Taking place just after Arc of Infinity, the Doctor decides to take Tegan and Nyssa to the planet Florana. However, instead, he lands on a wartorn planet being ruled under a theocracy that practices eugenics. And Daleks are involved.
It was adapted from an outline by Barbara Clegg ("Enlightenment") by John Dorney.
Related Tropes:
- Age Lift: The characters in Barbara Clegg's original outline were meant to be about thirteen, to make the brainwashing and violence more shocking. For logistical reasons, Big Finish were unable to keep this aspect and aged them up to about twenty-five instead.
- Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: After spending the beginning of the story grumbling about having Tegan back, the Doctor proves his affection by vehemently defending her to the Elite, saying that she is much smarter than she appears and doesn't need a lot of big words to prove it.
- Ax-Crazy: Thane becomes this as the society of the Elite descends into civil war, seeing it as a joyous event for all involved.
- Bait-and-Switch: As soon as the High Priest's identity is revealed, the stage seems set for a regular Dalek story to take place. Then Thane kills the Dalek...
- Nyssa goes along with the Doctor's ruse about a test of the Academy's security, and personally delivers the Doctor into the hands of the Elite.
- Call-Back: On at least one occasion, The (Third) Doctor had tried to take Sarah Jane to Florana. It didn't end well.
- Call-Forward: The Doctor mentions the Rosemariners of Rosadamascena. Flash forward a year or two, and those selfsame Rosemariners are the titular baddies in a Second Doctor Companion Chronicles adventure.
- Chekhov's Gun: The chocolate that the Doctor confiscates from Nyssa at the beginning of the first episode is used to try and break some of the children's conditioning later on. (In fairness, he eats a little too, ending up the punchline to a Brick Joke where Nyssa accuses him of taking it to do just that.)
- Face–Heel Turn / Brainwashed and Crazy: Nyssa, though it doesn't last.
- Handicapped Badass: The Dalek might not have its weapon, but it still corrupts an entire planet.
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Harsher in Hindsight: The planet they were on WAS Florana, after all, the famed roses later seen being a memorial garden to all the dead from The Elite's wars having grown out of control. - Laughing Mad: Thane.
- Limited Wardrobe: Tegan's is explained; she came back onto the TARDIS in Amsterdam to discover that the Doctor had put all her old belongings into storage and forgotten where. She moans about having to wear the same outfit for weeks, something Nyssa sees no problem with, having worn her velvet ensemble for quite some time already.
- Morton's Fork: Invoked; the Doctor doesn't like the idea of helping a Dalek, but when the only alternative is leaving it on this planet to continue its role as High Priest, he concedes that it makes 'sense' to take it back to the Dalek fleet where it's just one Dalek among many rather than leave it here to cause more damage on its own.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: For the Doctor, the mere fact that Nyssa has joined the Elite is enough for him to confirm that the Elite have some means of brainwashing, which he is later able to adapt to knock out their enemies.
- Self-Deprecation: "You can't threaten an Australian with imprisonment! It's in our blood!"
- Spoiler Opening: Of sorts — anyone who is at all familiar with what a Kaled mutant looks like will realize that the drama is a Dalek story with one glance at the CD cover or audio file preview image. Which makes it even more of a surprise when the Dalek dies at the end of Episode 3.
- Static Stun Gun: Poor old mind-controlled Nyssa gets zapped with one three times.
- Sufficiently Advanced Aliens: Or at least a Dalek who can con an entire civilization into thinking it's the emissary of the gods.
- The Game Come to Life: The Doctor theorises (and is implied to be correct) that the attack games used by Academy students to train are actually carrying out bombing runs on the Elite's enemies.
- This Is Gonna Suck: The Doctor missing the peace and quiet is interpreted as this by Tegan.
- With Friends Like These...: The Doctor is so unenthused about having Tegan back on board the TARDIS that Nyssa questions if he even wanted her back. He affirms that he does, but he had gotten used to the relative peace and quiet of her absence.
- Whole-Plot Reference: John Dorney (who adapted it from Barbara Clegg's outline) consciously cribbed from the plot of the 1981 TV special The Wave (1981), itself a dramatization of a real-life 1967 object lesson by a high-school teacher that got out of hand. The reveal in both is very similar — in The Wave, The kids find that the leader of The Third Wave was Adolf Hitler, in The Elite, the society finds out that their High Priest is a Dalek.
