Big Finish Productions - Doctor Who

The Doctor Who audio plays feature the five surviving lead actors to play the character of the Doctor in the classic series (Tom Baker, Peter Davison, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy, and Paul McGann), as well as many of the regular supporting actors over the many years of the programme. The late Jon Pertwee's voice is featured in the 40th Anniversary story Zagreus. His part in the story was pieced together from snippets of dialogue (from the fan-produced Doctor Who video "Devious") recorded prior to his death.

Of the surviving Doctors, Tom Baker had for years declined invitations to return to the role (though in March 2010 he mentioned on his website that he had a new story in the works, and Big Finish confirmed these plans on their own website), and Big Finish's licence, which has been extended to 31 December 2015, only covers the original Doctor Who series. Big Finish are therefore unable to feature any material from or references to the new series, which prohibits Christopher Eccleston, David Tennant, and Matt Smith from appearing as the Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh Doctors respectively. The extent of the restriction remains unclear, as the character of the Ninth Doctor makes a silent "off-screen" appearance that affects the plot of 2006's The Kingmaker. However, for instance, Big Finish was no longer allowed to use the character of Davros following his return to the series in 2008, although this ban has been lifted and Davros returned to Big Finish in The Curse of Davros, released in January 2012. Prior to the character being featured in the new series he had been used in several plays, portrayed by Terry Molloy. In a 2008 podcast, Nicholas Briggs explained that all scripts are sent through the TV show's offices in Cardiff to prevent any potential conflicts in continuity. Briggs has also said there is a ban on stories concerning the Time War, which he has no issue with as he believes the concept of a "Time War" would be impossible to portray. One reason for the restriction is that BBC Audiobooks has, since 2008, been producing its own exclusive-to-audio stories featuring the Fourth, Tenth and Eleventh Doctors, Sarah Jane Smith, and Torchwood, as well as releasing full-cast audio dramas (similar to Big Finish's format) based upon Torchwood. However, despite BBC Audio also producing an ongoing series of Fourth Doctor adventures, this has not affected Big Finish's ability to feature the character as well. The return of Sarah Jane Smith to the continuity of the TV series, and subsequent The Sarah Jane Adventures spin-off, resulted in the character no longer being available to Big Finish (forcing the cancellation of an ongoing Sarah Jane Smith audio series). According to Briggs, permission from Russell T Davies, producer and creator of The Sarah Jane Adventures, had been secured that would have allowed the character and actress Elisabeth Sladen to return to Big Finish for a series of stories alongside Tom Baker's Fourth Doctor, but Sladen's illness and death in April 2011 put an end to those plans.

The return of Doctor Who to television in 2005 did not have an immediate impact on the audio plays, save that the grouping of Eighth Doctor adventures into "seasons" ceased and subsequent releases starring McGann were folded into the regular releases featuring previous Doctors. McGann, who appeared as the Doctor in a 1996 telemovie yet never got a television series of his own, concluded his fourth and last continuous audio "season" with the release of The Next Life in 2004.

Six of the earliest Eighth Doctor dramas were broadcast in BBC 7's The 7th Dimension slot between August 2005 and January 2006: these were Storm Warning, Sword of Orion, The Stones of Venice, Invaders from Mars, Shada and The Chimes of Midnight. (Minuet in Hell, originally released on CD between The Stones of Venice and Invaders from Mars, was judged unsuitable for the timeslot.) All six of these stories were rebroadcast on BBC7 beginning in July 2006 and again in September 2007.

In September 2006, Doctor Who Magazine announced that Big Finish would be producing a new eight-part audio miniseries featuring the Eighth Doctor and new companion Lucie Miller (played by Sheridan Smith), set later in the character's chronology (i.e. after he has parted ways with then-'current' companions Charley Pollard and C'rizz). The miniseries was broadcast on BBC 7 beginning on New Year's Eve 2006 and subsequently released on CD. Each episode was 50 minutes long; most were one-part stories, with two-parters beginning and ending the miniseries. A second series was released in 2008, with six of the eight titles broadcast on BBC 7. Meanwhile, the Eighth Doctor's 'earlier' stories were concluded and retired from the main range in 2007, with the release of The Girl Who Never Was. A third series of the Eighth Doctor's adventures was released in 2009. The episodes were initially released for sale as downloadable 30 minute weekly instalments, and released on CD later in the year. There are no plans for these episodes to be broadcast on BBC 7. A 4th, and final, series was released in 2010, with a follow-up box set, Dark Eyes, scheduled for release in November 2012.

The relationship of Big Finish's productions in to the ongoing story of the television series is unclear, despite some of them now being broadcast by the BBC. Unlike, for example, Paramount Pictures which has a rule that only live-action televised or filmed Star Trek productions are canonical, the BBC have always resisted making such an announcement regarding Doctor Who – importantly, the BBC's charter prohibits situations where television viewers must be required to purchase merchandise in order to follow the story. The Big Finish audio productions (and print spin-offs) therefore exist in something of a 'grey area' in terms of canon. The fact that a couple of them have been (partially) adapted into new stories as episodes for the ongoing TV series further muddies the waters.

Big Finish also published a series of short story anthologies taking place in the Doctor Who universe under the overall title of Short Trips. Three Short Trips collections were published by BBC Books in the late 1990s, before a hardback short story anthology license was granted to Big Finish, who took over the name and produced them until their licence to publish such stories was revoked in the spring of 2009 (Big Finish is continuing to produce audio-only Short Trips productions, however, with the first scheduled for release in the fall of 2010).

Big Finish has also produced a number of short, single episode plays which have been released exclusively with issues of Doctor Who Magazine. To date, this has included several Doctor Who stories, as well as stories from the UNIT and Bernice Summerfield series. Most of these DWM releases have also included behind-the-scenes audio featurettes and previews of regular releases (including on occasion complete sample episodes).

On 30 July 2012, Big Finish announced that its licence to make Doctor Who audio adventures had been extended to December 2015.