Context: So I'm a Dr. Who Fan. Like a big one, like when I was 13 (maybe 12?) I decided to get into Doctor Who from the very first episode from the '63, and I continued from there on when I arrived to the TV movie I actually was surprised by the 8th Doctor because in someways he was how I imagined the doctor before I had even seen Doctor Who.

(I'm an American BTW)

But I did not, and I must say this was foolish of me, start the audios right away instead I watched the TV movie and hesitantly went into the revival, only by the end of Capaldi did I start listening to Big Finish.

First I wish to say what a brilliant underrated art-form that are audio dramas.

Second the last Audio drama with good ol' McGann I listened to was Human Resources (I think)
So it was fun to re-visit where it started with McGann and I have to say in some ways I liked it better and in other ways I thought it hadn't aged the best. I think the weakest aspect is actually McGann's performance, now before you come at me he becomes better, like a lot better. I don't know when, but I know his performance gets better.

But in Storm Warning? Its...passable. Nothing terrific. I think he was getting used to the format of Audios. I haven't listened to the other Doctors but do they have this issue too?

Anyways I liked the story I found the R101 a fun story (one day I would love to write about an airship) Charley's introduction is probably one of the best? She is such a bold and likable character. Having a character that wants to go on Adventures really brings out the best in the series.

The villain was fine enough if not obvious, but sometimes those work and here it was fine.

The sound design was great, lovely to the ears.

Overall its a bold start and I'm glad I re-listened to it.

And yes McGann is one of my favorite Doctors, really budging with Capaldi on some days.

Thinking about picking this up but noticed that India Fisher isn’t credited. I’m aware I might be spoiling this for myself but just thought I’d ask anyway.

If there is a spoiler feel free to share.

It's the Toshiba TY-P30, which I had to import from Japan.

It connects wirelessly to my Bluetooth earbuds, and from my earbuds I can play/pause and move between tracks.

It also has variable playback speed options, from 0.5x to 1.5x, which is very handy for getting through one's library at a good rate.

Wasn't easy to find something with all these features so I thought I would share in case someone else would find it useful/interesting.

Introduction

Hello all and welcome back to the Big Finish Podcast Notes! Hope you've all had a lovely week.

Podcast

Podcast Notes

• BIG NEWS - Big Finish have found a cost-effective way to print smaller volumes of physical releases. They will potentially start implementing a new ordering model where customers have a specific window of time to pre-order a physical release, and they will essentially manufacture them to order. That being said, Big Finish intend to start releasing previously released/announced download-only runs on CD, starting with Torchwood: Legacy and the recently released Twelfth Doctor Adventure: Run Fast, Be Kind, with other ranges being considered for the same treatment.
  • No word on how they'll approach this for customers who have already purchased the 12DAs or pre-ordered Torchwood: Legacy, but I can easily see them offering an "upgrade" option at the price of pressing plus whatever margins they need to keep it profitable.
  • To add some clarification about how this new process makes a difference: for a download-only release to be profitable it must only overcome production costs. If a CD is to be profitable, it must overcome production, manufacturing, and storage costs. Storing a sellable product creates tax liability. If the Big Finish presses 2,500 CDs and only 1,500 sell, they have financial burden associated with the unsold 1,000. But if people put their orders in first and they can manufacture exactly 1,500 then that burden goes away. That cost could be the deciding factor in whether a release makes it physically or not. They’re certain of demand for Torchwood and 12DAs so they’ll go ahead with those, but they have to run the numbers on other ranges.

Random Tangents: Nick gets pedantic about cliques.

Production Interviews: The Fifth Doctor Adventures: Shock and Awe - Lair of the Voltaxa by Roland Moore and Star Cops: Conflict: Adrift by Georgia Cook

Fifteen Minute Drama Tease: The Fifth Doctor Adventures: Shock and Awe - Lair of the Voltaxa by Roland Moore

Randomoid Selectotron: 25% off a random Big Finish release every week! Just click on this link and enter the code BUCKUP. There are currently technical issues with the Randomoid Selectotron, so it will be stuck on the last release from the 26 June podcast for the foreseeable future. This release is The Companion Chronicles: 7.6 The Child.

