A virus that has killed millions ravaged the planet Antikon. While the Doctor is trying to figure out the case of a missing scientist, and why there is a race of salvagers that are collecting the dead called the Dar Traders, and he's swept away by a series of events that is about to claim the lives of everybody that's left.
He can save them all. But he'd need to die.
- Admiring the Abomination: The Doctor thinks the Dar Traders are a beautiful chance of events, being creatures that can trade species' properties, and somehow managed to exist in a perpetuate state of dying without being able to die.
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Nancy, the Computer Voice starts out normal but ends up corrupted.
- Big "NO!": The Doctor lets one out when the Decay escapes from the TARDIS' telepathic circuits.
- Bizarre Alien Senses: The Dar Traders can pick up virus trails, like the Antikon Decay.
- Blue-and-Orange Morality: The Decay can only communicate through death. Which makes it a bit difficult to communicate with regular creatures.
- Call-Back: The Doctor mentions he's friends with Death.
- The Fifth Doctor (And Nyssa, Tegan and Adric) met the Dar Traders before in The Darkening Eye but that audioplay was released after this one.
- The Doctor mentions he used to be High President of the Time-Lords.
- The Doctor mentions he can survive in space temporarily
- Call-Forward: The Doctor is about to be flushed out of an airlock and Madame Butterfly's Opera starts playing. The Doctor refuses to die to elevator music.
- Came Back Wrong: The Dar Traders are able to merge with the dying to bring them back, but they don't come back ... well.
- Computer Voice: Nancy the Sky Station's computer.
- Darker and Edgier: Just like all Seventh Doctor solo stories, this is the Doctor towards the end of his life where he's less of a wisecracking uncle and more of a dark Chess Master
- Deader than Dead: The Death Collectors try to impose this upon the Doctor.
- Dead Person Conversation: Literally, to the dead. That respond.
- Distress Call: The Doctor traces one to the Sky Station.
- Energy Beings: Ridley starts emitting radio signals once he Comes Back Wrong. Seeing as he's been merged with the decay.
- Faux Death: The Dar Traders can induce this in themselves.
- Flatline: When Danika's oxygen runs out.
- For Science!: Professor Mors seems to muck about with things he doesn't understand just to try and find out what happens.
- Fusion Dance: The Undead starts collecting more flesh, and more decay, until it becomes a big shambling mound of rotting corpses forming one being.
- Government Conspiracy: The Doctor doesn't trust the project once he hears it's "Government funded".
- Heroic Sacrifice: Mors steps in between Danika and Ridley, as he wishes to absorb a life.
- Indy Ploy: The Doctor mentions he doesn't know what he's doing, but he's great at improvising.
- Ironic Echo: The Decay' is only able to communicate through recordings of people on the Sky Station which leads to this exchange as she is dying out in space.Recording of Danika: I refuse to die on this ship!
- Kill It with Fire:
- Reports of My Death Were Greatly Exaggerated: The Death Collectors have the Doctor down as "Dead". Seeing as the Doctor has died six times over, they're technically correct.
- Percussive Maintenance: Danika threatens Nancy with some.
- The Plague: Which turns out to be sentient.
- Shout-Out: The first thing Ridley proclaims when he's brought back from death is: "Alien"
- Space Station: Not exactly in space, but rather high atmosphere, and it's called a Sky Station, but for all intents and purposes it is one.
- Thrown Out the Airlock: The TARDIS materializes in one, and as an emergency measure the Doctor nearly gets thrown out.
- The Undead: Ridley since he Came Back Wrong. And he's Patient Zero.
- Vader Breath: Ridley in his spacesuit.
- Danika: ..What? Nancy... NANCY!?
The Doctor is just on his way away from Antikon's Sky Station, he muses about being alone in the universe again (again?). But he ends up in a marital affair.
- Anachronic Order: The story hops back and forth, and only the Doctor is aware.
- Call a Rabbit a "Smeerp": Bloodflowers look like Earth roses, according to the Doctor.
- The spiders as well, with odd numbers of legs (up to eleven).
- Chekhov's Gun: The Doctor unleashes the Decay on the chaotic loop, killing the Eldritch Abomination.
- Eldritch Abomination: Called Henry.
- Exact Words: Martial Princess Louisa demands the Doctor calls her "Her Royal highness, on pain of death."The Doctor: Very well, your Royal highness on pain of death
- Giant Spider: Somewhere there is an attack by giant spiders.
- "Groundhog Day" Loop: A Chaotic Timeloop which folds in on itself, keeping Louisa trapped in an inescapable prison.
- A Glitch in the Matrix: As soon as the Doctor remembers something, the surroundings change.
- Sequel Episode: This story immediately follows up after The Death Collectors.
- Shout Out To Shakespeare: A rose by any other name.
- Spanner in the Works: The Doctor showing up starts unravelling a chaotic timeloop.
