Protect and Survive (audio drama)

The Doctor has disappeared, and the TARDIS is out of control. Ace and Hex find themselves marooned on Earth in the 1980s at the height of the Cold War.

• Seventh Doctor – Sylvester McCoy
• Ace – Sophie Aldred
• Hex – Philip Olivier
• Albert Marsden – Ian Hogg
• Peggy Marsden – Elizabeth Bennett
• Moloch / Patrick Allen (announcer) – Peter Egan

• The exterior of the TARDIS was rendered white during the events of The Angel of Scutari. It remained as such for the previous trilogy of stories, Project: Destiny, A Death in the Family and Lurkers at Sunlight's Edge.
• The TARDIS with the black exterior was inexplicably seen in a trilogy of solo Seventh Doctor stories, Robophobia, The Doomsday Quatrain and House of Blue Fire, which, for the Doctor, take place between Lurkers at Sunlight's Edge and Protect and Survive. It is also in Project: Nirvana, which takes place just before Protect and Survive.
• Peggy Marsden returns in Gods and Monsters.

• The Doctor is absent for most of the adventure. This was due to Sylvester McCoy appearing in the feature-film adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit at the time of Protect and Survive's recording.
• Ian Hogg played Josiah Samuel Smith in the 1989 Seventh Doctor television story, Ghost Light.
• Peter Egan recreates the late Patrick Allen's original voice-over for the real-life Protect and Survive public information announcements, which form a key part of the plot.
• The commander of the Russian missile base is named Petrov. On 26 Sept 1983, Lt Col Stanislav Petrov averted a nuclear exchange by reasoning that an apparent American pre-emptive strike was a false alarm.

Doctor Who Magazine reviewer Matt Michael strongly praised the play, noting that it was "one of the bleakest" made by Big Finish.[2]

• Big Finish Productions – Protect and Survive