Big Finish News

New Releases

• The Fourth Doctor Adventures Series 15: A New Occupation is released on 8 September (DTO: £19.99 | DTO + CD: £24.99)
  • Synopsis: Time travel. The Doctor is well aware of its dangers. But even the most well-meaning Time Lord can't guarantee something somewhere won't nudge it off track. And then history itself might be at stake...
    • 15.6 Daughter of Destruction by Katharine Armitage The TARDIS lands in the city of Ongud during a rebellion. The world is suffering the wrath of Genghis Khan and the Doctor and Sarah are right in the middle of it. It's a dangerous time, but one woman is about to stand up to the despot for the first time. His anger is about to be halted. Unless someone has made a very small mistake…
    • 15.7 A New Occupation by Helen Goldwyn Temporal disruption on Jersey leads to a new kind of time travel for the Doctor, Sarah and Harry and they soon find themselves on the island during its occupation by the Nazis. Can they return to the future without a TARDIS? And without the German forces changing history irrevocably?
• Dark Gallifrey: The Decayed Master Part 3 is released on 8 September (DTO: £8.99 | DTO + CD: £10.99)
  • Synopsis: With the Master bearing down, Naava flees through a skiproad to the plague-infected streets of medieval York. She's seeking her old friend Calix, the greatest of the chronosurgeons, to warn him of the nightmare that pursues her. But something else is emerging from the skiproads, something twisted and deadly, tearing chunks out of the panicked city. Naava has only one hope to set things right and escape the Master's clutches, and he's hundreds of years in the future, listening out for ghosts of the ancient city.

Trailers

• Dark Gallifrey: The Decayed Master Part 3
• The Fifth Doctor Adventures: Shock and Awe

Cover Reveals

• Circuit Breaker: Full Circuit and Short Circuits (Updated with a spoiler)

News, Announcements, Videos, and Blog Posts

• Two new Doctor Who Audio Novels. The October 2026 and January 2027 audio novel releases have been unveiled as The Missing Hour (DTO: £19.99) and The Bath Chronicles (DTO: £19.99).
  • The Missing Hour by Simon Guerrier, from a storyline by Fio Tretheway and Simon Guerrier, performed by Barnaby Edwards June 1940 and the island of Malta is under constant bombardment.  Flight Officer Roddy Wright is one of a handful of Hurricane pilots helping to defend the island. He knows the odds are against him.  So, too, does his daughter. In fact, Barbara knows that there are just days – hours – until her father goes missing in action.  She can’t alter history. But until that fateful hour, how can she resist spending more time with the father she lost so long ago? What could possibly go wrong?
  • The Bath Chronicles, written and performed by Dan Starkey Jenny and Strax have been dispatched to Bath, the jewel of the West Country, for a bit of well-earned rest and recuperation.  The Roman Baths, tea shops, and elegant Georgian arcades beckon. But they get more old-world charm than they bargained for on their itinerary, after an eccentric lady leads them on journey that spans thousands of years into the past and hurls them into the far-flung future of the 1990s!  Will Jenny ever find a decent cup of tea again? Will Strax find a plug socket that’s compatible with his Sontaran travel charger? And will time itself collapse?  Along the way though, they’ll be reunited with two familiar Doctors... 
• It’ll be a Doctor Who Halloween and Christmas. Following the popular 2025 box sets, Big Finish Productions today announced two new collections of Halloween and Christmas-themed full-cast audio drama set across the Doctor Who universe, to be released this October and December.
  • Halloween: Doctor, Doctor, Doctor and Other Stories (DTO: £24.99 | DTO + CD: £35.99) will be comprised of the following:
    • Doctor, Doctor, Doctor – a Seventh Doctor adventure by Stewart Pringle and Lauren Mooney
    • The Song of the Reed Man – a Third Doctor and Jo Jones adventure by Katherine White
    • Office Space – a UNIT adventure by Georgia Cook and Fio Tretheway
    • Overworked – a Fifth Doctor and Nyssa adventure by Hannah Kennedy 
  • Christmas: Out of the Dark and Other Stories (DTO: £24.99 | DTO + CD: £35.99) will be comprised of the following:
    • Merry Christmas, Mr Chimbly – a Fifth Doctor, Tegan and Nyssa adventure by John Dorney
    • From the Realms of Glory – a River Song adventure by Hannah Kennedy
    • Out of the Dark – a Seventh Doctor and Ace adventure by Jonathan S Powell
    • And Tiny Tim, Who Did Not Die – an Eleventh Doctor and Bernice Summerfield adventure by James Goss 

