(Please be warned that this review does contain spoilers.)
As a staunch fan of the Twelfth Doctor (Peter Capaldi) era, I’d been longing for Big Finish to do more full-cast audios after Jacob Dudman’s final outing in You Only Die Twice. Now we finally have a series featuring the iconic impressionist Jon Culshaw voicing the Scottish-accented incarnation, with Gwithian Evans as his new companion Ashlorn “Ash” Wilton — a serialised arc set between The Husbands of River Song and The Return of Doctor Mysterio! (Crazy to think that it’s been 12 years since Series 8 began airing, as well.)
The Twelfth Doctor Adventures opens with a six-episode anthology titled Run Fast, Be Kind – aptly quoting the regeneration speech from Twice Upon a Time. Each instalment was originally released weekly from July to August 2026, followed by the complete boxset on the 19th. (I deliberately refrained from reviewing each episode individually, because I wanted to cover the miniseries altogether.) With this practice previously been done for Sherlock Holmes Untold, back in 2025, it’s an excellent way to keep Doctor Who fans occupied while the main TV series is currently put out to tender.
Here are the episodes and their original release dates:
- The Second Death by Alfie Shaw (15th July)
- The Broken Man by Rochana Patel (22nd July)
- The Beautiful and the Damned by Katherine White (29th July)
- Wings of Steel by Alfie Shaw, based on a story by Alex Hewitt (5th August)
- Duty of Care by Christian Markham (12th August)
- The Second Death of the Daleks by Alfie Shaw (19th August)
One thing in particular that highly intrigues me about the miniseries is its unique structure, similar to how Steven Moffat approached many of his scripts as showrunner. Producer Alfie Shaw explains in detail:
“I wanted to see if I could apply Moffat’s love of messing with structure on an episodic level instead of just within the episodes themselves. So, the opening episode, The Second Death, is the first part of a two-parter, but the concluding part, The Second Death of the Daleks, is the sixth episode of the series. The Broken Man takes place almost immediately after The Second Death and then we have the Sky Trilogy, three episodes that take place back-to-back.”
We begin with The Second Death, as wandering bard Ash Wilton travels with his guitar along Kersarin at the end of the universe. Upon the death of a friend, he encounters the mysterious Doctor, who has just come from spending his last night together with River Song on Darillium. I love how the script establishes the dystopian worldbuilding and recurring musical elements, with grief being the central theme for both the Doctor and Ash. For Culshaw’s take on the role, this episode is a superior starting point and first impression to Merlin’s Trap (more on that later).
In The Broken Man, which directly continues from The Second Death, the Doctor takes Ash on his first trip in the TARDIS to Scotland, 2016. But it turns out that the Time Lord is on a mission to steal an ancient relic to solve an archeological mystery. And things go from bad to worse when the robotic Amber Giant is reassembled. If the main concepts weren’t electrifying enough, the script also brilliantly tackles the Doctor and Ash still coming to terms with their recent losses. Using Scotland as the main setting is a perfect choice, and a heartfelt tribute to Peter Capaldi himself. Same goes for 2016 symbolising the fact that we didn’t get a full Doctor Who series that year, with The Return of Doctor Mysterio being the only episode to air (plus the spin-off Class).
In The Beautiful and the Damned, the first part of the Sky Trilogy, the Doctor and Ash visit Mentior City on Galkon 7, where content creators become increasingly addicted to (yes, by stating the obvious) generating content. Appearances matter, and Best Life’s Refiner system transforms users from ugly to beautiful. The script brilliantly explores the dangers of social media in the grittiest and most nuanced way possible, and also introduces Sky (Raffiella Chapman) as a potential companion. But everything takes a drastic turn during the shocking cliffhanger.
In Wings of Steel, the second part of the Sky Trilogy, the Doctor and Ash deal with what happened to Sky as they arrive on Doorahla and infiltrate the fascist Ultima, who force torturous, sadistic experiments on their captives. Every twist and emotional moment is full of potency, making further progression on the overarching narrative. But most of all, we have the unexpected return of the Krillitanes which had me gasping with excitement. (The Ultima Surprise!). A perfect way to celebrate 20 years of their first appearance in my favourite Tenth Doctor episode School Reunion, not long after making their Big Finish debut in Classic Doctors, New Monsters Volume 5: Faithful Friends. Although the Krillitanes don’t appear on the cover (for obvious reasons), the clue is in the title. And this will forever be one of the greatest lines that the Twelfth Doctor has said in any medium:
“It’s all ego with you lot. You’re so busy pointing out what’s wrong with everyone else, you can’t see your own flaws!”
