As Big Finish celebrates 20 years to Doctor Who audio adventures, we’re reminded how incredible its growth is. From small acorns… Since The Sirens of Time, the company has expanded into box sets, spin-offs, original dramas, and even other sci-fi shows.
In this anniversary year, they’re naturally not letting the grass grow under their feet – so what have we got to look forward to in 2019? Here’s just a brief selection, from July, August, and September…
July 2019
The Legacy of Time
An epic six-part adventure celebrating 20 years of Doctor Who at Big Finish!
Time is collapsing. Incidents of temporal chaos and devastation are appearing throughout the many lives of the Doctor and his friends – fallout from one terrible disaster.
The Doctor must save history itself – and he will need all the help he can get.
1. Lies in Ruins by James Goss
2. The Split Infinitive by John Dorney
3. The Sacrifice of Jo Grant by Guy Adams
4. Relative Time by Matt Fitton
5. The Avenues of Possibility by Jonathan Morris
6. Collision Course by Guy Adams
An 8-disc CD set, with a limited edition pressing of just 4,000 copies.
Short Trips: Battle Scars
Nightmarish memories of the Boer War. Crippling debts. An unconscious stranger in the garden. Arthur Daniels is beset with problems. Little does he know that his proposed solution could be the biggest problem of them all: a voyage to America aboard the RMS Titanic.
The Further Adventures of Lucie Miller
Four new adventures featuring the Eighth Doctor and Lucie Miller
“It’s a funny thing, livin’ a ‘life or death’ life. Fightin’ monsters. Seein’ alien planets and spaceships and stuff. Thinkin’ about it… it’s sort of addictive.”
It’s been several months since Lucie Miller, Blackpool’s mouthiest, landed up travelling through time and space in the company of the Doctor, the last living person to believe that frock coats are acceptable apparel.
They’ve met Daleks on Red Rocket Rising, Cybermen on the planet Lonsis and alien monsters eating glam rockers at a service station just off the M62. But their greatest adventures are yet to come…
1. The Dalek Trap by Nicholas Briggs
The thing about black holes is, they’re big and they’re black and they’re deadly, and you’d have to be mad to go anywhere near them. Because anything that falls inside a black hole ends up crushed in the singularity.
Unfortunately, the Doctor just went mad, or so it seems, and flew his TARDIS beyond a black hole’s event horizon, causing him and his companion Lucie Miller to end up marooned on a planetoid just inside the event horizon. Along with a Dalek saucer… and something else. Because this is no ordinary black hole…
This is the Cradle of the Darkness.
2. The Revolution Game by Alice Cavender
It’s Lucie’s birthday, and her birthday treat awaits. But whatever she’s expecting, it’s not what she’s getting on the colony world of Castus Sigma in the year 3025: ringside seats for the interplanetary Retro Roller Derby – sponsored by Heliacorp, “turning sunlight into gold”!
It’s more than just a game, though. For the competitors, it’s a matter of life or death – a New Life with Heliacorp, or a living death on Castus Sigma.
Or, on this fateful day, a very actual death. Because there are strange creatures living out on the plain, beyond the colony. Creatures with every reason to want to sabotage the games. Creatures with a grudge.
3. The House on the Edge of Chaos by Eddie Robson
The TARDIS brings the Doctor and Lucie to a vast house on the planet known as Horton’s Orb. The only house on Horton’s Orb, in fact. Outside its outsized windows there’s nothing. No land. No sea. No sky. No life. Just an endless expanse of static.
Inside the house, there’s an upstairs and a downstairs – servants below, gentlefolk from the finest of the house’s families above. Alas, there are altogether too few eligible ladies on the upper floors these days. Meaning there’s a vacancy for Miss Lucie Miller, single and unattached…
Outside the house, the static howls on. Except now, the static wants to get in.
4. Island of the Fendahl by Alan Barnes
The Fendahl is the death of evolution, the horror that lies in wait at the far end of the food chain.
The Fendahl is death itself.
And the Fendahl is dead. The Doctor destroyed it many years ago, in another incarnation, when he encountered it in a place called Fetchborough.
But if the Fendahl is dead… how can it live again, on the remote island of Fandor?
The War Master: Rage of the Time Lords
Four new stories featuring the Master’s exploits in the Time War.
With all of space and time in chaos, the Master plots his most audacious project yet. Only one other Time Lord has ever been able to stop him. But where is that Time Lord when the universe needs him?
3.1 The Survivor by Tim Foley
At the height of the Second World War on the planet Earth, Alice Pritchard wants for nothing more than the fighting to stop, and to do her bit for King and Country. But when the village priest offers her guidance, her life will change in ways she could never imagine.
3.2 The Coney Island Chameleon by David Llewellyn
When the carnival arrives on Coney Island, it brings with it the most incredible specimens that New York will ever see. Unfortunately for the acts, not all eyes on them are friendly. Enigmatic businessman TS Mereath has taken a shine to the Coney Island Chameleon, for example… and he will seemingly stop at nothing to acquire her.
3.3 The Missing Link by Tim Foley
On a desolate world in the distant future, the Master embarks on his latest scheme, aided and abetted by a team of brilliant scientists. But who is he truly working for? And in a universe at war, is there anyone left in all the cosmos who can stop him?
3.4 Darkness and Light by David Llewellyn
With the Master’s plans near completion, his victory is threatened by the presence of his greatest friend and enemy: the Doctor.
