Big Finish Doctor Who/Recap/S1/E02 The Renaissance Man/FDA
To help in furthering Leela's education, The Doctor takes her to the Moravian Museum, the greatest repository of knowledge in the Galaxy. However, somethng else is there, hungry for knowledge, and willing to sieze it by any means necessary...
The Renaissance Man contains examples of:
- Actor Allusion: Winston Churchill was namechecked in front of Harcourt. Harcourt was played by Ian MacNiece, who also played Churchill in Season 5's Victory of the Daleks.
- The name Harcourt itself is one as well, as MacNiece recounts that the writers named it in honor of a character he'd played back in the 70s.
- Fake American: Not one of the actors can hold an American accent in the Wild West sector.
- Shown Their Work: And HOW! The fact that the writer did his homework is incorporated as a critical plot point.[1] A little research work by the listener shows that all the other factoids given by the Doctor (such as the ever present Cow Parsley, probably better known as "Queen Anne's Lace") are correct except for Montmorency Peskerton, who was made up whole cloth by The Doctor to trick Jephson.
- Verbal Tic: Leela constantly pronounces "Renaissance" as "Runny-Science".
- World War Two: One of the zones is set at the Battle of Britain, and includes a strafing by Messerschmitts meant to kill The Doctor.
- ↑ Semantic quirks surrounding the adoption of the Gregorian Calendar in Russia -- TECHNICALLY adopted in late 1918, but discarded quickly by the Soviets for a "Revolutionary" calendar until the late '20s (Harcourt answers with the former) -- prove the straw that breaks Jephson's reality to pieces.