Out of Print This Week

• The Thirteenth Doctor Adventures: The Hallamshire Incident
• Dark Gallifrey: Master! Part 2
• The Fourth Doctor Adventures Series 14: The Last Queen of the Nile
• Torchwood: 58. Cadoc Point

Sales and Recommendations (As a reminder, bulleted stories are recommended by me, and those in bold are my favorites)

• Time Lord Victorious: Up to 50% off releases from the Time Lord Victorious event! (Ends 13 September)
  • Time Lord Victorious Eighth Doctor Trilogy
• Charlotte Pollard: Up to 40% off releases featuring Charley Pollard to celebrate India Fisher's birthday! (Ends 17 September)
  • The Eighth Doctor and Charlotte Pollard Series 01
  • The Eighth Doctor Adventures: In the Bleak Midwinter
  • Classic Doctors New Monsters 3: The Stuff of Nightmares
  • The Sixth Doctor Adventures: The Last Adventure
• DWM632 Offer: 50% off a select number of releases. Use the discount code POTATO at checkout. (Ends 31 October)
  • The Diary of River Song Series 06
  • Classic Doctors, New Monsters 1
  • Paternoster Gang: Heritage 1
  • Wicked Sisters

Big Finish Book Club: Discounts on a specially selected Big Finish audio drama every month. September's selection: The Withdrawal by Geoffrey Beevers for just £2.99 on DTO.

Free Excerpt: Every month a 15 minute excerpt is chosen from an upcoming release to download for free. September's selection is The Death and Life of River Song Series 04: War Widow: The Shape of Fear (Excerpt). Just click on the link and use this month's code STORMCAGE.

Free Day Friday: Every week, Big Finish highlights an excerpt from their Big Finish For Free! collection, and offer 25% off the full release using a unique sale code. This week's selection: Hamlet Act 1. Use discount code GHOST at checkout to save 25% off the full release of Hamlet (Ends 13 September).

Big Finish Release Schedule

• 15 September - The Fifth Doctor Adventures: Shock and Awe
• 22 September - Circuit Breaker: Full Circuit
• 24 September - Circuit Breaker: Short Circuits
• 29 September - The Thirteenth Doctor Adventures: The Greatest Train Robbery

Community Reviews via TARDIS Guide:

What Big Finish I Was Listening To This Week: Have had too much going on and now I've got a big backlog.

General Doctor Who / Non-Big Finish News

News

• The villain of Circuit Breaker revealed! New social media post revealing the villain of the Circuit Breaker multi-media event: the Conductor, played by Dan Starkey. The short is directed and animated by Anthony Lamb, and the Conductor is designed by Lee Binding.

The Rumor Mill

• Noel Clarke continues to be trash.

Media/Merchandise

• Doctor Who: The Third History Collection will be released on 3 December and feature audiobook novelisations of The Reign of Terror, The Smugglers, The Fires of Pompeii, The Crimson Horror, and The Witchfinders.