August 2019
The Time War: Volume 3
The Time War rages through space and time – two powerful enemies in a fight to the death. The Doctor keeps to the fringes of the conflict, helping where he can. He is not a warrior. Not yet. But this war takes no prisoners, and friends and enemies are drawing the Doctor ever closer to his destiny…
3.1 State of Bliss by Matt Fitton
Bliss has lost her home, her family, and her friends – an orphan of the Time War. The Doctor attempts to find out where things went wrong. Across a multiverse of possibilities, Bliss discovers the many paths her life could have taken – but do they always lead to the Time War?
And if Bliss can save her past, will she destroy her future – and the Doctor’s?
3.2 The Famished Lands by Lisa McMullin
Trying to make a difference far from the front lines, the Doctor and Bliss arrive in the Vale of Iptheus, where the Time War is starving populations out of existence.
The inhabitants have taken matters into their own hands – but are now on course for something worse. Bliss discovers exactly how the robot Enablers are helping the people, while the Doctor uncovers a terrifying secret…
3.3 Fugitive in Time by Roland Moore
Returning a favour for Major Tamasan, the Doctor and Bliss accompany her to extract a dangerous fugitive from an isolated medieval world.
Shonnath is the last of her kind and has her reasons to be wary of Time Lords. What’s more, the Daleks are also on her trail – and when the Doctor and friends arrive, the enemy is already closer than they think.
3.4 The War Valeyard by John Dorney
The Valeyard has returned to the universe amid the Time War – and the Time Lords see his potential to end the conflict for good.
When the Doctor discovers that his twisted future self has been conscripted, he sets out with Bliss to find him, braving a planet ravaged by Daleks.
But in a world where he can finally be a hero, will the Valeyard want to leave?
The Diary of River Song: Series 6
River Song has many ways to amuse herself away from her husband. And with access to the Doctor’s diary, she knows exactly when he might be around, and when best to slip in unnoticed and liberate valuable trinkets…
But first of all, she must ensure he makes it out of Totters Lane alive!
6.1 An Unearthly Woman by Matt Fitton
Coal Hill School has a new member of staff: an educated woman, who seems to specialise in every subject. Meanwhile, teachers Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright have concerns over the behaviour of one of their pupils.
Susan Foreman is intrigued by Dr Song, but something else is stalking her in the darkness and fog of London, 1963…
6.2 The Web of Time by John Dorney
The capital has been evacuated. Monsters stalk the Underground. For River, it’s the perfect opportunity to steal a priceless artwork, so long as she can avoid looters, soldiers and an alien invasion.
With the gallant Captain Knight at her side, River faces the Great Intelligence and its Yeti army. But her biggest challenge may be keeping time itself on track…
6.3 Peepshow by Guy Adams
Miniscope parts fetch quite a price on the open market – luckily, River knows where she can find one that’s about to be decommissioned. Unfortunately, this particular miniscope is chock-full of aliens, as well as unsuspecting Earthlings.
River must face a carnival of monsters before she can claim her prize – across miniature habitats, Ogrons, Sontarans and Drashigs await!
6.4 The Talents of Greel by Paul Morris
River visits Victorian London on the trail of anachronistic technology. But when young women are stolen from the streets, she takes a stand. River’s investigation leads to theatre impresario Henry Gordon Jago, and his latest star act: Li H’Sen Chang and the unnerving Mr Sin. But if River’s going undercover at the Palace Theatre, she needs to have a song…
Transference
Sam Ross is a psychotherapist – she spends her days helping people, but she can barely help herself. She’s still grieving over the recent death of her sister, her mother Barbara offers little support and she’s professionally challenged. One of her clients is Keith, a man whose life story changes with every session. And Keith has a secret – one that will rock Sam’s world to the core, and place her in the most terrible danger.
Short Trips: #HarrySullivan
En route to answer the Brigadier’s summons, the TARDIS is dragged off course. The Doctor, Sarah Jane and Harry find themselves trapped on The Zephyr, a spaceship that is going at full speed and yet is unable to move. With fuel running dangerously low, their only hope lies on Alderasea, a nearby world exclusively for the famous and celebrated.
However, Alderasea has never heard of them and has no intention of letting them land…
September 2019
Tartarus
The Doctor, Tegan and Nyssa travel back to ancient Naples and the town of Cumae by the base of Mount Vesuvius and meet Cicero.
The New Adventures of Bernice Summerfield: Volume 5 – Buried Memories
Bernice Summerfield is back in four new adventures with a Time Lord you could bring home to meet your universe.
5.1 Pride of the Lampian by Alyson Leeds
Bernice Summerfield finds the last relic of a lost civilisation. One that the Doctor is worried may never have existed.
5.2 Clear History by Doris V Sutherland
The people of Civitas-G have retreated into an idyllic recreation of their homeworld. And they’re refusing to believe that it is now breaking down.
5.3 Dead and Breakfast by April McCaffrey
Bernice and the Doctor are trapped on a planet where people who are unusual have a habit of dying. They’re in trouble.
5.4 Burrowed Time by Lani Woodward
Centuries ago the Byrinthians were wiped out. Apart from one underground train which is still travelling the tunnels of this long-dead world. With a passenger on board.
Torchwood One: Latter Days
Torchwood One continue to save the world – and most importantly, the Empire – from alien threats.
3.1 Retirement Plan by Gareth David-Lloyd
Torchwood’s Head of Alien Acquisitions is retiring. But there’s something very wrong in the idyll of El Cielo. And it’s going to kill Ianto.
3.2. Locker 15 by Matt Fitton
A mysterious force is wiping out Torchwood, and the only person who can save London is a cleaner called Dave.
3.3 The Rockery by Tim Foley
Anne Hartman has retired to the country, which comes as a surprise to her daughter. Has Yvonne met a problem even she can’t solve?
Come back tomorrow, when we’ll be seeing what the last quarter of 2019 has in tore forDoctor Who fans!
