Among Doctor Who fans, “what if” debates are very popular. One of the things fans wonder about most is what would happen if different Doctors were mixed and matched with different companions and villains from throughout the series.
With Christopher Eccleston back in the TARDIS thanks to a series of audio adventures from Big Finish Productions, fans might not need to wonder for much longer.
Eccleston only served for one year as the Doctor, traveling with Rose (Billie Piper) in a season dominated by the specter of the Daleks. This short tenure means the Ninth Doctor’s tenure is rife for all-new fan-pleasing adventures. When a fan asked Ecclesston if his Doctor would be interested in meeting two classic Doctor Who characters, he was up for it, saying that while he “really know much about The Master and River Song…my Doctor is happy to meet anybody, so I’m entirely open.”
Christopher Eccleston’s Ninth Doctor could meet River Song or The Master?
The return of The Master (John Simm) in the guise of Harold Saxon was the primary storyline running throughout the third season of the revived show, when David Tennant was playing the Doctor. There’s been a range of Masters since, and Big Finish has worked with a lot of them, particularly on the multi-Master special release, Masterful. The company has also produced several audios featuring River Song (Alex Kingston) that paired her with Doctors from the show’s long past. So it’s definitely possible to pair these characters with Ecclesston’s Doctor in the future if he stays on.
Earlier this month, Eccleston said that Doctor Who needed to be willing to “explode the canon…if the show wants to survive going forward.”
"That rigid adherence to, ‘There can only be this number of incarnations,’ et cetera, it’s nonsense. It’s nonsense. The imagination is limitless."
The new series of Ninth Doctor audio adventures kicks off with The Ninth Doctor Adventures – Ravagers, consisting of three episodes, with another nine to follow. The series will see the return of the Cybermen and a much-anticipated meeting between Eccleston’s Doctor and the iconic Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart.
Doctor Who: The Ninth Doctor Adventures – Ravagers will be available from Big Finish Productions this May. The first set of three episodes is available to preorder now, alongside three more volumes released throughout 2021 and early 2022.
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