In Duty of Care, the third and final part of the Sky Trilogy, tensions mount further between the Doctor and Ash after the latter killed a Krillitane. So Ash is temporarily left with someone who can help him rehabilitate, while the Doctor heads to the Shadow Proclamation (hence its appearance on the cover) upon learning that villains who previously survived the Time Lord at his mercy are being murdered. The script is very psychological, which nicely explores morality and redemption. An emotional journey to bring the trilogy to a close (while ending on another shocking cliffhanger).
And we conclude with The Second Death of the Daleks, which in turn is the second half of a two-parter (love how both covers are intentionally near identical), as events of the opener are repeated in the maddest way possible but played out dramatically differently. After having no onscreen encounter with the multicoloured New Dalek Paradigm, the Twelfth Doctor finally does on audio… but only with the yellow Eternal Dalek (last featured in the sixth and final Eleventh Doctor Chronicles volume Victory of the Doctor). Kudos to Nicholas Briggs for keeping the exact same sinister vocal modulation for “Laa-Laa the Teletank”. I just love how the emotionally epic finale brings the story arc full circle, while planting some new seeds for the Doctor and Ash. A clever masterpiece!
When Big Finish first announced Jon Culshaw as the Twelfth Doctor, I was immediately sold by his uncanny Capaldi impression. Despite the heavy promotion, Merlin’s Trap (from the Halloween anthology Sea Smoke and Other Stories) doesn’t work for his debut as the Twelfth incarnation, due to being a Doctor-lite story, but his performance in that is indeed superb. Some fans may disagree about the choice of recasting, but I feel that Culshaw truly captures the Glaswegian inflection and vocal mannerisms. All thanks to his track record of voicing multiple Doctors and Masters, the Brigadier, and many more.
On a separate note, Merlin’s Trap bizarrely uses the theme music the other way round: full version with the Middle 8 for the opening, and a combination of the ‘standard’ opening and closing for the end credits. But thankfully, Run Fast, Be Kind doesn’t repeat these mistakes at all. And isn’t it nostalgic that we have TV-style Next Time trailers immediately after the end credits of each episode (bar the finale), with director Lisa Bowerman providing the voice-over?
It’s not often that we get companions from the far future, or a male-only TARDIS team, but Gwithian Evans absolutely nails the role of Ash Wilton in his Whoniverse debut. I love how he expresses a wide range of emotions, with the occasional singing and guitar playing. His relationship with the Doctor draws parallels with Marty McFly and Doc Brown from the Back to the Future trilogy, but in a more melancholic sense. For both leads to experience grief works extremely well as the overarching theme, like how it was explored in Heaven Sent.
Like with The First Question (11DA), it’s a shame that Run Fast, Be Kind is also download-only. But let’s be thankful that all six episodes have individual covers alongside the complete boxset, with the range title being incorporated. However, the alt variants have the exact same issue with the choice of logo, when they could have just stuck the white variant that was only used for 12DC Volume 1.
If there’s one thing that shouldn’t be left out, it’s the outstanding music by Borna Matosic. Equally majestic as what he previously did for The Eleventh Doctor Chronicles (now available as a full soundtrack), by giving the Twelfth incarnation his own theme and evoking emotions and atmospheres across the miniseries. Not to mention bringing back the Dalek theme from Victory of the Doctor (which was actually on my bingo card), just like Murray Gold using some of his RTD1 scores and motifs in the Moffat era.
Overall, Run Fast, Be Kind is one of the best Big Finish releases of 2026 — a definitive starting point for fans and casual listeners alike. It’s fresh with a decent amount of familiarity. Right up there with Series 7V, which Alfie Shaw also produced. It works perfectly for the Twelfth Doctor to have a heavily serialised arc on audio, and Ash has quickly become a new favourite companion. Balanced pacing and strong character development with each episode being approximately an hour long, plus the finale extended to 72 minutes, I love the approach of everything being sandwiched between a two-parter (which reminds me of what Big Finish previously did for the Seventh Doctor Adventures boxset Past Forward). And releasing them weekly just keeps us anticipating more!
We know it doesn’t end there for the Doctor and Ash, because they’ll be back next year for six more episodes in From the Ashes. And yes, Vortex 209 confirms that both volumes will form a full 12-episode run (the equivalent of Series 8-10). Let’s hope they’ll release it in time for the 10th anniversary of Series 10!
Run Fast, Be Kind is available now from Big Finish, with The Second Death excerpt also available as a free digital download.
