The Discontinuity Guide
The Missing Adventures

The Romance of Crime

January 1995

(Features the Fourth Doctor between The Creature from the Pit and Nightmare of Eden)

Author: Gareth Roberts

Editor: Rebecca Levene

Roots: Ronnie and Reggie Kray.

Goofs: Spiggot says that big mining companies can't afford to pass any mining possibility by due to the galactic recession. This is a reference to a mining survey on what's probably a low-yield planet, which can't be done from orbit. But surely during a recession, companies are looking to cut back on all unnecessary spending (including surveys), rather than start mining a completely new (and unlikely) planet.

The Ogrons lock up the prisoners in a room full of explosives. This is a bit stupid, even for Ogrons.

Technobabble: Geostatic traction links, power accelerator (both parts of K9)

The Ogron rifles cause displacement of internal organs through narrow channel photon bombardment (so they're lasers?).

A reverse thrust reaction OR a constant blast/excitation/suppression in a static charged fieldwith torpor balance. Zonal flow valve. Capacital limiter. (The Rock's engines.)

Televerification assemblers. (These appear to be part of the transmat). Direct, non-terminal transmat is a matter of cross-hatching the pantalion drive with the guidance assemblers and adding a verification tangle after the 79th pulse.

K9 explaining the TARDIS: 'Relative dimensional stabilizer maps interior dimensions onto exterior outlet. Number of relational components of TARDIS inestimable, therefore detailed report on its workings is unavailable.'

Dialogue Disasters: Pyerpoint on the Doctor and Romana: 'Why are they wearing disruptive clothing?' and many more.

Eddie: 'Shut up, you bug-eyed freak.'

Most of Spiggot's lines. Especially 'You're tied to a chair, you know' and calling the TARDIS: 'That stupid box.'

The Doctor on Pyerpoint: 'He's a malicious old stick.'

Dialogue Triumphs: Xais: 'Hatred is the purest, strongest, most beautiful force in the universe.'

Stokes: 'I bet you think an older fellow like me is past his prime, don't you?'
Romana: 'You've been telling me that for several hours.'
Stokes: 'Oh, don't listen to me.'
Romana: 'I wasn't.'

Stokes: 'One could be forgiven for thinking that you weren't human.'
Romana: 'That's the nicest thing you've said all day.'

An Ogron: 'It is good to have a big stone.'

Romana: 'What do you mean "of course"? You had no more idea than anyone else.'
The Doctor: 'Well, no. But I enjoyed saying it anyway. A man has to have his simple pleasures.'

Pyerpoint: 'You trust me?'
Xais: 'I trust your ambition.'

The Doctor: 'Well, have you got any better ideas?'
Romana: 'It is my idea.'
The Doctor: 'Well, then you should feel very proud.'

The Doctor: 'You're not one of those people who gets into a rage and starts killing whoever happens to be about. Well perhaps you are.'

If there was one thing a group of Ogrons could be relied upon to do well, it was to barge noisily through an air-lock.

Spiggot: 'K9, you have complete permission not to listen to a word I say.'
K9: 'I do not need official permission.'

Gjork: 'There is a big thing here, sir, with big flames coming from it. What is it?'

Continuity: The Uva Beta Uva system has 14 planets. Number 5 is the only habitable one. The star is a toroidal elliptic. In this system, a High Archon is a rank of judge.

The TARDIS has a monopoly board. The Doctor is 6'4" and his scarf is 26' long. He can withstand levels of pain that would kill a human. His pockets contain an orange, a mirror, a ball of string, a yo-yo, a child's picture book, an egg timer, the sonic screwdriver, and a bag of jelly babies. K9 has some kind of defence which causes someone trying to open him up with a screwdriver to drop it in pain. He also has 229 human exercise routines. From this story on, he cannot use the phrase 'I told you so.'

Transycaster is next to the black hole of Dehara.

Stokes has been painting death row criminals for seven years (since the death of his father, a planetary councillor). His subjects include Naomi Blakemore (the most recent), Seldin Vranch (the fraudster), Ventol the three-headed killer of the lower city, the Zinctown Basher (possibly also known as the Zinctown Cobbler), Strapping Jack and Xais. Pyerpoint has been administrator for 18 years. The Rock has been in existence for 40 years & hasn't used thge docking port since then. Papers relating to cases are kept for five years before being fed through the shredder.

Fenton Breedley had an exhibition at the Regional in '19.

The Mutant Rights Act 2278 protected certain settlements of mutated humans. Mutants are also known as Ceerads (Cellular Remission and Decay). This all happened on Guaal. They escaped the purge of Vanossos and set up settlements on Six. When miners arrived, the mutants were all wiped out (except Xais).

McConnochie Mining is the big mining company in this area.

Helicon is a good modelling material for taking a (silver) mask. It's low conductivity and strength. In its liquid form, it has certain psychic properties. It's mineral number RL225.

Ogrons drink Rigellian Ale. They have gone from striking fear into the hearts of people throughout space to being the butt of jokes throughout the human empire. Their home world is Braah, on the outer extremity of Earth's galaxy. It's a high gravity world. According to Romana, Braah underwent a series of rapid climate changes so their instincts are a mixture of primate and carnivore. They are willing to learn and have great practical skills.

The Kathok Empire was an invention of scrap merchants in the fourth quadrant, an imaginary fallen empire used to sell bits of scrap.

Stavender's radiation can cause use of Psi-powers to damage the body of the one using them.

Links: There are references to the Randomiser and the Black Guardian (The Armageddon Factor). The Nisbetts got the Ogrons from a race that were planning to invade the galaxy, but half of them got blown sky-high by somebody. (This could be refering to Remembrance of the Daleks - though that story definitely takes place a long time after this.)

Location: The Uva Beta Uva System, near the centre of the Milky Way galaxy. The action starts on April 21st (It's April the 22nd on page 46). The attack on the mining survey was on February 28th. It's 150 years after the mining stuff (page 8 - Parkin thinks this refers to founding of Uva Beta Uva). Uva Beta Uva was founded almost 200 years ago (page 128). So it's nearly 2430.

Future History: In the early years of the first great break-out (2230), humans colonised the Uva Beta Uva system and called the fifth planet New Earth. When a mining company discovered that the 3rd planet was rich in Belzite, a subclause of the Intergalactic Mineral Exploitation Act 2217 took away the population's rights. The economy became based on tourism & service industries until the Galactic Recession. The Computers and Cybernetics Systems Act was passed in 2265 and affects use of recordings in court. The Uva Beta Uva system was surveyed 50 years after the Doctor and Romana left.

Unrecorded Adventures: The Doctor says that the Neanderthals were charming people, much better than their successors and could knock up a good Mammoth Casserole. (He's almost certainly NOT referring to 100,000 BC.) One of the Doctor's coats comes from H.J. Barber and son Aylesbury.

The Bottom Line: Once the action gets going (with Xais, the Nisbetts, Pyerpoint and the Doctor all interacting), it's a cracking story. Unfortunately, Spiggot is a walking cliché, and Stokes isn't much better. Pyerpoint also comes across as being really stupid, even though he is probably one of the smartest people in the system.