Doctor Who news: The Fifth Doctor and Leela team up for new audio series

In November, the Doctor will be reunited with three old friends in Doctor Who: Wicked Sisters. But this time, two of his friends will become enemies…

When it comes to Big Finish’s announcements for their many Doctor Who and Torchwood audios, with some of them, you can see it coming from a mile away. Maybe a particular series had been building up to the announcement in a big way. Maybe a producer or writer casually mentions it during a Big Finish podcast. Or maybe an actor lets it slip way before Big Finish is ready to formally announce it. Regardless, there are some major series or developments that you learn about before Big Finish reveals it.

However, sometimes, they throw something at you completely out of the blue. This is definitely one of those times.

In November 2020, Doctor Who: The Fifth Doctor Adventures – Wicked Sisters will be released on CD and download. Starring Peter Davison as the Fifth Doctor and Louise Jameson as Leela, the series focuses on the two looking for some old friends of the Doctor. Friends that now endanger the universe.

"The Doctor is recruited by Leela for a vital mission on behalf of the Time Lords. Together, they must track down and destroy two god-like beings whose extraordinary powers now threaten all of space and time. Their names are Abby and Zara…"

Abby and Zara

Who are Abby and Zara? They’re two characters that the Doctor hasn’t met in a very long time. In over a decade, in fact. However, it’s been much less of a gap for regular Big Finish listeners.

They were originally introduced as human Tracers in The Key 2 Time trilogy back in 2009. Abby (or Amy, as she was initially introduced) became a companion to the Fifth Doctor, while Zara fell in with a much worse crowd. As a result, while the sisters’ goals were the same, their methods were extremely different. Essentially, Amy was the “good one” and Zara was the “wicked one”.

However, after their quest was over and they went looking to find new lives for themselves, things didn’t remain so black and white, as spin-off series Graceless revealed. Over the course of the series, both sisters discovered that they were equally capable of acts both selfless and terrible. Amy changed her name to Abby, and the two had adventures of their own. Adventures considerably darker and more mature than the Doctor would necessarily approve of.

As a result, both sisters have changed a lot since they last saw the Doctor. What will he think of them when he meets them again? And why are they such a dangerous threat to the universe?

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A long-awaited reunion

Personally speaking, I have a big soft spot for The Key 2 Time trilogy. It was when Big Finish switched from having a different Doctor/companion team every month with their main range of audios to instead having “seasons” – three stories focusing on one particular team before changing to a different Doctor for the next three stories.

The Key 2 Time was a bold way of beginning such a huge change, giving us one big story spread across three months. The fact that it was a sequel to one of Classic Who’s more ambitious arcs made it even more exciting. If the move to giving us “seasons” with the Classic Doctors was simply a way of gaining more subscribers, it worked, at least for this fan.

That trilogy was over a decade ago. While we’ve had plenty of stories of either the Fifth Doctor or Abby and Zara, I never expected them to be reunited. There was a mention that there were “plans” for Abby and Zara during the behind the scenes documentary for The Legacy of Time, but I didn’t think anything of it beyond another Graceless box set. Certainly, I never expected them to meet the Fifth Doctor once again, and as antagonists, no less.

Honestly, this is a massively exciting development. I’m eager to find out what the Fifth Doctor makes of Abby and Zara now, and find out how far he will go to stop them this time.

Doctor Who: The Fifth Doctor Adventures – Wicked Sisters will be released on CD and download in Nov 2020. You can pre-order it now from Big Finish’s website, or find out how the Doctor met Abby and Zara in The Judgement of Isskar.

Have you listened to the Doctor’s previous adventures with Abby and Zara? Or even the sisters’ own adventures in Graceless? What are your expectations for this series? Let us know in the comments below.