Doctor Who: Should Big Finish expand on the Silence arc?

After exploring the Silence arc in Doctor Who and the rushed resolution it had been given, we have to ask the question: could Big Finish explore, expand on and even improve on the arc?

Recently, we looked at how well the Silence arc was handled as a whole in Doctor Who. For the short version, the arc was handled and told well, at least for Series Five and Six. But in Series Seven, it was barely developed at all, and when it was time to resolve it in The Time of the Doctor, it had to be given a rushed ending.

But perhaps there’s hope that the arc could be expanded further, to give the resolution to it more of a payoff. Not on television, however. Chris Chibnall seems more focused on making everything new again with his era, and quite right, too.

However, when it comes to missed opportunities in Doctor Who, that’s where Big Finish comes in handy. They’ve developed Six from a Doctor whose era was cut short, just when it started to show potential, into an absolutely brilliant Doctor with many great stories. And of course, the Eighth Doctor was given his era on audio when it had been almost completely denied on television.

So expanding on missed opportunities is what they do. And they could certainly do that with the Silence. In some ways, they have done so already. UNIT: Silenced was a sequel to the events of The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon, while The Diary of River Song: Series Three showed how Madame Kovarian continued with her insane plans after The Wedding of River Song.

The Doctor spent a long time on Trenzalore. Could Big Finish explore some of the Doctor’s major battles against the Silence on that world?

(Image credit: Doctor Who/BBC.

Image obtained from: official Doctor Who website.)

Expanding on Trenzalore

Still, as great as these sequels are, it would be nice for some of the major, more overlooked details to be expanded on. Particularly those briefly mentioned in The Time of the Doctor. Details which were incredibly important to the first two years, but arguably weren’t explored as much as they should have been.

One key detail is the Kovarian sect. We know that it was during the Siege of Trenzalore that Madame Kovarian took her group of the Silence back along the Doctor’s timeline to destroy him before he even reached Trenzalore.

But what lead her up to that point? What battle against the Doctor caused her to say, “No more”? (Not that she actually said this, but the irony of her echoing the words of her greatest enemy would be far too delicious.)

We could even cover exactly how the Silence caused the TARDIS to explode. We have our own theory on that at Doctor Who Watch, but still, it would be nice if such a major question for the series was actually given more of a definitive answer.

How Big Finish could do this

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So how could Big Finish explore the story? Well, a few years back, we had the short story collection Tales of Trenzalore. This didn’t explore the Silence arc, as such, but it did expand on the Doctor’s many battles during the 900 years he fought on the planet.

Big Finish could do the same thing, but go even further. Perhaps in a “Siege of Trenzalore” box set, they could cover some of the major aspects of it that were only briefly covered in The Time of the Doctor. This would allow greater exploration of Madame Kovarian, and perhaps provide a more satisfying resolution to the arc as a whole.

We’ve also seen Big Finish explore aspects of the Silence arc already, as with the spin-offs mentioned earlier. They could tell stories set during the Silence arc, and of their plan to kill the Doctor, but from another perspective. With memory erasing clerics, they could even meet earlier Doctors during encounters which the Doctor would never remember.

Either way, there’s certainly a lot of potential for Big Finish to explore this major Doctor Who arc, and create more satisfying stories from it. Plus, more stories featuring Frances Barber as Madame Kovarian is surely a good thing.

Next. Doctor Who and how to tell a good mystery: The Classic Series structure. dark

What do you think? Should the Silence be explored in more detail by Big Finish? Or should we just let the arc be finished? Let us know in the comments below.

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