Big Finish - Far From Finished

This month saw the release of 100, which you’ll be shocked to learn was the 100th release in Big Finish Productions regular monthly Doctor Who series, which began back in 1999, with a story called The Sirens of Time.

Now I could write an incredibly tedious review of the 100 releases which Big Finish have clocked up, but that would be fairly pointless and meaningless to the majority of people who are likely to read this, so I’ll try and make this a bit more interesting…

Big Finish actually began releasing their Doctor Who stories on a bi-monthly basis, but it wasn’t too long before they released that the CDs and, in those days, cassettes (remember them?) were selling well enough for the releases to go monthly, and so they did in late 1999.  After Sirens, which had an episode featuring each of the Seventh, Fifth and Sixth Doctors (in that order), followed by a meeting of all three in the final episode, early releases included Phantasmagoria (written by Mark Gatiss), a Fifth Doctor / Turlough story, Whispers of Terror, by Justin Richards, the first outing for Colin Baker’s Sixth Doctor (accompanied by Peri, still played by Nicola Bryant), and The Land of the Dead by Stephen Cole.  Soon after, the Sixth Doctor was given a new companion, Doctor Evelyn Smythe (Maggie Stables) in Jaqueline Raynor’s The Marian Conspiracy, and the pepper pot tyrants from Skaro returned, this time to stalk the Seventh Doctor and Ace in The Genocide Machine, while another old enemy returned, the Ice Warriors meeting the Fifth Doctor and Peri in Red Dawn.  The ninth release, The Spectre of Lanyon Moor, finally brought the Sixth Doctor face to face with Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, voiced by the wonderful Nick Courtney.

The early releases all tended to be written established writers who had worked on the New Adventures novels or the then current BBC novel range, or Nick Briggs, but as the releases hit double figures, stories by newer writers arrived, while more established writers such as Paul Cornell started to contribute.  It wasn’t long though before one of the new writers, Rob Shearman, contributed the first true classic of the range, The Holy Terror, which featured the Sixth Doctor and Frobisher the shape-shifting penguin, a character from the Doctor Who Magazine comic strip in the mid-1980s.  This release went a long way to summing up the Big Finish range – a true classic story, the first written by Rob Shearman, a very strong guest cast which included Roberta Taylor, Peter Guinness and Sam Kelly, and a showcase for Colin Baker’s Sixth Doctor, who throughout the last eight years has undergone a widely acclaimed renaissance as the Sixth Doctor.  Served with better scripts, and given a chance to mellow and calm down a bit, Baker’s Sixth Doctor has been a consistent favourites among fans during the Big Finish years, and the man himself is very grateful to be given a second chance at proving wrong some of the criticism from his stormy tenure as the Doctor on TV in the mid-1980s.

Big Finish had achieved a major coup, with the announcement that Paul McGann would be reprising his role as the Eighth Doctor in a ‘season’ of four stories in early 2001, nearly a full five years after his appearance in the US-made TV movie.  In fact, the trailer for this block of releases was the most anticipated aspect of the otherwise underwhelming story The Apocalypse Element, which really should have been better anticipated since it featured the Daleks.  McGann’s first story was titled Storm Warning, and was written by Alan Barnes,  and gave a terrific re-introduction to the character of the Eighth Doctor, as well as giving him a new companion, Charlotte (Charley to her friends)  Pollard, voiced by India Fisher, possibly the longest serving companion in Doctor Who history, although her time with the Doctor is soon to be ending.  Further stories in the first Eighth Doctor ‘season’ were The Sword of Orion, which featured the return of the Cybermen for the first time in the Big Finish range, and The Stones of Venice. The final story, Minuet in Hell has divided opinion like very few others – some think it’s awful, not being able to get past the badly acted American accents, others think it’s much maligned and better than it’s reputation.  Another appearance by the Brigadier counts heavily in it’s favour.  The production of this story, or more precisely the extensive re-writes it underwent, are actually one of the most acrimonious in the company’s history, and a story in itself. The second and fourth stories were both adaptations of stories written and performed for the Audio Visuals series of fan made Doctor Who audio dramas back in the 1990s, which were written, performed and produced largely by the people now behind Big Finish – Briggs, Russell and Haigh-Ellery.

