Recap / Big Finish Doctor Who The War Master S 1 E 3 The Sky Man

When his new companion decides to save a planet, the Master indulges this most futile of requests. Materialising on a primitive, agrarian world, both the strangers quickly find their place in it… until fallout from the Time War invades their happy paradise.

• Alien Non-Interference Clause: Cited by the Master repeatedly on why he can't intervene, through he gives covert assistance where he can. The truth is he's giving Cole just enough rope to hang himself.
• And I Must Scream: Cole forces a dying Anvar into a crude iso-suit which doesn't even have a visor to see out of, causing him to beg Cole to let him out. Later suits use Emotion Suppression in case of a panic attack by the wearer, who has to wear them 24/7 for the rest of their lives.
• Arcadia: The planet Cole chooses is a primitive agrarian world that's so peaceful and beautiful Cole muses that there's nothing for him to save. Then debris from the Time War falls on the surface and everything starts dying...
• Bastardly Speech: Elidh breaks up with Cole when she realizes her father has died because Cole was concentrating his efforts on saving her instead. The Master encourages her to go back to him, because the idea of saving her gives Cole the drive to keep going regardless of the consequences.
• Call to Agriculture: While Cole tries to Save the World, the Master takes over a nearby vineyard and dabbles in winemaking. Rather than a desire for the simple life however, the Master says that the patience and subtly required for his vines to bear fruit appeals to him.
• Collateral Damage: It's suggested that whatever's poisoning the planet isn't even a weapon, but is the equivalent of 'spent fuel'; expended temporal energy that's been inadvertently dumped on the planet.
• Could Say It, But...: Cole begs the Master for food to help Anvar and Elidh. The Master reminds him of their agreement that he not interfere, then when Anvar goes to leave in disgust, he casually mentions there's a shed with a weak padlock outside his fence with emergency supplies.
• Create Your Own Villain: Cole's idea to wrap the planet's populace in iso-suits to protect them from temporal radiation ended up creating what can only be described as Dalek / Cyberman hybrids, which may go on to ravage the Web Of Time.
• Creepy Monotone: Thanks to the vocal transmitters on the iso-suits, especially when the wearers start calling for "RE-TRI-BU-TION...RE-TRI-BU-TION...RE-TRI-BU-TION..."
• Cybernetics Eat Your Soul: The iso-suits have neural dampeners that suppress emotion, and the chrono-stabilization field has a side effect of destroying memories. When Cole last encounters Elidh, she doesn't even remember him, and tries to kill him as an alien.
• Down on the Farm: Exploited. The inhabitants of the agrarian planet deliberately keep their lives as primitive as they can get away with so the Time War's combatants won't notice them.
• Expy: Cole creates a race that's little different from the Daleks; hate-filled beings trapped in containment devices with a desire to exterminate all other forms of life. The creatures also assimilated the rest of their world like Cybermen before finally turning on Cole.
• First Contact Farmer: Played straight when the 'gods' first land and the only witnesses are a bunch of sheep farmers. They know about the Time War, however, so they aren't too impressed. Cole assures them I Come in Peace.
• Hazmat Suit: Cole uses his gravity suit as the template for iso-suits that protect the wearer from the temporal ravages of the Time War. The problem is you can't take them off. The final version is even self-replicating, enabling him to save everyone on the planet at terrible cost.
• The Immune: Cole doesn't get sick with everyone else, which he puts down to his survival suit but is more likely because of him being a temporal paradox due to the events of the previous episode. The Master's vineyard is also unaffected, but then he's had the time and knowledge to set up chrono defenses beforehand.
• I Need a Freaking Drink: Turns out the Master did make some good wine from his efforts, and he pours a glass for Cole while the latter is agonizing over how it all went wrong.
• Let's See YOU Do Better!: Cole objects to how the Master brushes off the impending destruction of several worlds and wants to help save one of them. The Master agrees to let him try.
• Low Culture, High Tech: The inhabitants maintain a deliberately-low tech level to avoid sending out EM transmissions that would draw attention from the combatants. Various debris from the War has ended up on the planet over the years, so Cole makes himself useful by using his engineering skills to repair items of scavenged alien technology being used on the farms.
• Meaningful Background Event: Shortly after the angry mob threatens to burn The Master's Vineyard, the scene cuts to Cole and Elidh talking. A keen-eared listener may hear the muffled sounds of a laser screwdriver popping off.
• Mercy Lead: Elidh no longer remembers her feelings for Cole after she hunts him down, but he convinces her to give him enough time to escape as a 'game'.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Cole just wants to Save the World, or at least its inhabitants. Instead he creates a race of Absolute Xenophobes who will eventually leave their world to seek revenge on those who destroyed it. Unable to find them, they'll turn their hatred on all alien life. Furthermore as Cole is a temporal anomaly because he didn't die on Arcking this race he created is also an anomaly, so they'll have terrible effects on the Web of Time already weakened by the Time War.
• Sadistic Choice: The Master says he will allow Cole to try and save a single world out of several about to be doomed in the Time War. When Cole asks for more details on the inhabitants of those worlds, the Master acts like he's changed his mind, forcing Cole to make a decision on the spot.
• Tempting Fate: When a mob threatens to burn the Master's vineyard.
  Rioter: What are you going to do, old man? Tear us limb from limb?
  The Master: Now that's an invitation I could not possibly refuse...
• The City vs. the Country: Discussed. Cole is a Fish out of Water and is endlessly derided by the inhabitants whenever he tries to help them out by fixing their equipment. He himself bears no ill will toward them, but they spend the first half of the audio prickly-at-best toward him. Elidh explains this away as them being averse to change, which is understandable given how deliberate their simplicity is.
• Torches and Pitchforks: As people, animals and crops start dying, the Sky Man and his friend are blamed and the locals start threatening violence. Cole is able to bluff a lynch mob into leaving by pretending his gravity suit is Powered Armor. Another mob turns up at the Master's vineyard demanding food. They're never seen again.
• Turned Against Their Masters: The moment a squad of iso-suit-wearers start calling Cole "Master" you know what's going to happen. Next time we see him he's been on the run for days as they're trying to kill all aliens in retribution for what's been done to them.