BBV Productions
BBV Productions (also known as Bill & Ben Video and sometimes, erroneously, as Bill Baggs Video) is a British video production company known for its many unofficial video and audio Doctor Who spin-offs. A number of personnel behind-the-scenes and in front of the camera would go on to work on the revival of Doctor Who after 2005, most notably Nicholas Briggs, who acted in, wrote and directed a number of BBV productions, and author/actor Mark Gatiss. BBV developed a repertory company of actors that appeared in many of these productions, often playing different roles. Many of these actors were well-known from their work in Doctor Who and included former Doctor actors Jon Pertwee, Peter Davison, Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy, and companion actors Caroline John, Louise Jameson, Nicola Bryant and Sophie Aldred. Several actors appearing in these productions early in their careers went on to some notability, including Mark Gatiss and Alan Cumming.
Work in Video
BBV's first production was the 1991 video release Summoned by Shadows, which was co-produced by the BBC Film Club and starred Colin Baker playing an unnamed character only known as the Stranger and Nicola Bryant as Miss Brown. The Stranger's adventures were chronicled on six videos and an audio adventure, many of which featured former Who cast members. The sixth video, Eye of the Beholder, was later re-released as the audio story Eye of the Storm.
BBV's next release was the ecologically-themed thriller The Airzone Solution, which was about a near-future conspiracy. The video was released in 1993, coinciding with the 30th anniversary of Doctor Who and featured four actors previously cast as the Doctor.
In 1994, BBV released the first video in the P.R.O.B.E. series, The Zero Imperative, which saw a departure for BBV as Liz Shaw was the only character from the Who universe to appear (although numerous Who actors made appearances as different characters). This proved problematic for the series, as Liz Shaw seemed very much changed following her leaving from UNIT; this was due to BBV only acquiring the rights to use the character and had no rights to the Doctor, meaning that the series could make no explicit reference to any other aspect of Who – including the stories where Liz was present.
BBV's next series of spin-off videos focused on UNIT and their battles with the Autons. The first video of the series, Auton, was originally to feature Nicholas Courtney as Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, however he had to withdraw due to ill health. The Brigadier was replaced by the original character of Lockwood, an enigmatic UNIT agent played by Michael Wade.
After the success of the Auton trilogy, BBV went on to produce Cyberon, which featured an alien race of cyborgs reminiscent of the Cybermen called the Cyberon. The Cyberon would later go on to appear in an audio story, Cybergeddon.
In 2001 BBV released Do You Have a License to Save this Planet?, a film in which Sylvester McCoy played a character called the Chiropodist (aka Foot Doctor) as he fought Cyberons and Sontarans. The video not only made references to past BBV productions, but to Doctor Who and the unlicensed nature of BBV's work.
BBV's latest video production is Zygon: When being you just isn't enough, in which Mike Kirkwood dreams of being a monster; he is in fact a Zygon, believeing himself to be human. This story also features Jo Castleton's character of Doctor Lauren Anderson, from Cyberon.
Work in Audio
After experimenting with audio for a few years BBV released their first audio drama in 1998 under the umbrella title Audio Adventures in time and Space after which BBV began regularly releasing audios beginning with a line of adventures called The Time Travellers staring Sylvester McCoy and Sophie Aldred as The Professor and Ace which closely resembled the characters they portrayed in the Doctor Who series even using the same companion name and the nickname for McCoy's incarnation of The Doctor. The resemblance was so close to that of the Doctor Who characters that the BBC eventually stepped in and by the time of the seventh audio drama a number of changes had been made. The main one being the change of the main characters to The Dominie and Alice.
The first of the Audio Adventures in Time & Space that didn't feature Sylvester McCoy and Sophie Aldred was a 2 story series called The Wanderer both of which featured Nicholas Briggs who played the character of an amnesic space traveller whom one of the other characters dubb's Fred after his pet goldfish. Briggs had previously played a version of the Doctor for the unlicensed fan audios made by Audio Visuals.
BBV moved away from audio stories about characters that could be the doctor after the establishment of Big Finish's officially licensed line of Doctor Who audio dramas and instead moved on to audios featuring characters from the Doctor Who universe such as Romana and K9. Following the success of the Autons trilogy stand alone audios featuring alien races from doctor who licensed directly from the writers that created them and in some instances allowing the writers to author new stories featuring their characters for the audio drama's such as a story by Pip & Jane Baker explaining what happened to the Rani who was last seen in Doctor Who being abducted by a group of aliens. Also the series of stories by Lawrence Miles about his history-spanning cult organisation the Faction Paradox.
In 2002 BBV announced that it would be no longer producing audio stories and instead would focus on video releases.
Published Works
Videos
The Stranger
- Summoned by Shadows
- More Than a Messiah
- In Memory Alone
- The Terror Game
- Breach of the Peace
- Eye of the Beholder
P.R.O.B.E.
The Auton Trilogy
Other
- The Airzone Solution
- Cyberon
- Do You Have a License to Save this Planet?
- Zygon: When being you just isn't enough
Documentaries
- Stranger than Fiction
- Stranger Than Fiction 2: From script to screen
- Bidding Adieu: A Video Diary
- The Doctors: 30 Years of Time Travel and Beyond
Audios
The Time Travellers
- Republica
- Island of Lost Souls
- Prosperity Island
- The Left Hand of Darkness
- The Other Side
- Guests for the Night
- Ghosts
- Only Human
- Blood Sports
- Punchline
The Wanderer
The Stranger
Adventures in a Pocket Universe
Zygons
Krynoids
Sontarans
Cyberons
The I
The Rani
Wirrn
The Faction Paradox Protocols
- The Eleven Day Empire
- The Shadow Play
- Sabbath Dei
- In the Year of the Cat
- Movers
- A Labyrinth of Histories
Rutans
Guy de Carnac
Mike Yates
Other
Also See
External Links
- BBV Homepage - site down as of September 2009
- BBV - CD and DVD Releases at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
