Lady Christina from Planet of the Dead to return in new audio series

In September 2018, we get to hear more adventures of Lady Christina de Souza, who previously appeared in Tenth Doctor special “Planet of the Dead”!

Joining the likes of The Diary of River Song and the upcoming Jenny: The Doctor’s Daughter, Big Finish are giving us one more spinoff based on the New Series with a strong female lead.  As recently announced by Big Finish, the character Lady Christina de Souza will be getting her own series.

For those of you who don’t know or need a refresher, the character originally appeared in “Planet of the Dead.” A mysterious cat burglar, Lady Christina helped the Doctor rescue a busload of passengers trapped on an alien world.

At the time, she seemed to be a perfect match for him. Unfortunately for her, the Doctor wasn’t interested in having her as a companion, or anyone else, in fact. When we last saw her, she was escaping from the police in a flying double-decker bus.

What happened next

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Almost a decade later, and we get to see (or rather hear) what happened next. Michelle Ryan will be reprising the role, and gave some thoughts in the official announcement.

"Being asked to revisit the role of Lady Christina was a very easy decision. Adventure, a sunny climate and mind-boggling scenarios are included in the scripts, everything I remember of my Doctor Who experience. Alas no David Tennant, but there’s a host of new characters to help along the way."

Senior producer David Richardson added some further thoughts on what we can expect from the series.

"This is a really strong return for Lady C. The scripts are glorious – fast, funny and thrilling – and we have a superb cast, including Warren Brown and Tracy Wiles, providing a link to our UNIT series as they reprise their characters of Sam Bishop and Jacqui McGee. All aboard the 200, it’s going to be quite a ride!"

Familiar faces

I must admit, I’m rather intrigued by the mix of characters that Lady Christina will be meeting. Especially Jacqueline King as Donna’s mother Sylvia Noble, who also appears in this series. King was brilliant in the role, striking out the right balance between overbearing and sympathetic. It’ll be interesting to hear when and how these two characters meet, especially if it’s after we last saw Sylvia and her daughter in “The End of Time.”

I’m also excited that Sam Bishop and Jacqui McGee from Big Finish’s UNIT series will also be appearing. I’m a big fan of that particular spinoff, and it’s nice to see Big Finish’s worlds crossover.

As for Lady Christina herself? Honestly, I wasn’t a huge fan of the character when she first appeared. To me, she was almost too perfect for the Doctor for the pair to be interesting.

While I love companions that match their Doctor wonderfully and are loyal, there’s always something that causes them to clash, too. I’m not sure we saw enough of that with those two. (However, considering she was designed as a one-off character, I can see the reasoning why she had been written that way.)

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Having said that, I think that Lady Christina getting her own series could actually work. She’s a potentially interesting character, and a series will allow her to be explored better. Not just her strengths, but her flaws, too. And with writers as strong as John Dorney and James Goss on board, I strongly suspect that the series could actually work.

Lady Christina will be released on CD and download in September 2018 from Big Finish.