Doctor Who: The Sixth Doctor and Peri return in three audios later this year!
By James Aggas
The team of the Sixth Doctor and Peri will finally be returning to audio later this year, in three new Doctor Who stories from Big Finish!
This is something I’ve been waiting for for a long time. After a gap of almost five years, Big Finish are finally giving us more stories with the Sixth Doctor and Peri in three new Doctor Who audios later this year!
I have a complicated relationship with these two. I wasn’t too keen on how their friendship was handled overall in their first season together. They didn’t just have a lot of banter with each other. A lot of the time, the back-and-forth between them escalated into full-blown insults!
The Trial of a Time Lord gave me something of a different perspective on them, though. They were generally nicer towards each other. Still sharing a lot of banter, but there were many moments of warmth between them, too. When the Doctor believed Peri had died, his reaction is utterly heartbreaking. (Seriously, if you haven’t seen it, just watch it. You’ll quickly see why Six is completely underrated.)
So when the Doctor found out that she had not only survived, but was apparently living happily with the warlord Yrcanos, he was content to let her live her life. At first. But eventually, he wanted to find out more.
The first time Six reunited with Peri was in Companion Chronicle Peri and the Piscon Paradox. But it wasn’t the last time he’d meet his old friend again…
(Image credit: Doctor Who/Big Finish Productions.
Image obtained from: Big Finish Productions.)
Reunion
First, there was Peri and the Piscon Paradox, where he found an older Peri somehow living her life on Earth, despite knowing she should be on another world entirely with Yrcanos.
It was then that he found out something major: Peri had died in The Trial of a Time Lord. But the Time Lords had tried to change history back, so that she was still alive. Then they tried to change it again when they thought that actually, maybe being married to a warlord wasn’t the best fate for her. So they decided to send her back home.
This both did and didn’t work. Oh, a Peri was living her life on Earth. But, due to how badly the Time Lords had tried to fix things, another Peri was still with Yrcanos. And that was something the Doctor wanted to investigate five years ago, which is how he reunited with the Peri he knew best.
We had a trilogy of adventures with the Sixth Doctor and Peri travelling together once more. And The Widow’s Assassin, Masters of Earth and The Rani Elite were all very enjoyable. But ever since then…nothing. We’ve had plenty of Sixth Doctor stories, and on the whole, they’ve been very enjoyable ones, too. But none of them have featured Peri.
The last audio featuring the Sixth Doctor and Peri together was 2014’s The Rani Elite. Will the next trilogy of stories continue from this?
(Image credit: Doctor Who/Big Finish Productions.
Image obtained from: Big Finish Productions.)
New trilogy
Fortunately, that looks set to change in July. Beginning with Memories of a Tyrant by Roland Moore (who wrote the excellent Second Doctor story The Night Flyers a couple of years back), we’re getting a new trilogy of audios that feature the Sixth Doctor and Peri once more. And they sound incredibly exciting, especially Big Finish’s description of them:
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"Three stories, starring the classic 1980’s Doctor-companion duo of the Sixth Doctor and Peri, see them battling enemies old and new, and confronting complex moral issues…"
I love complex moral drama, and it sounds like we’re not just going to get that with Memories of a Tyrant, but also with the next story of the trilogy, Emissary of the Daleks by Andrew Smith. The final story has yet to be announced, which already sounds intriguing.
I will admit that there’s no guarantee that these stories will follow on from the Sixth Doctor’s and Peri’s reunion back in 2014. They could be set much earlier, during their original travels together on television. I hope not, as there was a lot that was left unresolved by the earlier audios. Big Finish have also been focusing a great deal on Six’s travels with Constance and Flip – two brilliant companions in their own right – so it’d be great if his new adventures with Peri were significant to their story. Regardless, it’ll be great to hear this iconic Doctor/companion pairing together again once more.
Next. Ten essential Time Lord stories to watch. dark
Are you a fan of the Sixth Doctor and Peri? Are you looking forward to hearing more from them? Have you listened to any of their previous audios? Let us know in the comments below.