri and Erimem (fighting in a revolution); Seven, Ace and Hex (being described as "being a family" but then Ace beats up some people with her baseball bat); Eight, Charley, C'rizz, Eight and Lucie (playing poker); Bernice Summerfield (digging stuff up for Braxiatel). They even briefly meet the alternate Third Doctor and Alistair when the TARDIS jumps a time track. Once they're done Leaning on the Fourth Wall and giving "the audience" a grand tour of Big Finish, they track down the assassin (hi, Nicholas Briggs!) and watch the man shoot an earlier Six. The current version of Six bluffs the guy into taking out the antidote, and cures himself easily.Tropes:
- Bad Liar: In "100 B.C.", the Doctor tries to pretend he's from a Bad Future where Evelyn is already dead because of her actions. Evelyn doesn't fall for it, because of his bandaid and the fact he's out of breath.
- Black Comedy: "My Own Private Mozart" is a Rob Shearman episode, so this is a given. It includes Mozart shooting himself in the head onstage in a Bungled Suicide, then his aide trying to explain it away as a new work called "Symphony for Three Gunshots". (Shearman notes in the extras that being only a single episode kept it a comedy - usually his serials turn into Grand Guignol in the fourth episode.)
- Bluffing the Murderer: The Doctor in "100 Days of the Doctor", bluffs the assassin into thinking he's been poisoned with his own poison, in order to see where he keeps his antidote.
- Bungled Suicide: Mozart shoots himself in the head. Three times. It doesn't stick.
- Burn the Witch!: The Shapeshifter gets burned as one, but survives.
- Buried Alive: The fate of the Williams family, who are suspended in time for a hundred years, believed dead and buried.
- Call-Back: The Doctor is revisiting places where he had been before in previous incarnations, the first one being very into sports.
- Call-Forward: Evelyn mentions Mozart, subject of the second episode, in "100 BC", the first of the four.
- The Doctor spies the Seventh and Eighth incarnations of the Doctor as well, in 100 days of the Doctor.
- Common Knowledge: In-Universe Evelyn has the misconception that Julius Caesar was the first person brought into the world through a cesarean section, the first of which was performed in the 19th century. And her being a history lecturer, she should have known that one! (That said, she does often note she's a Early Modern historian, not a Classicist.) It's mostly for Rule of Funny, since the episode was even written by Jacqueline Rayner, Evelyn's creator.
- Continuity Snarl: "The 100 Days Of The Doctor", being a Paul Cornell episode, gleefully creates a whole load of snarl. The Sixth Doctor meets Benny and Charley, one of whom he shouldn't know yet and the other, for plot-related reasons, he can't know about yet. Don't try to think about it too hard. (If one really has to, keep in mind what Six says to Evelyn about how the adventures they're seeing of "future" Doctors aren't necessarily from the future of his timeline, as well as the fact the Doctor mentions the virus damaging his memory).
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Creator Breakdown: Mozart has been going through this as a result of his long life and continual writing of symphonies, which are increasingly poor. - Cruel Twist Ending: " Bedtime Story". The shapeshifter wasn't actually fooled, and simply waited for a generation before resuming terrorising the Williams family.
- Deal with the Devil: Mozart is visited on his death bed by someone that gives him an elongated life in trade for a symphony a year.
- For Want Of A Nail: The Doctor tells Evelyn how disastrous it could be to the timeline that Julius Caesar is now a girl.
- Have We Met Yet?: It turns out the Sixth Doctor and Evelyn first met Aurelia when she was having Julia, rather then when they first met her. It also turns out Six and Evelyn have met Bernice Summerfield, a whole lifetime before he's "supposed" to meet her.
- Hereditary Curse: The Williams family has one where when a boy is born, their grandparents die soon after. It turns out an alien is actually suspending them in time in revenge for their ancestor spurning her.
- Hold Your Hippogriffs:Don't get your toga in a twist!
- Idiot Ball: "100 B.C." is a (somewhat jarring) example of both the Doctor and Evelyn carrying a big giant Idiot Ball, mostly for Rule of Funny.
- I Hate Past Me: Oh dear, Mozart.
- Also subverted: The Sixth Doctor, though grudgingly, admits that he truly never disliked the Fifth Doctor, and actually had enjoyed being that incarnation. His bitterness about his time as the Fifth Doctor had more to do with the way the universe was treating him at the time.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: "My Own Private Wolfgang" slips in a bit in the final scene. But "The 100 Days Of The Doctor" is an entire episode of this (and the only one of the four to really go all-in on being an anniversary episode). The Doctor talks about the audience watching, or perhaps listening, to him (the pictures are so much better in audio, after all). He's talking, of course, about the Time Lords who keep an eye on him. He says he's been given opportunity to grow, since meeting Evelyn. When he and Evelyn see two Eighth Doctors, Charley, Lucie and C'Rizz, he comments on his life being "short and sweet", but it's turned out unexpectedly rich. (Both Colin Baker and Paul McGann had bad luck in televised Who, but their characters got a whole new lease of life on audio.) Evelyn talks about the sheer number of adventures Bernice has had, notes how they only seem to be running into his Fifth-thru-Eighth selvesnote and how she enjoyed the political intrigue of Gallifrey.
- Me's a Crowd: Mozart. And Mozart. And Mozart. And Mozart.
- Mythology Gag: In "My Own Private Mozart" the Doctor is cut off at the end, just like in Revelation of the Daleks.
- Nasty Party: One of the three bodies of the Lustrousness of the Vyx sets up the inauguration party the 5th Doctor is attending as a trap, wanting all the power itself. Fortunately the 5th Doctor is able to sort it out.
- Left the Background Music On: "My Own Private Wolfgang" starts out with what seems to be a Special Edition Theme Song of the Doctor Who theme... until it abruptly stops, as Mozart is not pleased with his new composition.
- Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe: Talia claims she was having an affair with a guy at college Jacob hates and Paul isn't his. It's a trick, however.
- Masquerade Ball: Mozart's 100th birthday concert.
- Self-Deprecation: There's a potshot about the Sixth Doctor's weight compared to the Fifth incarnation.
- Set Right What Once Went Wrong: The Doctor tries to set history back on track, thinking his and Evelyn's intervention has led to Julius Caesar being born a girl. Evelyn thinks it will be better for the world and tries sabotaging his efforts. It turns out, however, they got the dates wrong, and history is on track, all they did was annoy the Caesars.
- Standard Snippet: The Doctor plays a bit of Green Sleeves on a Harpsichord.
- Take That, Audience!: The Doctor quite literally says: "Fans never know when enough is enough."
- A Taste of Their Own Medicine: In "100 Days of the Doctor" when he finds the assassin the Doctor gives them the same virus they sent into him. It turns out to be a trick so he can find the antidote.
- Tested on Humans: The reasons the Tharsis Acumen try to kill the Doctor is because he freed all the political prisoners after finding the Acumen were experimenting on prisoners.
- The Thing That Would Not Leave: Julius and Aurelia would just like a nice quiet night in, but the Doctor and Evelyn keep sticking their noses in.
- Time Skip: "The 100 Days Of The Doctor" takes some breaks in between.
- We Will Use Manual Labour in the Future: The Mozart clones of the future are used for tasks.
- Whole-Plot Reference: Sleeping Beauty in "Bedtime Story".
- Woman Scorned: The creature in Bedtime Story, who hates the Williams family due to Tobias Williams spurning her.
- Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Evelyn fakes a heartache and has the Doctor fetch her medicine... And she runs off.
