Big Finish Doctor Who/Recap/137 The Whispering Forest

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In the settlement of Purity Bay, being clean, sterilized and careful is the most important rule-- for good reason, because the mysterious Takers steal away anyone who is sick or injured, never to be seen again. The Doctor, Tegan, Turlough and Nyssa are greeted with suspicion upon their arrival and immediately find themselves swept up in a political battle between the fanatical Sister Mertil and her younger, more progressive stepdaughter Seksa. Meanwhile, the whispering, ghost-like Shades lurk in the forest, determined to make themselves heard...

The Whispering Forest contains examples of:

• Ambition Is Evil: Sister Mertil is extremely power-hungry, marrying Purity's leader almost immediately after his first wife's accidental death and attempting to take over his role immediately after he disappears. Also, it turns out the first wife's death wasn't an accident after all.
• Auto Doc: The Takers are actually medical robots from a crashed hospital ship. They aren't killing the people they spirit away, they're healing them and quarantining them in a safe, unpolluted place.
• Evil Redhead: Turlough is mistaken for a Taker because of his red hair-- "Redthatch" is another name the citizens of Purity use for the Takers.
• Foreshadowing: Tegan complains of headaches and expresses a reluctance to sleep throughout the play, which foreshadows The Reveal at the end that The Mara has resurfaced in her mind.
• Our Ghosts Are Different: The Shades, the incorporeal beings who haunt the forests surrounding Purity are the remaining echoes of the people infected with Richter's Syndrome who were unsuccessfully euthanized by the medibots.
• The Fundamentalist: Mertil, whose obsession with hygiene and being "pure" goes beyond even the society's ingrained germphobia.
• Madness Mantra: "Take flesh. Make fresh."
• Super OCD: The entire society of Purity is based on this-- the inhabitants constantly scrub themselves with harsh chemicals to the point that their faces and hands are permanently raw and red, and hair is forbidden as it gets dirty too easily.
• Wicked Stepmother: Mertil.