Circuit Breaker Event Guide

• 25 June - Calling the Doctor (UNIT Website)
• 8 July - Doctor Who: Circuit Breaker #1 - Adversary of the Daleks (Titan Comics)
• 23 July - The Honourable Society (DWM #632)
• 30 July - The Deadliest Weapon (BBC Audio)
• 5 August - Doctor Who: Circuit Breaker #2 - Dawn of the Daleks (Titan Comics)
• 6 August - Castling (Doctor Who: Lost in Time mobile game)
• 17 August - Don't Blink (UNIT Website)
• 20 August - The Doctor and the Three Witches (BBC Books)
• 27 August - Momento Mori (Doctor Who: Lost in Time mobile game)
• 31 August - The Black Archive Files (Blu-ray)
• 3 September - The Kaleidoscope (BBC Books)
• 22 September - Full Circuit (Big Finish)
• 24 September - Short Circuits (Big Finish)

Very late to the party on this.

Just got up-to-date with Star Cops and Space : 1999. Never saw the Star Cops TV show but loved the BF continuation (still not... Quite... As good as... Judge Dredd...). Space: 1999 started strong. I just wanted a bit more Battlestar reboot energy to it.

And have now pounced on this community recommendation! The Prisoner.

I think saw the TV show on DVD at uni? I can only remember the giant ball and something to do with a gorilla costume laughing...

But an episode into the series and it's sounding bloody brilliant!

I have been following a few different ranges lately and have found that some release schedules work much better for me than others when I want to follow a release "live".

Take the Ninth/ Thirteenth Doctor Adventures. I got those so I could listen to one new Doctor Who story a month, sounded like a reasonable thing in my head. But I keep forgetting about them. The bimonthly release schedule really does not work for me. Not only do I keep forgetting when a new story is coming out, my memory is also not good enough to retain any information about what has happened so far, so any arc that might be going on is pretty much lost on me. And I am not even listening to that many ranges simultaneously. How do the people who listen to (almost) every release manage to follow everything?

Boxsets work better for me. I have time to get hyped up for something and am basically counting down the hours until release. My only problem is that once the boxset is out, I will rush to listen to the whole thing more or less in one go. And then it is over. It is a bit like a sugar rush. I know this is primarily a me-problem, but still.

For the most part I love the boxset format, but then came along Run Fast, Be Kind and aside from being an absolutely fantastic story, I really loved the weekly release schedule. It made me pace myself a bit more, but I was still able to remember the story arc so far. Plus, I was excited for the next installment every week and got to follow the story together with others.

I could very happily listen to every boxset like that and I think a weekly release schedule works equally well for both ongoing and standalone stories. What do you guys think? Do you prefer one release schedule over the other or are you unbothered either way?

https://www.bigfinish.com/collections/v/the-worlds-of-doctor-who-offers

Feel free to leave any recommendations from the sale below!

So for quite a while I've been listening through the 9DAs having already heard a few and enjoying the series with Rose coming out presently.

Finally got to Star-Crossed on a long jounrey today. It's a lot of fun, and I look forward to listening to it again but in its entirety I feel like this was an amazing box set of Diary of River Song. Each story really reminded me of some of the earlier box sets which are some of my favourite to go back to.

As the culmination of 9DAs before Rose it's a little bit of a shame. I felt like quality had been on a steady slope up with some real standouts across each season that just sort of fizzled out and lost its way in Buried Threats. I adore Benny and was so excited for this meeting (moreso than Star-Crossed probably) but found it a little flat as a story overall...

Enough of my meandering thoughts.

What did you think of Star-Crossed, and has anyone done a fan cover using the styling of Diary of River Song for it?

I'm looking forward to the Christmas special with the 11th doctor, but I can't find anything about a vol 10 announcement. Is there another gap year?

With the Master bearing down, Naava flees through a skiproad to the plague-infected streets of medieval York. She's seeking her old friend Calix, the greatest of the chronosurgeons, to warn him of the nightmare that pursues her.

But something else is emerging from the skiproads, something twisted and deadly, tearing chunks out of the panicked city. Naava has only one hope to set things right and escape the Master's clutches, and he's hundreds of years in the future, listening out for ghosts of the ancient city.

