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Writer Robin Mukherjee discusses Big Finish producing his "lost" Doctor Who TV story, "Alixion," from the Seventh Doctor's era.
Posted in: Audio Dramas, BBC, Doctor Who, TV | Tagged: big finish, doctor who
Doctor Who Writer on Big Finish Adapting "Lost' Seventh Doctor Story
Writer Robin Mukherjee discusses Big Finish producing his "lost" Doctor Who TV story, "Alixion," from the Seventh Doctor's era.
Article Summary
- Big Finish adapts Robin Mukherjee's lost Seventh Doctor story "Alixion" as a new Doctor Who audio drama.
- The tale is set in an intergalactic spa where the Doctor and Ace are trapped by a powerful, memory-stealing entity.
- Mukherjee recalls developing "Alixion" with showrunner Andrew Cartmel before the TV series was cancelled in the 1980s.
- After decades, Mukherjee fulfills his original vision for Doctor Who with "Alixion," now available from Big Finish.
One of the most interesting branches of Big Finish's Doctor Who productions is making audio drama versions of scripts originally commissioned or developed for TV but were never made. They've had some success with previously unproduced stories from the Philip Hinchcliffe era of the Fourth Doctor years, which were amongst the most successful of the series' history. Now they've produced the first "lost" Seventh Doctor story from the Andrew Cartmel era of the 1980s. "Alixion" by Robin Mukherjee is set in an intergalactic luxury health spa for rest and recreation, where the Doctor (Sylvester McCoy) and Ace (Sophie Aldred) find themselves at the mercy of a malign entity that craves the conquest of time and space. Exploiting their memories and regrets, the queen of the hive, which hides behind the polished walls of the spa, forces them to confront their deepest fears as she steals the Doctor's life force to spread her powers across the universe.
Mukherjee shared, "The story of Alixion came out of conversations with Andrew Cartmel, supported by John Nathan-Turner, the first producer to offer me a television commission. Up to that point, I'd written for theatre and radio, and was just finding my feet in the industry. I can vividly remember those cramped rooms in a drab office block on Shepherds Bush Green which became an oasis of creativity, seething with ideas in the company of John, Andrew, Ben Aaronovitch, Ian Briggs, Graeme Curry, Rona Munro and others. I felt in awe of these writers and their imagination. We danced through space and time spinning strange and wonderful tales for – in my view – one of the show's greatest ever Doctor/partner pairings."
The writer continued, "The cancellation of the next series put an end to my commission. But the story has always hovered in the corners of my imagination. Between then and now, I've mostly written grounded, realistic dramas, from medical series to arthouse cinema. Being able to launch my creative molecules into the stratosphere has been an immeasurable joy. What surprised me most about writing this was how much story, from all of those conversations, was simply waiting to be told. It feels as if something begun in the tender days of my early work has at last been fulfilled."
Doctor Who: Alixion is available from Big Finish.
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