News Big Finish Will Be Revamping Their Doctor Who Audio Dramas Starting in 2022

[JD]

Big Finish has announced that they will be ending their ongoing monthly series of Doctor Who releases, and instead will be replacing it with twelve individual series for the First through Eleventh Doctors, and The War Doctor starting in January 2022. The main reason they are doing this is to make it less confusing for new people who want to jump into the series. According to the article from Io9, they asked Big Finish if Nine and Eleven will be played Christopher Eccleston and Matt Smith, but they wouldn't answer.
As someone who has just started looking at getting into the audios, I think this is a good idea, it all is a bit confusing at first.

 

[Brendan Moody]

The io9 article, and the Big Finish press release on which it’s based, make this sound a bit more substantial and exciting than it is. All the Doctors except Five, Six, and Seven already had box set “ranges” anyway, so all that’s really happening is that those Doctors are moving from having 4 or 5 two-disc releases a year to having 2 or 3 four-disc releases. It opens up the storytelling possibilities a little, which is a good thing, but I would guess the fundamental cause is that box sets seem to be more economically viable for Big Finish, which is why new ranges have used that format for a while now. The monthly range (and the Early Adventures, which I assume will move to box sets as well) was an anomaly, if not an anachronism.

There’s no reason to imagine this changeover makes Eccleston, Smith, or Capaldi appearances more likely; it’s just a different way to brand the same product they’re already making.

 

[JD]

So it's more of packaging, and branding change than a change in the way they're produced?

 

[Brendan Moody]

It will probably change some aspects of production for the three affected Doctors— the monthly range has been overwhelmingly trilogies of four-part stories, with only occasional dabbling in three-parter/one-parter or two two-parter structures, and box sets might encourage Big Finish to mix things up, or move toward longer episodes. But because most Doctor Who releases were already box sets, this won’t change the bulk of the company’s output. The First Doctor Adventures, the Third Doctor Adventures, the Fourth Doctor Adventures, the Eighth Doctor Adventures, the Tenth Doctor Adventures, and the Doctor Chronicles won’t be any different, nor will spinoffs like River Song, Bernice Summerfield, UNIT, the Paternoster Gang, Missy, the War Master, etc, etc.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

The io9 article, and the Big Finish press release on which it’s based, make this sound a bit more substantial and exciting than it is. All the Doctors except Five, Six, and Seven already had box set “ranges” anyway, so all that’s really happening is that those Doctors are moving from having 4 or 5 two-disc releases a year to having 2 or 3 four-disc releases. It opens up the storytelling possibilities a little, which is a good thing, but I would guess the fundamental cause is that box sets seem to be more economically viable for Big Finish, which is why new ranges have used that format for a while now. The monthly range (and the Early Adventures, which I assume will move to box sets as well) was an anomaly, if not an anachronism.

There’s no reason to imagine this changeover makes Eccleston, Smith, or Capaldi appearances more likely; it’s just a different way to brand the same product they’re already making.

And honestly, I'm surprised they didn't do this particular shift awhile ago, especially as each Doctor started getting their own box sets aside from the Main Range, or when Tom Baker finally joined, or even when The Eighth Doctor broke away from the main range years ago.

In other words same stuff, different layout.

As for keeping track of everything, I highly recommend Wikipedia's two articles on the subject (use to be one but things got so big they had to split them up). Both are very well laid out and you can find what goes where with relative ease.

 

[Relayer1]

I think it's a good call. 275 separate CD's is a bit daunting.

I like the box sets. They're physically nicer to have, they give a bit more scope, and to be practical, they work out a lot cheaper via scouring the internet.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Nerds love the numbering, and we will buy the worst episodes with the shit doctors and the bad companions, rather than look at an ungainly whole in our collection.

 

[JD]

It will probably change some aspects of production for the three affected Doctors— the monthly range has been overwhelmingly trilogies of four-part stories, with only occasional dabbling in three-parter/one-parter or two two-parter structures, and box sets might encourage Big Finish to mix things up, or move toward longer episodes. But because most Doctor Who releases were already box sets, this won’t change the bulk of the company’s output. The First Doctor Adventures, the Third Doctor Adventures, the Fourth Doctor Adventures, the Eighth Doctor Adventures, the Tenth Doctor Adventures, and the Doctor Chronicles won’t be any different, nor will spinoffs like River Song, Bernice Summerfield, UNIT, the Paternoster Gang, Missy, the War Master, etc, etc.

Oh, I didn't realize they split the stories up into different parts.

 

[Stevil2001]

And honestly, I'm surprised they didn't do this particular shift awhile ago, especially as each Doctor started getting their own box sets aside from the Main Range, or when Tom Baker finally joined, or even when The Eighth Doctor broke away from the main range years ago.

