Doctor Who: The Eighth Doctor will meet Torchwood’s Sergeant Andy in 2020!

Starting in July 2020, the Eighth Doctor and his friends will have to get used to being stuck on Earth in the upcoming Doctor Who audio series Stranded.

What happens when the Doctor isn’t able to explore time and space? When they find themselves stuck in one place and time? This question has been explored before, during the early seasons of Jon Pertwee’s Third Doctor. But it’s going to be explored again, this time with Paul McGann’s Eighth Doctor, in next year’s Doctor Who audio series Stranded.

He won’t be alone, though. Both his companions Liv Chenka (Nicola Walker) and Helen Sinclair (Hattie Morahan) will be joining him. They’ve been his loyal friends for several years now. They’ve faced Time Lord psychopaths (several, in fact) and hungry monsters over the years. They’ve prevented the destruction of the whole of the universe. Surely being stuck in a flat together will be an easy task. Won’t it?

"The TARDIS is gone. Stranded in one time and place, the Doctor, Liv and Helen seek refuge in Baker Street. But the house has changed: they now have neighbours – not all of them welcoming. And someone has a dire warning for the future.The Doctor and friends face their greatest challenge yet: living one day after another, in 2020 London."

The cast of Stranded celebrating the Christmas season: (L to R) Hattie Morahan, Rebecca Root, Tom Price, Paul McGann and Nicola Walker.

(Image courtesy: Big Finish Productions.)

Eight meets Andy

This is definitely an exciting idea. The Eighth Doctor’s previous three series – Dark Eyes, Doom Coalition and Ravenous have all been different from each other. But they’ve also been focused on telling epic stories across time and space. Stranded promises to be radically different to all of those major arcs, and that’s quite possibly the best way to go. Especially after the huge events of Ravenous 4 – a box set that resolved several major long-running threads and involved four different incarnations of the Master.

The setting of the series is a simple but brilliant idea. The Doctor’s house in Baker Street has been around in the Big Finish audios for a long time now – a kind of home from home for the Doctor across several different incarnations. It’s great that it’s going to be a regular feature for this series.

Just as exciting are the two new major characters that the TARDIS team will be meeting. We don’t know much about Tania Bell yet, played by Rebecca Root. But we definitely know plenty about the other: Sergeant Andy Davidson.

The Torchwood character has grown from a relatively small figure to someone that’s greatly loved by the audience, especially in the last two seasons of the spin-off. This won’t be Tom Price’s first appearance in a Doctor Who audio, but it will be the first time he’s played Andy in one. So this is extremely exciting news.

What to expect

Paul McGann gives us an idea of what to expect from the upcoming series.

"It’s not our usual fare, so it feels refreshing and somehow wintry. It’s dark outside. That time of year when the walls are closing in a bit. It’s got the flavour of a bunch of polar explorers stuck on a rock for the winter.What I like most about it is the contrast – the whizzing round galaxies and having adventures, and suddenly they’re having to share a space and they get cabin fever. And so the Doctor gets a bit bitter about it all. But they’re trying to make the best of it. It’s good and it’s funny as well."

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Producer David Richardson seems equally excited about Stranded.

"Stranded is a brand new start for the Eighth Doctor Adventures. It’s a new setting, bringing in new characters and it has its own distinct tone. There’s no epic struggle to save the universe – this is about a group of people living in a house in London in 2020, and their struggles to find a role in this world. Of course there will be aliens and strange threats along the way, but the focus is always on our characters. It was a joy to see how much Paul McGann loved these scripts – some of his favorites out of all the ones we’ve made."

Strong writers

It’s not hard to see why everyone’s keen on this series – especially when you look at the list of writers for it. While we have Eighth Doctor veterans Matt Fitton and John Dorney writing two of the episodes, we also have Lisa McMullin and David K Barnes writing for the set, as well.

Both of these two have emerged as extremely strong writers in recent years for Big Finish, and this will be Barnes’s first story for the Eighth Doctor, so I’m extremely excited to see what all the writers will come up with.

All four volumes of Stranded are available to pre-order on CD and download, with the first volume scheduled for July 2020 and the remaining volumes scheduled for 2021. This is an extremely exciting direction for the Eighth Doctor, and we can’t wait to discover what kind of fresh storytelling Stranded will bring.

Are you a fan of the Eighth Doctor’s adventures on audio? Do you think Stranded sounds like a strong idea? Do you think Andy will be a good fit for the world of Doctor Who? Let us know in the comments below.