Posted in: Audio Dramas, BBC, Doctor Who, TV | Tagged: big finish, doctor who

Doctor Who: Writer Matt Fitton Talks 13th Doctor Audio Drama Season

Writer Matt Fitton offered some new details on Big Finish's Doctor Who audio dramas, featuring the return of Jodie Whittaker and Mandip Gill.

Did you think it was over for Doctor Who? Well, no, it's never over for Doctor Who. There's always Big Finish audio dramas, and Jodie Whittaker's 13th Doctor is about to get her own series with Mandip Gill playing companion Yaz Khan. When we heard about this, we thought Big Finish would be making its own "lost" season of stories for the 13th Doctor that took place after Ryan and Graham left the TARDIS and the two of them went around on their own adventures before "Flux" came along. The new stories will be released bi-monthly over the next two years, recreating the format of the early 21st-century seasons. The first story, "Vampire Weekend" by Tim Foley, reintroduces Yaz and The Doctor as the latter shows up as a guest at a hen party (UK term for "bachelorette party") for one of Yaz's friends, where an alien menace happens to show up.

A New Two-Year Season of Doctor Who

"When we started developing this series, the 60th anniversary specials were yet to air, so it all felt very immediate and close to the Thirteenth Doctor's era on TV. I think it's the soonest that any Doctor has come to Big Finish since leaving the TV show, so it felt like Jodie and Mandip had stepped straight off the screen and into the recording booths."

Matt Fitton is a script editor and one of the regular writers at Big Finish, who is a deft hand at character drama and comedy, and wrote the 13th Doctor's first audio drama adventure. He spoke to Doctor Who Magazine and confirmed Big Finish is in effect producing a whole new season of Doctor Who, containing twelve new stories featuring the 13th Doctor and Yaz. "Vampire Weekend" is like a pilot for this new series set between "Revolution of the Daleks" (2021) and "Flux" (2021): shortly after Graham and Ryan have left the TARDIS and before Dan's arrival. It all kicks off in "Vampire Weekend" with a madcap whodunit like no other..

"We wanted to start the series firmly in Yaz's world, and show how the Doctor crashing in upends it – but also totally livens it up," said Fitton. "In a way, Yaz tries to keep her time back home in Sheffield separate from her TARDIS adventures, so there's a sense of her juggling those two lives but always choosing adventure with the Doctor, however chaotic and dangerous it might be!"

"Watching the Thirteenth Doctor era, I sometimes felt the TARDIS was a little crowded," said producer Noga Flaishon. "Graham,  Ryan, and Yaz were all great characters, but with so many big personalities, there wasn't always room to fully explore them. So when we learned that this series would just be Yaz and the Doctor, I was excited – not only for the chance to work closely with Jodie and Mandip, but for the storytelling opportunities that come with the Thirteenth Doctor flying with a sole companion in a more classic Who fashion. In early conversations with Matt, we both agreed we wanted to dig deeper into Yaz's relationship with the Doctor, really stress-test it, and let Yaz shine. With just one companion, we also get to have more fun with the supporting cast in each time and place that the TARDIS lands."

"It made sense to us to explore that central dynamic between the Thirteenth Doctor and Yaz," confirmed Matt. "They're the longest-running Doctor and companion pairing this century, but for the first time, we can really focus on why they work so well together. It's just before the universe-shattering changes in Flux, so it's an interesting point in their relationship: Yaz figuring out who she is, what she wants, and what the Doctor means to her."

Back to That Cozy Longer Season Format

"When planning this series, we wanted to capture that early 2000s Doctor Who vibe of standalone episodes with a theme or a throughline running beneath them," says Noga. "From the very start, we're seeding hints toward the finale, and obviously, as we get closer to it, the main plot moves more into the centre of the story. But we've worked hard to strike a balance: recapping enough to catch people up without repeating information for those who've been with us from the beginning."

"We wanted it to feel like a run of TV stories of the 'new series' era: something for everyone, but with an arc which definitely rewards faithful listeners," adds Matt. "We have a real mix of different types of stories – hard sci-fi, alien worlds, historical settings, trips to the future, scary, funny, and emotional. We get to take the Thirteenth Doctor to new places, and we're really pleased to have several new voices among the writers, too.

The Return of Jodie Whittaker and Mandip Gill

"Recording days for this range have very quickly become my favourite days," reveals Noga. "Jodie and Mandip are wonderful actors and such lovely people to work with. Their energy is catching, and they end up lifting the entire room as a result. Also, they're clearly such good friends, and it really carries into the takes."

"The recordings were an absolute joy," said Fitton. "They said complimentary things about the scripts, and I think they felt that the writers had captured their on-screen dynamic really well. It was good to take them to new places, too. At various points, both Jodie and Mandip noticed their characters were doing things they'd not done before on T,V and they threw themselves into it. It was brilliant to see the rapport between them and how happy they were to be working together again."

Doctor Who: Vampire Weekend is available for pre-order.

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