Big Finish Doctor Who/Recap/S1/E07 Human Resources Part One/NEDA

It's Lucie's first day at the office. She's a bit confused, because the could have sworn she was on an interstellar adventure just now. The Human Resources department quickly reassures her and gets her some coffee.

Things seem off. She can't figure out why the company has a growling and barking security guard at the door. And she has intrusive thoughts about Daleks and Doctors and planets. The Headhunter, meanwhile, collects her fee for having successfully headhunted a nice new employee.

The Doctor gets a rather unwelcome visitor from Gallifrey. If he rescues Lucie from that odd office, the Time Lords will fix the TARDIS and enable a trip to 2006 Northern England again. If, the Doctor counters, they enable his TARDIS again, he can then go rescue Lucie. The Time Lords disagree and give him a time travel ring instead. The Doctor thinks it's a bit tacky.

Lucie's stuck in Logistics for a bit, together with a girl named Karen whom she met during the job interview. After meeting Pointy-Haired Boss Jerry, she's thankfully able to escape his misogyny and general idiocy when a new boss upstairs wants her as his new personal assistant. It's the Doctor, of course, who entered the company to find Lucie and was immediately assumed to be an employee, then unceremoniously Kicked Upstairs. The two decide to split up.

The Doctor attends a strategy meeting, which sounds suspiciously like an actual war strategy meeting. He gives his own input and devises a new tactic that involves less bloodshed and more tunnel-digging. Rather confused as to why that sort of stuff is being discussed at all, he goes back to his office to shred everything he can find, hoping to annoy someone that way. (Annoying people is a marvellous way to get information.)

Lucie and Karen, meanwhile, are fired when they make a minor mistake in data input. Being fired involves being thrown out of the office building -- which is a Humongous Mecha, as it turns out. Lucie calls the Doctor to explain that they're running away from a giant robot with guns. He struggles with the idea for a bit. She texts him a picture and he has to admit that, yes, giant robot with guns is a rather apt description. Luckily, Lucie and Karen are rescued by other ex-employees, who give them food and some idea of what's going on. People at the office are brainwashed, sleep at their desks and get enough nutritional supplements to work every day. And there's a war out there.

The Headhunter is right cross when she hears that Lucie's been fired. (Not in the least because that means she won't get her commission.) She goes after the girls.

The Doctor eventually saunters over to Human Resources, where a human greets him and assumes he's a new client. The HR manager explains that he was a regular employee once, resisted the brainwashing and did a little hostile takeover before getting properly into the war business. The office workers are plucked from Earth; the language of the meetings is universal enough to be applied to logistics or war; the office view resembles London. (It used to be Ipswitch, but aliens got a bit cross after travelling billions of miles and ending up in Ipswitch.) The Doctor quite casually asks what options are available for clients. War on Gallifrey seems rather nice, he says, seeing how they exiled him and all.

The HR manager takes him up to the shielded platform to have a look at the war they're in right now. The Doctor takes a moment to disable the shield and open the lock for whatever's on the other side. It just seems fair. He immediately regrets that decision when the other side is full of Cybermen.

Tropes:

 * Deadpan Snarker: The Doctor asks Lucie why she always greets him with sarcasm. She tells him that she's Sarcasmo, the Lord of Sarcasm. She will hurt him with her... barbs. He's not impressed.
 * Incredibly Lame Pun: The episode is full of them.