The second season of releases featuring the Eighth Doctor was six stories long, and featured some of the best material Big Finish have ever produced.  The second story, The Chimes of Midnight was written by Rob Shearman, and is often cited as a favourite.  It’s reputation is well deserved.   The final story of the season, Neverland, featured two double-length episodes, guest starred Lalla Ward as Romana, and brought the paradox of Charley’s continued existence to a head.  It also produced a stunning cliff-hanger which would not be brought to a resolution for an agonizing sixteen months….

And after the high drama of Neverland, just when you thought it couldn’t get any better, came Spare Parts, effectively a ‘Genesis of the Cybermen’ story written by Marc Platt, small elements of which were re-used in the TV stories Rise of the Cybermen and The Age Of Steel in 2006.  Another story often cited as a favourite, another deserved reputation.

The main monthly range then began to enter a phase where every now and again, something experimental and different would be produced – a ‘non-traditional story.  The first example of this was The Rapture, whose cover takes on the appearance of a dance music album, and which also featured Tony Blackburn as it’s guest star and a couple of very different versions of the theme tune.  In the spring of 2003 was one of the more bizarre, yet strangely enjoyable stories yet – Doctor Who and the Pirates, which featured music and song adapted from the works of Gilbert and Sullivan, (and Bill Oddie as a guest star), including Colin Baker’s stirring performance of I Am The Very Model Of A Gallifreyan Buccaneer.  The following month produced Creatures of Beauty, a story presented in a  very different way, and Project: Lazarus, a follow-p to the previous year’s Project: Twilight, which brought a new twist on the multi-Doctor story.  Perhaps the most experimental story Big Finish have ever released was Flip-Flop, which was presented as two CDs, Black and White, and was structured so that the story worked listening to the discs in either order.  This was only partially successful – from my own point of view, I have listened to the story only twice, once in each order,, and on both occasions I found myself trying to figure out how the story would be different / better if I was to listen in the opposite order.  This was a bit distracting, along with the fact that Richard (Herr Flick of the Gestapo) was a guest star!

Doctor Who’s Fortieth Anniversary arrived in 2003, and in the months leading up to the anniversary, (shortly after the announcement of the new series at the end of September)  and the release of the much anticipated Zagreus,  a trilogy of stories featuring the Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Doctors each focussed on a famous Doctor Who enemy, and tried to show the characters in a new light.  Omega, Davros and in particular Master made a very enjoyable trilogy, before the big one arrived.  Zagreus, release number 50, arrived in December 2003, ironically delayed in production and so sent out after release number 51, The Wormery, which I reviewed previously for The Universe Today and is one of the hidden gems of the Big Finish range.  But anyway, Zagreus  was an extravaganza of drama, guest actors and very much non-traditional Doctor Who story-telling, and even had a wonderful ‘guest’ turn by the late Jon Pertwee, whose dialogue from a fan film made shortly before his death was used early in the play, and with full permission of his widow, Imogen.  This was a wonderful surprise and a nice tribute to a much-loved actor.  I’m not going into the whys and wherefore of this story, but suffice to say it was a long and occasionally baffling ride, and at the end, the Doctor was banished to a mysterious Divergent Universe, infected with ‘Anti-Time’ and destined never to return….

After a Christmas spent scratching heads and trying to make sense of the intricacies of Gary Russell’s and Alan Barnes’ deranged imaginations, early 2004 saw Paul McGann and India Fisher return for a third season of four adventures, and they were joined on their TARDIS and Time-less travels through the Divergent Universe by the reptilian C’Rizz, voiced by Conrad Westmaas.  The season produced an eclectic mix of stories, from the opener, Scherzo,  which featured just the Doctor and Charley, The Kreed of the Kromon, very much the traditional Doctor Who adventure, The Natural history of Fear by Jim Mortimore, which was very different, but described at the time by Paul McGann as the best script he’d read in any medium, ever, and concluding with The Twilight Kingdom, another more traditional story which guest starred Michael (Villa from Blake’s 7) Keating.

