Eleanor Crooks will join Tom Baker’s Fourth Doctor as new companion, Naomi Cross. Set to join full-time during the Fourth Doctor’s thirteenth (!) series of Big Finish audio dramas, Naomi is an impetuous UNIT secretary, eager to earn her stripes.
Naomi promises to be top of the UNIT class, trained in karate, and very bored of pen-pushing in a London office. But when she takes an assignment to “babysit” Surgeon-Lieutenant Harry Sullivan (played by Christopher Naylor) on an investigative trip to Calcutta, the confident but inexperienced Naomi soon encounters the thrills and spills she’s been seeking… courtesy of a strange man who wears a long scarf and carries a sonic screwdriver.
Series 13 will open with Storm of the Sea Devils by David K Barnes, reviving the amphibious warrior reptiles first seen on television in 1972.
Big Finish’s Creative Director, Nicholas Briggs, said:
“Naomi Cross has a really interesting route to the TARDIS, via the very old-fashioned Harry Sullivan. Almost all her reactions to space-time adventures are the complete opposite of what we’ve come to expect from a Doctor Who companion. And Ellie breathes fantastically energetic life into the role.”
Actor, Eleanor Crooks added:
“Naomi is very much like me. She’s very feisty and says what she wants to say. And her weakness, if you will, is that she’s quite headstrong. So it’s good that she has Harry there to balance her out a little bit.”
Senior Producer, David Richardson, enthused:
“Naomi is a force of nature who hurls herself into the Doctor’s life. She’s a member of UNIT who has always been on the outskirts of the Doctor’s adventures – but at last she has the chance to throw herself into the centre of them! And she will learn that life is never simple with the Doctor…
“Naomi has a huge character arc that will play out in the coming years at Big Finish, and you may meet her in unexpected places. Eventually the jigsaw of her life will come together…”
Doctor Who fans can catch their first glimpse of Eleanor Crooks, discussing her impending role as the Fourth Doctor’s new friend, by joining Virtual Big Finish Day, on the Big Finish YouTube channel, which kicks off at 4pm (BST), today (Saturday 1st August 2020).
Each of the three volumes in Doctor Who: The Fourth Doctor Adventures – Series 13 will be released as a 3-disc collector’s edition box set or download containing brand-new full cast audio adventures for the Doctor, Harry Sullivan, and Naomi.
The Fourth Doctor Adventures – Series 13 is now available for pre-order exclusively at the Big Finish website from just £16.99.
