Posted in: Audio Dramas, BBC, Disney+, TV | Tagged: big finish, doctor who

Doctor Who/Big Finish: Your Lighthouse in Uncertain "Whoniverse" Times

With all of the uncertainty surrounding the future of Doctor Who, it's nice to know that fans can find comfort in Big Finish's audio dramas.

Everyone is fretting that Doctor Who might end up on a long hiatus again if Disney doesn't renew their deal with the series. We get it. Fans always need new content to keep things fresh and have new things to talk about. What will everyone do then? Well, new Doctor Who content is being produced all the time, and not just the currently inconsequential novels. No, fans want their favourite actors playing their favourite Doctors and companions again in new stories, and that will have to be audio dramas produced by Big Finish Productions.

Big Finish began as a small production company in 1999 with the first official non-BBC Doctor Who audio drama, "The Sirens of Time," featuring Peter Davison, Colin Baker, and Sylvester McCoy in a multiple Doctor crossover that the TV series never got to do because it was unofficially canceled in 1989. Not long after that, they got Paul McGann to play the Eighth Doctor after his 1996 TV movie didn't get picked up for a revamped series. McGann would end up playing the Doctor in more adventures than any other actor or Doctor, living or dead, and continues to in the present. Since then, Big Finish has become a major production company that has expanded its line of Doctor Who productions. Russell T. Davies was always a fan and seems to have a complete set of all their releases.

Don't think you got enough of your Doctor from the modern era? Fear not. David Tennant and Catherine Tate have returned in a few seasons of new stories as The Tenth Doctor and Donna Noble during their adventuring days. Billie Piper has starred in stories featuring Rose when she was searching for the Tenth Doctor during series three. Alex Kingston has reprised River Song in her own spinoff series, and there are spinoffs for The Master. Miss Torchwood? There's a whole line of new stories featuring the team in long arcs and shorter stories featuring the characters on solo missions. Wish Jo Martin had actual stories as the Fugitive Doctor? Well, she's getting her own seasons on audio drama. They've since expanded to audio sequels to Blake's 7, a British update of alien invasion series V while collaborating with original series creator Kenneth Johnson and many others. And Jodie Whittaker and Mandip Gil, and Christopher Eccleston and Billie Piper are returning to reprise their characters in new adventures.

If there's a flaw to many of Big Finish's stories, it's that they often feel like fanfic that's obsessed with series lore, trying to correct or explain continuity flaws and characters meeting up but lacking that extra thematic layer of social commentary that's always the ingredient overlooked by the geekiest fans. The best stories keep all the layers and balls of what makes good Doctor Who spinning smoothly. They now adapt audio adaptations of unfilmed scripts from the classic era, audio adaptations of the most influential Virgin Adventures novels and continue to expand, even re-recording a classic story live at a theatre hall in London from of an audience. Big Finish has grown into a large production company that's still modest compared to the huge BBC TV version, with its own stable of accomplished writers. And many fans of the modern era still don't know they exist. Maybe during the next long drought, they'll discover Big Finish to tide them over.

The Big Finish Doctor Who audio dramas and other spinoffs and series are available on CD and digitally from their website.

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