I think they've wanted to do this for a while, but there was a point where they sold these really long subs for the main range, like five years, so they had to produce everything in that. And then probably also end at a nice round number.

 

[StCoop]

Interesting...

https://www.bigfinish.com/contributors/v/11556

 

[The Nth Doctor]

I think they've wanted to do this for a while, but there was a point where they sold these really long subs for the main range, like five years, so they had to produce everything in that. And then probably also end at a nice round number.

Oh, I don't remember them ever doing five-year subscriptions. I only ever did the occasional one-year (and almost always after the fact).

Interesting...

https://www.bigfinish.com/contributors/v/11556

Oooo...

How did you stumble on that little nugget? Idle searching?

 

[Brendan Moody]

They did a one-time-only offer in late June 2015 where you could start a 42-release subscription at any point between #216 and #221. So they were semi-committed to continuing the monthly range through #262.

People have made a habit of playing around with Big Finish URLs to try to find information (the third volume of Tenth Doctor Adventures leaked early because they put the art online using the same URL format as volumes one and two). And apparently Big Finish have begun taking that into account— they’re saying on Twitter that they sometimes put stuff on there as a fake-out, and that the Eccleston listing is one of those cases and he’s not working with them.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

They did a one-time-only offer in late June 2015 where you could start a 42-release subscription at any point between #216 and #221. So they were semi-committed to continuing the monthly range through #262.

Ah, okay, that does sound vaguely familiar but considering where I was in life at the time (as well as slowing down my intake of Big Finish), I'm not surprised it didn't make an impression on me (or why I didn't take advantage of it).

People have made a habit of playing around with Big Finish URLs to try to find information (the third volume of Tenth Doctor Adventures leaked early because they put the art online using the same URL format as volumes one and two). And apparently Big Finish have begun taking that into account— they’re saying on Twitter that they sometimes put stuff on there as a fake-out, and that the Eccleston listing is one of those cases and he’s not working with them.

I wondered if it was something like that. Alas. I still hope at some point Eccleston will give Big Finish a try since I recall an interview where he said he liked radio dramas.

 

[StCoop]

Fake details on their own website I could buy but they also claim that they ask actors to put fake stories on their CVs on Spotlight* which is just utter garbage. Equity would never work with them again.

BF do lots of stuff that isn't DW and I've long thought that they should get him in doing something else (their long delayed "Jeckyl and Hyde" perhaps) and hope he enjoys the experience enough to change his mind.

*That was prompted by the discovery of an upcoming 10th Doctor / River Song story with David Tennant.

 

[Brendan Moody]

The tweet about Spotlight CVs is worded ambiguously (“one day we might” do that) with a wink emoji, not as a claim that it’s actually happened. More low-effort trolling, like what they say the Eccleston listing is.

Some of the blank BF contributor pages that have been found this way are definitely real. One of them is an actress whose Spotlight CV listed a Time Lord Victorious audio called “He Kills Me, He Kills Me Not”... until it was edited, as Spotlight CVs usually are when BF finds out they’ve revealed an unannounced release. That’s BF’s usual response when fans find something early— delete it, then ignore it when asked, rather than claim it was a social experiment foiler and deny it’s true.

I really don’t know what to believe, but the announcements of the next few months should be interesting.

 

[Brendan Moody]

BF tried to imply there were other fake contributor pages, but having looked at the most recent 100 or so (yes, I have too much time on my hands), nothing seems to fit the bill. Either they’re already credited for announced projects, or they’re real writers and actors who aren’t famous enough to be worth trolling over, or they’re completely unrecognizable names. The only exceptions would be if John Masefield is a joke about the writer who died in 1967 rather than an unannounced adaptation of his work, or if they don’t really have Niel Bushnell writing something, and it’s hard to imagine either one of those being something they would mess with fans over.

 

[StCoop]

If... if... if... it's really happening it's bound to be for Time Lord Victorious, in which case as it's work-for-hire for BBC Studios they definitely couldn't admit anything. If fact, even accidentally giving anything away could get them into trouble.

 

[Brendan Moody]

BF have now changed the name on that contributor page to “Kit Williams,” presumably a cheeky reference to this. Really doubling down on... whatever the heck this is.

 

[Emperor-Tiberius]

BF have now changed the name on that contributor page to “Kit Williams,” presumably a cheeky reference to this. Really doubling down on... whatever the heck this is.

Just one word: The fuck?!

 

[StCoop]

On the one hand they trying so hard to make it out to be nothing that they're having the opposite effect.

On the other hand they are consistently terrible when it come to interaction with their customers, especially on social media.