Doctor Who: Fourth Doctor to return to E-Space in 2020!
By James Aggas
Big Finish have revealed further plans for their series of The Fourth Doctor Adventures – with a future season seeing the Fourth Doctor return to E-Space!
Earlier today, Big Finish announced exciting new details about The Fourth Doctor Adventures. While we know key details about next year’s eighth season of the Doctor Who audio series, which will feature Jane Slavin as a brand new companion, Big Finish have now announced key details about the ninth and tenth seasons, too.
What’s most exciting about series nine is that it’ll be firmly set during the E-Space trilogy from Tom Baker’s final season on TV. During this trilogy, the TARDIS went through a CVE into E-Space, a much smaller universe next to our own. Across these three stories, Adric (played by Matthew Waterhouse) joined the TARDIS team, while Romana and K9 (Lalla Ward and John Leeson, respectively,) left in the final story.
A change of structure
This series of audio stories will be set in the middle of the trilogy, before the TARDIS crew find an exit in Warrior’s Gate. Interestingly, this season will comprise of four stories, all of which will be four-parters instead of the usual two. This seems like Big Finish are finally moving away from the one-hour structure that they’ve been using for the Fourth Doctor.
I must admit, I’m rather glad about this. While the one hour story works well for the modern Doctors, the Fourth Doctor’s era usually works best when told in the four-part structure. So it’s nice to see the audio series embracing that more.
The E-Space stories will be split into two volumes, released in January and February 2020, respectively. Volume one will include:
"9.1 Purgatory 12 by Marc Platt9.2 Chase the Night by Jonathan Morris"
Volume two will include:
"9.3 The Planet of Witches by Alan Barnes9.4 The Quest of the Engineer by Andrew Smith"
John Leeson, Lalla Ward, Matthew Waterhouse and Tom Baker return to E-Space in 2020!
(Image credit: Big Finish Productions. Image obtained from: Big Finish Productions.)
Adric
What’s particularly exciting is hearing more stories of Adric with the Fourth Doctor. The character seemed to work best on television when he was with this particular incarnation. Certainly, their relationship seemed much better than the one Adric had with Five. So it’ll be great to hear the character with Four, Romana and K9 once more.
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Matthew Waterhouse seems particularly keen to return to this particular era:
"I’ve always found that when recording a Doctor Who on audio, it felt like coming home. I absolutely loved it, and this (new series) is another development of that. I love the idea of E-Space with the Fourth Doctor, Romana, Adric and K9 travelling together."
Series 10
Big Finish didn’t just reveal details of what we can expect from 2020, though. They’ve also confirmed that we will be getting a tenth season of The Fourth Doctor Adventures in 2021!
The TARDIS team for this season will feature Louise Jameson as Leela, and John Leeson as K9, both of whom were in this year’s season seven. Not many details are known at this point, but once again, the series will feature four adventures, split across two volumes in January and February 2021.
You can pre-order the stories on download or CD directly from Big Finish’s website here.
Next. Torchwood: 5 reasons why Big Finish have handled it better than the BBC. dark
Are you excited about Big Finish exploring this era? Have you enjoyed The Fourth Doctor Adventures so far? Let us know in the comments below.