Doctor Who: 5 things you should know about the War Doctor’s own audio series

The Day of the Doctor introduced us to the War Doctor, as played by John Hurt. But who was he before he met his other selves and saved Gallifrey? That’s what we find out in his own audio series.

Image credit: Doctor Who/BBC. Image obtained from: BBC America.

Curious about The War Doctor, the Doctor Who audio series that focuses on John Hurt’s incarnation in the Time War? Here are 5 things you should know.

To say that Doctor Who: The War Doctor was huge for Big Finish is an understatement. Only months before, Big Finish had announced that – after years of giving us audios based purely on the Classic Series – they were allowed to use characters and storylines from the New Series. While this was only up to and including The Time of the Doctor – Matt Smith’s final episode as the Eleventh Doctor – this was still big news. As far as Big Finish was concerned, the universe had just gotten a whole lot bigger.

Still, I don’t think anyone could have expected the announcement they made in October 2015. Just under two years after his one and only major appearance in the TV series, it was announced that John Hurt would star in his very own audio series, resuming his role as the incarnation first seen in The Day of the Doctor. Even better, fans didn’t have to wait too long for Doctor Who: The War Doctor, as the first box set was released just two months later in December 2015.

The return of the War Doctor

John Hurt in his own Doctor Who series. Even on audio, this was something that we didn’t really dare dream of. After playing the role so briefly on television, we never expected Hurt to ever play it again, in any medium. He was, after all, an absolutely iconic actor.

So to find out that he was returning to the role through Big Finish was incredibly exciting. The first New Series Doctor to actually appear in the audios, and ironically, it was the one with the least screen time.

But it made sense. With this incarnation, while everyone knew the ending already, there was still so much that Big Finish could explore. Exactly as Big Finish have done with Paul McGann’s Doctor – while on television, he only had a movie and a minisode, on audio, he’s had countless adventures thanks to Big Finish, and plenty of exploration to go with it.

So what did The War Doctor bring? What parts of his life did it explore? How much mythology did Big Finish establish with the series? And what makes it such an essential listen? Let’s find out.

Beginning with The Innocent, the series focuses on the later years of the War Doctor’s life.

Image Courtesy Big Finish Productions

It’s set late in the War Doctor’s life

The Night of the Doctor gave us the very beginning of the War Doctor’s story. After his regeneration from his previous incarnation, we got only a glimpse of the “new” Doctor, as he looked at his reflection. But the young John Hurt that we saw was enough to tell us that the War Doctor went through a lot in his lifetime.

The War Doctor doesn’t begin directly after The Night of the Doctor, but some time after. The Innocent – the first episode of the series – establishes that Hurt’s incarnation has already grown sick of the war. He’s tired and desperate to escape it, but at the same time, he knows that he’ll inevitably be drawn back in. Which is very much the case by the end of the episode.

So as a whole, The War Doctor is set much closer to the end of this incarnation’s life than the start of it. Which makes sense. Not only was Hurt’s age clear from his voice. But the War Doctor is most heavily recognized as an older incarnation. While it would be fascinating to explore his early battles – perhaps in novels or comics – focusing on the latter days of the character was the right decision for Big Finish.

A shortened life?

Also, it’s worth pointing out that the very beginning of the series provides a suggestion that the War Doctor might not have been physically young for too long. At the very beginning of the series, the Time Destructor is used to wipe out a fleet of Daleks. Originally from the classic First Doctor story The Daleks’ Master Plan, the Time Destructor essentially aged the fleet to death.

Considering that the Doctor was there when the Destructor was activated – and considering he spent the whole of The Innocent recovering from his close brush with death – it’s not hard to imagine a far younger version of the War Doctor at the very start of the series…

The Time War wasn’t just epic space battles, as stories like The Neverwhen showed.

Image Courtesy Big Finish Productions

It depicts the Time War in many different ways

When the Time War was described in Russell T Davies’s episodes, it was clear that this was more than just your typical sci-fi war that featured spaceships blasting each other. Mentions of the Nightmare Child and the Could’ve Been King and his Army of Meanwhiles and Neverweres painted pictures of a war filled with monsters, and where time itself was used as a weapon.

However, when Steven Moffat finally depicted the Time War on-screen in The Day of the Doctor, what we got was a little more traditional in terms of epic sci-fi wars. Spaceships directly attacking Gallifrey and Daleks blowing up Arcadia looked good, but it wasn’t quite the image of the Time War that we had been given from Davies’s descriptions. (For contrast, check out Russell T Davies’s own take on the end of the Time War here.)

Infernal devices

Thankfully, Big Finish has given us many stories that are a little closer to what Davies originally intended. Sure, there are many stories featuring spaceships and explosions. Opening box set Only the Monstrous runs very much along those lines.

But we’re also given stories about alternative weapons being used. This is especially true of the second box set of the series, Infernal Devices. In that volume, we’re given tales of mass resurrections and weapons influencing armies on a grand scale. The best story of the box set is The Neverwhen, an episode that perfectly depicts the insanity of fighting in a war where time itself can be used as a weapon.

Overall, The War Doctor struck the right balance between traditional sci-fi war stories and grand cosmic horror. Where anything and everything could be used as a weapon, including your own history. Combined with other key themes – such as stories of secret agents or innocent civilians caught up in the war – and you get a series that provides plenty of variety within its distinct setting and in a relatively short space of time.

One major character that The War Doctor gave us was Ollistra – someone who would become a key figure in Big Finish’s universe.

