Revenge of the Swarm (Jonathan Morris)

August 2014 saw the return of the The Swarm!

The Seventh Doctor (played by Sylvester McCoy) is once more teamed with Ace (played by Sophie Aldred) and Thomas Hector Schofield (played by Philip Olivier).

This mini-series kicks off with "Revenge of the Swarm" by Jonathan Morris, in which the Time Lord once again takes on an old foe of the Fourth Doctor seeking vengeance.

Directed by Ken Bentley "Revenge of the Swarm" was recorded on the 20th and 21st February 2014.

This story stars John Leeson (aka K9) returning to voice the Swarm, as he first did back in the 1977 Fourth Doctor story "The Invisible Enemy".

Seventh Doctor

'"The Invisible Enemy" is one of the first Doctor Who stories I ever watched', Jonathan Morris has revealed, 'and so when I had the chance to choose a new 'returning foe', the sinister Nucleus of the Swarm was top of my list. It has an unusual modus operandi and a memorable voice, and would work well on audio without the distraction of the (not entirely successful) visual. "Revenge of the Swarm" is both a prequel and a sequel to "The Invisible Enemy" (though you don't need to have seen it) and is a traditional, fun outer-space adventure'.

Also staring in this story are: Mandi Symonds, Maggie Service, John Heffernan, Phyllida Nash, Siobhan Redmond, John Dorney and Paul Panting.

Having clung on to life after sacrificing himself in 2012 audio story "Gods and Monsters", Hex is back aboard the TARDIS - but, as last year's "Afterlife" established, he's not Hex any more.

'It's The Doctor, Ace, and Hector', writer Jonathan Morris, and Script Editor of its two forthcoming follow-ups, has revealed. 'Hector being a new incarnation of Hex, who's had all the parts of his memory and personality that make him Hex removed, and who has had a different past. The stories are dealing with whether he'll be able to become Hex again. Hex was a nurse, and Hector is a sort of gangster, so he's got a slightly darker take on the world. He feels he's walking in another person's shoes, that don't fit. Ace thinks that they're on a mission to try and find the real Hex, and get him back to how he was, which isn't going to go down very well with Hector'.

Ace

This story also brings back a monster from 1977 Fourth Doctor story "The Invisible Enemy". 'I really wanted to do a "returning monster" story, and I'd always had a story idea for the "Nucleus of the Swarm". It's very funny, I think, because it's a monster that's miniscule, absolutely tiny, but thinks it's the greatest being in the universe. It realises it has the power to time-travel, using the TARDIS'.

As revealed by Jonathan Morris 'Because this is a Doctor and Ace story, it's sort of set in the late 1980s, so I was thinking, "What films were around in the late 1980s that they'd do a take on?", so the virus becomes a computer virus, and The Doctor and Ace have to go inside a computer to fight it'.

Revisiting the concepts of the earlier story, with its unique interpretation of science, was freeing. '"The Invisible Enemy"'s idea that you could miniaturise someone, and that a virus could be intelligent, is extraordinary. They go inside The Doctor's brain, and they see the bit where it goes from his real brain into his imagination, as a sort of little pathway - that's not science, that's fantasy. There's always a part of my brain going "Is this scientifically possible?", and it's just fun to go a little bit further and be a little bit more fantastical. So I go for it a little bit...'

On the Back Cover:

Revenge of the Swarm continues the story of Hector (Philip Olivier), now back aboard the TARDIS with the Doctor and Ace (Sophie Aldred)... but his past is lost to him.

The Doctor thought he had defeated the microscopic Nucleus of the Swarm in his fourth incarnation. He was wrong. It survived within the TARDIS, and now it has brought it back to Titan Base, back to the point of its own creation. It has a plan that spans centuries, a plan which will result in the Nucleus becoming more powerful - and larger - than ever before.

To defeat it, the Doctor, Ace and Hex must confront the Nucleus within its new domain - the computer-world of the Hypernet, the information network crucial to the survival of the human empire. But if the Doctor is to save the day, he has to risk everything and everyone he holds dear...