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SYFY WIRE Doctor Who

Four new Doctor Who audio dramas include one of the 9th Doctor’s first adventures

By James Comtois
Doctor Who Short Trips Bootstraps

Fantastic! After Doctor Who took a yearlong hiatus, fans are currently experiencing an embarrassment of riches. Not only has the 12th season of the TV series been dropping bombshells causing fans to flip out, but Big Finish is about to unveil even more Doctor Who goodness in the form of new audio dramas. (Side note: Who else is stunned that radio plays have come back in style?)

Just after Big Finish revealed that Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman) would be teaming up with River Song (Alex Kingston) as part of a series of new stories in The Lives of Captain Jack series, the producer of audio dramas will be releasing four new short stories set in the Whoniverse, including one of the Ninth Doctor’s earliest adventures. 

After io9 first broke the news, Big Finish announced that four new stories in the publisher’s Doctor Who - Short Trips collection — short stories narrated by an original series cast member — will be released later this year.

Doctor Who Short Trips

In “Her Own Bootstraps,” written by Amy Veeres and performed by Jacob Dudman (yeah, alas, not Christopher Eccleston), the Ninth Doctor — the one responsible for ending the Time War by, well, committing genocide (or so he believed at the time) — arrives on Krakatoa in 1883 to destroy a dangerous weapon he took from an irresponsible scientist. 

But paradoxically, this is where … and when … the scientist found the weapon before the Doctor stole it from her. So the Doctor is trapped in a situation in which he must prevent a future that has already happened.

“Her Own Bootstraps” references the very first episode featuring Eccleston’s Ninth Doctor “Rose,” in which a conspiracy theorist shows future companion Rose (Billie Piper) a series of pictures of an ageless man found in multiple points in time. One image is an illustration of the Doctor at … you guessed it, Krakatoa in 1883.

“Her Own Bootstraps” will be available in September.

In October, Big Finish will release “The Meaning of Red,” by Rod Brown and starring Nicola Bryant. Bryant plays the Fifth Doctor’s companion, Peri, who gets accidentally marooned alone on the planet Calleto. While she waits for the Doctor to return, she takes refuge with the planet’s colonists and slowly learns the dark secrets of the inhospitable planet.

Blue Boxes,” by Erin Horakova and performed by Mark Reynolds, is set during the early days of the Third Doctor’s stint with UNIT. In this story, UNIT’s being inundated with prank calls, and the Doctor reluctantly agrees to help Liz investigate. And not surprisingly, this seemingly innocuous ordeal turns out to be deadly. This story gets released in November.

And finally, December marks the release of “The Shattered Hourglass,” by Robert Napton, performed by Neve McIntosh. In this story, the 10th Doctor confronts the Time Agency, an irresponsible organization that has been meddling with time since its inception. Today is the day the Agency removed an entire galaxy from the timeline.  And not coincidentally, today is also the day the Doctor shuts them down.  

All four audio dramas are available for pre-order (either separately or bundled together) through the Big Finish site.

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