Image Courtesy Big Finish Productions

It introduces Ollistra, a major figure in Big Finish’s universe

Along with John Hurt in the title role, The War Doctor also features another major character: Cardinal Ollistra. Don’t be surprised if you haven’t heard of her, especially if you’ve yet to hear Big Finish’s Time War stories.

Created by Nicholas Briggs, the character essentially represents what the Time Lords have become as a result of the Time War. She’s devious, clever and desperate to win the war – at any cost. She’s a perfect contrast to Hurt’s Doctor – while this incarnation believes he has given up everything that he is to fight in the war, there’s still a strong sense of morality to him, at least. Ollistra, however, has no such moral scruples.

For such a key role, Jacqueline Pearce was cast. To say that this was a smart move is an understatement. Many fans of British sci-fi will remember Pearce for playing Servalan in Blake’s 7. The character was one of sci-fi’s great villains, and a key reason for the character’s success was Pearce’s performance. (Seriously, she was only meant to be a guest character, but proved to be so popular that she grew to be the lead antagonist of the series.)

So Pearce’s casting was a perfect choice for the character of Ollistra. She doesn’t make the character into a total villain. Instead, she portrays Ollistra with a great deal of steel and conviction. As far as Ollistra is concerned, she’s only doing what she thinks is right (or at least, right for Gallifrey), and Pearce portrays that side of the character brilliantly.

Other appearances

In fact, Ollistra was such a fantastic character that she grew to have a life beyond The War Doctor audios. When that series finished, she then appeared in prequel series The Eighth Doctor: Time War. Sadly, Jacqueline Pearce passed away in 2018, with her final performance as the character in volume 2 of the series.

However, Big Finish hasn’t stopped telling stories featuring the devious Cardinal completely. Back in 2017, Ollistra appeared in the final volume of Eighth Doctor series Doom Coalition. Set even before the Time War, the series introduced us to an earlier incarnation, with Carolyn Pickles giving us her own take on the character. Pickles returned to the role in this year’s Seventh Doctor story Dark Universe, which was in some ways a direct prequel to many of the events in Doom Coalition.

However, while we can look forward to more stories featuring Ollistra, we’ll always have both The War Doctor and Jacqueline Pearce’s excellent performance to thank for giving us this distinctive character in the first place.

The War Doctor lasted for 12 episodes – your standard series length on TV.

Image Courtesy Big Finish Productions

It provides us with a short but brilliant era for John Hurt’s Doctor

I’ll always be grateful for The Day of the Doctor for letting us see an actor as excellent as John Hurt portray such an iconic role. While I’m a huge fan of Paul McGann’s Doctor, and so could have easily seen him as the one who ended the Time War, Hurt’s War Doctor was so distinctive and so brilliant in his own right that I’m glad I saw it.

However, as grateful as I am to both Day and Steven Moffat for creating this incarnation, in some ways, I’m even more grateful to Big Finish for giving us The War Doctor‘s own series. More than that – they created an actual era for John Hurt’s Doctor. In Day, we got to see the end of his story, but it’s wonderful to see him (even in just our mind’s eye) in so many more adventures.

Admittedly, in some ways, it was a short-lived era. Across four volumes of three episodes each, The War Doctor only lasted for twelve episodes. On the other hand, that’s only one episode less than what Christopher Eccleston had as the Ninth Doctor, and that’s not even including The Day of the Doctor. So thanks to Big Finish, we were given a fleshed-out and distinct era for a Doctor that had only barely appeared on-screen. (It’s not the first time that they’ve done that, either.)

As a result, we’re given a deeper study of the War Doctor’s character, particularly why he was so exhausted by the end of the Time War. We find out about the difficult choices he had to make, and how he couldn’t always win. In fact, there are several occasions when he has to make a choice the Doctor wouldn’t normally make because a happy resolution simply isn’t possible.

It was fantastic that the War Doctor was given so much exploration. Sadly, it wasn’t meant to last…

The War Doctor was one of Hurt’s final performances.

Image Courtesy Big Finish Productions

The series gave us one of John Hurt’s final performances

Listening to the behind the scenes documentary for The War Doctor: Casualties of War, it was clear that everyone wanted more stories for the War Doctor. Not just the production team, but John Hurt himself was very happy to continue playing the part.

Sadly, it wasn’t to be. Casualties of War was released in February 2017 – the month after John Hurt passed away. It was a sad and shocking time for so many. The man had been such a huge actor and had featured in so many greatly loved films and TV series from a wide range of genres. From Crime and Punishment to Watership Down to Alien to so many others, the man’s list of credits was extensive.

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Unsurprisingly, Hurt still continued to work even shortly before his death across several different roles. The War Doctor was just one of them. Even for Big Finish, he played a completely different character in their adaptation of HG Wells’s The Invisible Man.

In some ways, we’re lucky that Big Finish got to work with him such a short time before his death. Especially for the equivalent of a full series. Still, there’s no question that more installments would’ve been more than welcome. Not just from fans, but even from Hurt himself.

Hearing him play a role like the War Doctor as effortlessly and brilliantly as he did highlights the huge loss of his passing. There are many reasons to check out and enjoy The War Doctor, but the biggest and best one is to hear John Hurt play the Doctor as brilliantly as he did with any other role.

Have you checked out The War Doctor? Did you enjoy the series overall? Or, if you have yet to listen to it, are you curious about checking it out? Let us know in the comments below.