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Doctor Who: Big Finish spin-offs and how they’ve added to the expanded universe

By James Aggas

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Alex Kingston stars as River Song in her very own spin-off series.

(Photo Credit: The Diary of River Song/Big Finish Productions.

Image obtained from: Big Finish Productions.)

Today, we look at the many ways that Big Finish have expanded the Doctor Who universe, and how it’s improved or expanded on so many characters and ideas that either didn’t work successfully on television, or benefited from being fleshed out.

Across the whole of the Doctor Who universe, we have been given many characters and creations over the years. Many of which were popular instantly. But many others were either overlooked, or not quite handled right.

This could be due to the writing. On television, a character may have had potential, but the writers didn’t know how to flesh them out effectively.

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Or it could be due to the fact that a character, or even a whole series, hadn’t been given enough time. Some ideas or series can take a while to find their feet, after all.

Torchwood, for example, while a very popular show, arguably improved a great deal more in its second season.

The first sometimes struggled with balancing between showing another side to the Doctor Who universe, and trying to prove how much more “mature” and “darker” it was. I’d argue it was only able to achieve this balance effectively during the last few episodes of its first season. Its second season achieved this balance even better.

But what about the different series and characters that hadn’t been given enough time? What about those series that were cancelled? Or the characters that were simply overlooked?

Enter Big Finish.

Audio revivals

Last week, we looked at how some Doctors work better in the expanded universe than others. Perhaps unsurprisingly, there was a lot of focus on how Big Finish in particular have handled different Doctors.

Today, we take a wider view of how Big Finish handles the Whoniverse. Particularly with its vast number of spin-offs.

You may have noticed this week that they’ve finally released their first box set of Jenny: The Doctor’s Daughter. Many fans have been waiting for the character to be explored for a long time. A review will be written up very shortly, but be assured that the writers have done a great job with the character.

We’ve also heard news that the TV series Class will be heading to Big Finish as well. While it won’t be continuing directly from the show’s major cliffhanger, it will be full of great ideas that are bound to have fans interested. In particular, the gang will be meeting both Ace and a Dalek for the first time!

But why are such huge and significant ideas and characters being explored by Big Finish? What is it that makes the company so ideal for exploring so much mythology of the Doctor Who universe?

Lisa Bowerman stars in Big Finish’s popular spin-off series, Bernice Summerfield.

(Photo credit: Bernice Summerfield/Big Finish.

Image obtained from: Big Finish.)

Benny Summerfield

Perhaps it’s because they’ve had such a wealth of experience producing spin-offs already. In fact, it was how the company got started in the first place. Before Big Finish had the license to produce Doctor Who directly, they were able to get the license for a major character: Professor Bernice Summerfield.

Introduced in Doctor Who novel Love and War back in 1992, the character very quickly attracted a large audience. In fact, Virgin Books were able to keep telling stories of her even when they lost the license for Doctor Who.

In 1998, Big Finish started adapting some of her original stories, casting Lisa Bowerman as Benny. The audios proved popular enough that they soon started making their own completely new stories featuring the character.

Twenty years later, and they’re still making Bernice Summerfield stories, with Lisa Bowerman thankfully still playing the character. Across sixteen seasons of her own series, plus four more featuring the Doctor, and with many more stories to come, both Summerfield and Bowerman are major figures at Big Finish.

River has met the Seventh and Sixth incarnations of her husband in The Diary of River Song: Series Two.

(Photo credit: The Diary of River Song/Big Finish Productions.

Image obtained from: Big Finish Productions.)

River Song

Benny isn’t the only time-travelling archaeologist that Big Finish have focused on. There’s also The Diary of River Song, the Doctor’s wife’s very own series.

It’s very fitting that this spin-off was released back on Christmas Day 2015. After all, with The Husbands of River Song, there was little left of River’s story to tell. At least, in Doctor Who on television.

So it’s great that her own spin-off series looks at her life beyond her encounters with the Doctor. Oh, different incarnations have featured in her three box sets so far, admittedly.

But they don’t purely focus on her as the Doctor’s wife, or as a mysterious character, as Series Six did. Each series has focused on elements that make River such an interesting character in her own right. Not just on her intelligence and her eagerness for adventure, which she shares in common with the Doctor.

River’s own morality

It’s also the things that make her so different to her husband, too. Such as her own sense of morality. The Doctor will usually try to save everyone, but we see in River’s own series that she has her own way of doing things.

River knows that either not everyone deserves to be saved, or that realistically, not everyone can be. She has her own sense of justice, and it’s great that her spin-off gets to explore that.

But even her appearances in the Doctor Who audios have been interesting. Including her in the Eighth Doctor audio series Doom Coalition was a risky move. But it does work very well. While she tries to help her husband when possible, she also knows that she needs to keep her distance. So we still get plenty of focus on River outside of her relationship with the Doctor.

Photo credit: Doctor Who/Big Finish

Image obtained from: www.bigfinish.com

The War Master

If there’s one thing I’m super grateful for Big Finish doing, it’s bringing back Sir Derek Jacobi as the Master. Seriously, we did not get nearly enough time with him in Utopia. He was barely in the role for a few minutes, but fans loved his performance. And they wanted more.

It took over ten years for that to happen, but Big Finish finally did that in December 2017 with The War Master: Only the Good. If you haven’t listened to it yet, do so immediately. Even if you’ve never listened to Big Finish before, it’s still one of their very best releases.

Derek Jacobi is absolutely magnificent as the Master. He’s charming and polite, but he’s also cold and psychotic, too. He’s very dangerous in how easily he can come across as utterly lovely one moment and then utterly ruthless the next.

It’s unlikely that we’ll see him again in the TV series, but it’s fantastic that Big Finish have been able to flesh him out much more. Not just in his own series, either. So far, he’s also shown up in both Gallifrey: Time War and UNIT, and is set to meet River Song next year.

Christopher Baxter and Trevor Baxter starred in popular Big Finish spin-off Jago & Litefoot.

(Photo credit: Jago & Litefoot/Big Finish Productions.

Image obtained from: Big Finish Productions.)

Other spinoffs

There have been many other Doctor Who spin-offs that Big Finish have made over the years. Some of these have focused on major characters, like Romana and Leela in the popular political sci-fi Gallifrey. Or, in the case of the New Series, Kate Stewart and Osgoode in their own series with UNIT.

But Big Finish have surprisingly focused on characters who barely had a single appearance in the TV series, too.

There’s the Sixties based Counter-Measures, for example. Very dark and gritty, it focused on a group of people that originally appeared in Seventh Doctor story Remembrance of the Daleks.

The series has been successful enough to not only have four box sets released in its original run. It’s also had a Seventies set sequel series called The New Counter-Measures.

Jago & Litefoot

But perhaps the biggest example of one-off characters getting their own series has been the very popular spin-off Jago & Litefoot. With a total of thirteen box sets and various specials and crossovers, the series is perhaps one of Big Finish’s best.

It’s funny to think that it was based on two characters who only appeared once in Doctor Who. But considering how popular The Talons of Weng-Chiang is, it’s perhaps not too surprising. Especially since Christopher Benjamin and Trevor Baxter both gave excellent performances as Jago & Litefoot.

With these last few examples, Big Finish have really been able to flesh out and expand greatly on characters who only appeared once in the TV series. So it’s perhaps not surprising that they’re now focusing on Jenny. After all, Big Finish bringing new life to characters and stories is something that it does best.

Next: Doctor Who: How Nardole proved me wrong in Series Ten

Are there are any characters or stories you want to see developed and expanded on? Stories that could be developed further? If so, which ones? Let us know in the comments below.

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