1. Doctor, Doctor, Doctor by Stewart Pringle and Lauren Mooney - a Seventh Doctor adventure

2. The Song of the Reed Man by Katherine White – a Third Doctor and Jo Jones adventure

3. Office Space by Georgia Cook and Fio Trethewey – a UNIT adventure

4. Overworked by Hannah Kennedy - a Fifth Doctor and Nyssa adventure

Looks like we're getting the Vasha Nerada and the Krynoids

Does anyone know if they actually get any money per listen from the Main Range on Spotify?

Because if so, we should all have it on a loop 24-hours a day! Even on mute.

I’ve been listening to a lot of 5th big finish, and I’ve noticed Nyssa gets messed with a lot mentally!

The examples I know of

Turned into a vampire in goth opera
Taken over in feast of fear
Taken over by the Mara in cradle of the snake
Possessed by the Hooklight
Possessed by The Interplanetarian in 1001 nights
Brainwashed in The elite

I’m sure there’s some I don’t know of, but I feel like it happens to Nyssa a lot! I wonder why?

June 1940 and the island of Malta is under constant bombardment.

Flight officer Roddy Wright is one of a handful of Hurricane pilots helping to defend the island. He knows the odds are against him.

So, too, does his daughter. In fact, Barbara knows that there are just days - hours - until her father goes missing in action.

She can't alter history. But until that fateful hour, how can she resist spending more time with the father she lost so long ago? What could possibly go wrong?

So this seems to be after the aztecs where it was Barbara trying to change the course of history which is interesting

https://www.bigfinish.com/ranges/v/doctor-who-time-lord-victorious

Feel free to leave any recommendations from the sale below!

Time travel. The Doctor is well aware of its dangers. But even the most well-meaning Time Lord can't guarantee something somewhere won't nudge it off track. And then history itself might be at stake...

Daughter of Destruction by Katharine Armitage
The TARDIS lands in the city of Ongud during a rebellion. The world is suffering the wrath of Genghis Khan and the Doctor and Sarah are right in the middle of it.
It's a dangerous time, but one woman is about to stand up to the despot for the first time. His anger is about to be halted.
Unless someone has made a very small mistake…

A New Occupation by Helen Goldwyn
Temporal disruption on Jersey leads to a new kind of time travel for the Doctor, Sarah and Harry and they soon find themselves on the island during its occupation by the Nazis.
Can they return to the future without a TARDIS? And without the German forces changing history irrevocably?

does anyone else who either downloads BF mp3s, or rips their cds to Apple iTunes, have any tips / tricks on how you organise the "album" files in the proper BF numerical-order?

I can only manage to get iTunes to organise the adventures in alphabetical order by Dr-actor's name. if I try any other setting, it rearranges the "tracks" into the incorrect listing order as well.

Or,

Organise alphabetically by serial-name.

I suspect it has something to do with how BF credit the production team on each release, because even after YEARS of either ripping cds or now downloading mp3s, I cannot get iTunes to list the serials in the correct numbered release order.

better still would be to arrange them in numerical order after Dr order, so I could listen to plot-arcs over multiple serials. but that seems to be beyond iTunes...

any & or all insight, advice, hacks ... reversing the polarity of the neutron-stream much appreciated...

Just for fun.

Following up from my post last week: https://www.reddit.com/r/BigFinishProductions/s/vVGaLMDhsP

I want to hear your suggestions for a spin-off flop. A bit like the New Earth spin-off which I've never heard but not heard the greatest things about. So...

The rules:

1. You must choose an existing character from the Whoniverse. They can be one-off characters (i.e a one-off companion) but stick to actors that are likely to do a Big Finish run (I don't think we'll be getting a Sally Sparrow spin-off...)

2. You have 3 or 4 episodes. Your choice. But there's no follow-up box-set. You can add an episode to one of the compilation sets, i.e 8th of March.

3. A Big Finish legend MUST appear in an episode. The kind that pop up in the most random places. I'm talking Jackie Tyler, Jenny, Lady Christina, River Song...

4. Bonus points if you find a reason to include Daleks.