As the ‘season’ concluded with The Twilight Kingdom, Christopher Eccleston was being unveiled as the Ninth Doctor, and suddenly, Big Finish had to re-assess their plans somewhat.  If the TV series was successful, which of course turned out to be the case, their range was going to be a likely stopping off point for a whole new audience of people who wanted to hear stories with past Doctors, once the supply of ‘Classic’ DVDs and videos had been watched.  This being the case, producer Gary Russell re-thought the Divergent Universe plan somewhat.  This had originally intended to be much longer lasting, but now Russell wisely concluded that the Eighth Doctor really ought to be re-united with more familiar elements of the show, and after a further season of releases, the Doctor returned to the known Universe, in the company of both Charley and C’Rizz,  and at the end of an excellent six-part finale for the Divergent Universe arc, which guest starred Daphne Ashbrook (Grace from the TV Movie) and Paul Darrow, the Doctor reached another cliff-hanger, as the Doctor ended up face to sink-plunger with his oldest enemies, and their mad creator, and the story finished with the words “Welcome back Doctor….”

I’ve mentioned some notable guest stars in the course of this item but at this point it’s worth name-dropping a few more notable names who’ve made guest appearances in main monthly range – Peter Jurasik, and Claudia Christian of Babylon 5 fame, Gareth Thomas, Paul Darrow, Michael Keating and Jacqueline Pearce, the Blake’s 7 ‘Big four, Graham Garden, Jean Marsh, Maryam d’Abo, Clive Mantle, Philip Bretherton, Roy Hudd, Leslie Phillips, Gabriel Woolf, Bruce Montague and Eleanor Bron are just some of the names to have guest starred, while former Doctor Who TV companions William Russell, Deborah Watling, Maureen O’Brien, Anneke Wills, Katy Manning and Caroline John have all returned as different characters.  The only companion character from the post Tom Baker era not represented so far is Adric (I’ll try and hide my disappointment) – Janet Fielding returned as Tegan for a strictly one-off story earlier this year, while Ian Collier returned as Omega in the story of the same name, Terry Molloy has reprised the role of Davros several times, and Geoffrey Beavers has portrayed The Master twice, opposite Sylvester McCoy.  Oh yes, and David Tennant (whatever happened to him?!) has done several appearances for the main range as well as in the Unbound series, and also an adaptation of the graphic novel The Adventures of Luther Arkwright.

Some notable writers have got in on the act, such as Darin Henry, who wrote for Futurama, Andrew (The Masterplan) Cartmel, and Clayton Hickman.  Renowned sci-fi author Stephen Baxter wrote Earthstorm, which was intended to be the one hundredth release but due to various reason ahs now fallen off the release schedule – hopefully it will resurface sometime in the future.  Rob Shearman, Mark Gatiss, Paul Cornell and Gareth Roberts have all gone on to write for the TV series.

The success of the new TV series has brought mixed fortunes for BPF. While the program has thrived on TV, sales of BFP CDs dropped dramatically, and as was revealed in a recent issue of Doctor Who Magazine, Big Finish came dangerously close to serious trouble at one stage.  However, things have improved again, and seem to be back on an even keel.  The Eighth Doctor has moved to BBC7 for a series of specially commissioned episodes, and is no longer part f the main range (with the exception of two upcoming and very significant stories).  There has been another very important change with the departure after seven years of Gary Russell, who has moved to the BBC to work on the TV series.  Nicholas Briggs is now the executive producer of the main range and additional responsibility has been given to Barnaby Edwards and John Ainsworth.  The range underwent a re-launch a few months ago with a redesign of the covers and inside of the sleeve booklets. 

So to the future.  Well,  as with any licence agreement, Big Finish needs to renew it’s licence with the BBC at regular intervals, but at present, they hold the rights to audio Doctor Who until (I think), 2009.   While the Eighth Doctor has now, it seems permanently, had his adventures moved into separate series, mainly, it seems for the benefit of BBC7, titles featuring the remaining three Big Finish Doctors are lined up well into next year, and titles for 2009 are being commissioned.  Following the re-launch, the new companions introduced by Big Finish are starting to be phased out, allowing more emphasis on established Doctor / companion partnerships, so the likes of Erimem, Evelyn Smythe, Charley and C’Rizz are all on their way out, while there now seems to be more emphasis on stories with a solo Seventh Doctor, so the character of Hex is suddenly being used less.

A frequent question asked about Big Finish is if they will do ‘new series’ audios.  Currently, they are not licensed to use any element of the new series, (although there are times when they fly pretty close to the wire with this rule!) , so there will be no Time War stories, and no Eighth to Ninth Doctor regeneration on audio (although how that would work on audio is a dubious question anyhow).  However, David Tennant recently said he hoped to keep his association with Big Finish and he would not rule out one day playing the Doctor on audio, obviously licence and rights issues permitting. 

Jeremy Ogden