Big Finish Productions

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Big Finish Productions is a British audio production company founded in 1996[1]. Since 1999, it has produced audio dramas and prose stories related to Doctor Who.

History

Big Finish began in late 1998 with audio adaptations of novels featuring the Seventh Doctor's former companion Bernice Summerfield. It subsequently was licensed to produce authorised Doctor Who audio plays. Later, the company branched out into prose publishing, producing a long-running series of novels and short story anthologies featuring Summerfield, followed by its acquisition of the Short Trips line of Doctor Who-related short stories, previously published by BBC Books.

Product lines

Doctor Who

Big Finish began their Doctor Who range with a series of monthly full-cast dramas in four twenty five-minute episode format, mirroring the format commonly used by the original TV series. Releases featured the Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, and, from 2000 on, Eighth Doctors. In 2007, a separate monthly series of one-hour Eighth Doctor adventures was created that ran for four series, before being succeeded by boxset releases. The Eighth Doctor appeared very occasionally following this in the main range.

In 2012, following a box set of Lost Stories, Tom Baker returned to the role of the Fourth Doctor in a brand new series of Fourth Doctor Adventures. Unfortunately, by that time companion actors Elisabeth Sladen and Nicholas Courtney were deceased; Baker was able to record a season of stories with Mary Tamm before her death in 2012, but has primarily been paired with Louise Jameson.

As of 2015, Big Finish has been successful in recruiting every surviving classic-era companion actor to reprise their original roles save Jackie Lane. In addition, both "companion" actors from the 1996 TV movie, Daphne Ashbrook and Yee Jee Tso, have recorded Who releases for the company, but as different characters, as the company does not have the rights to the movie companions.

Big Finish’s current licence to produce Doctor Who on audio extends to 31 March, 2020.[2]

Connections with the current TV series

The licensing contract Big Finish originally held with BBC Worldwide allowed the company to produce material from the "classic" era, giving them use of the first seven incarnations of the Doctor and all of their companions, as well as the character of the Eighth Doctor from the 1996 telemovie. Initially their agreement for the Doctor Who licence restricted any intellectual property from the 2005 revival, not allowing them to produce any audio stories based upon the Ninth, Tenth, Eleventh or Twelfth Doctors, nor any related characters, even if they were no longer featured in the TV series.

Numerous Big Finish personnel and employees, including David Tennant, Georgia Moffett, Anthony Stewart Head, Nicholas Briggs, Gareth Roberts, Gary Russell, Mark Gatiss, Paul Cornell, Matt Jones and Robert Shearman, have gone to do work for Doctor Who, The Sarah Jane Adventures and Torchwood. Shearman's Dalek was directly based on his audio drama Jubilee.

Many, such as Briggs, were involved in the production of unlicenced audio productions (such as Audio Visuals), as well as non-Who audio and video productions such as The Stranger. Briggs currently serves as producer for the Big Finish line of Doctor Who audio adventures, concurrent with his ongoing voice-over work on the BBC TV series.

A number of actors from the BBC Wales TV series have worked with Big Finish after becoming known on TV, but playing characters other than their TV roles. Examples include Arthur Darvill and Noel Clarke.

In late 2012, Big Finish announced that it was partnering with AudioGO to produce a series of 11 audio dramas in 2013 to mark the 50th anniversary of the franchise, a series entitled Destiny of the Doctors. These were Big Finish's first productions involving the Ninth, Tenth and Eleventh Doctors. It featured actors from the revival series including Catherine Tate and Jenna Coleman as readers, and the Eleventh Doctor cameoed in each story. Due to AudioGo going into administration, the final release The Time Machine (featuring the Eleventh Doctor) and the accompanying series boxset were released solely by Big Finish.

In later years, the BBC began to show varying degrees of leniency in terms of the breadth of licence. A number of stories contained allusions to the Time War, most notably Dark Eyes in 2012 and Gallifrey VI in 2013. For Gallifrey, Big Finish were granted special permission to use the revival series Daleks on the packaging, and, in the first story, featured an attempted Dalek invasion of an alternate Gallifrey. The "origin" story The Beginning, released in the same year, was altered before release to depict the TARDIS capsule seen in the television story The Name of the Doctor and to reference Clara Oswald. Additionally, Big Finish depicted an apparent future Doctor's TARDIS on the cover of UNIT: Dominion with the exterior of the Eleventh Doctor's. However, many references in the past had been able to get around licensing restrictions through vagueness and implicature: the 2006 story The Kingmaker mentioned a "northern chap with big ears"; the 2010 story Klein's Story quoted from TV: Time Crash, referencing the TARDIS console's leopard skin desktop theme," whilst another, City of Spires, quoting TV: Rose, referenced the "assembled hordes of Ghengis Khan" and their attempt to enter the TARDIS. Later stories such as Luna Romana and Gallifrey and The New Adventures of Bernice Summerfield releases more directly referenced an escalation in conflict on Gallifrey. Finally, the company's adaptation of Damaged Goods directly referenced the Torchwood Institute and the Last Great Time War.

Following this, it was revealed that the terms of their licence had changed, and was now extended to encompass a part of the "new series." [3] This new license extends no further than The Time of the Doctor, preventing them from featuring the Twelfth Doctor or anything introduced in his era.[4] Big Finish announced that they would be producing stories featuring Winston Churchill, Strax, River Song, members of UNIT featured in the new series, and a new box set entitled "Classic Doctors, New Monsters", featuring new series aliens such as the Weeping Angels, Judoon and Sycorax, and the Sontarans of the Time War as encountered by the Tenth, Eleventh and Twelfth Doctors. They also announced that they had gained the rights to produce audio dramas based on the spin-off series Torchwood.[3] It was later announced that John Hurt would reprise his role as the War Doctor in a series of box sets set during the Time War, and a prequel starring Paul McGann as an older Eighth Doctor during the early stages of the War would also be released.[5]

Adventures of the first three Doctors

Alongside their full cast dramas, Big Finish launched a monthly series entitled The Companion Chronicles in 2007, featuring hour-long "enhanced audiobooks" narrated by former companions of the Doctor. The story's companion narrates the adventure, relating the events to the listener in-character, while approximately one other major role in the story is performed by another actor.

The series allowed Big Finish to produce stories involving the first three Doctors for the first time, despite their original actors being deceased, along with the Fourth Doctor, despite the fact that Tom Baker was currently unwilling to participate. As a result, all eight "classic series" Doctors were now been represented in some way within their range. Later releases featured stories from the perspective of a companion of the Fifth, Sixth, Seventh and Eighth Doctors. Companions such as Sara Kingdom and Liz Shaw, who did not get much screentime in the show, were given the opportunity to have much vaster development, in stories featuring the original actor. With the introduction of Tom Baker into Big Finish's cast, the last few series moved away from using the Fourth through Eighth Doctors and instead focused on the First through Third Doctors.

The series has also introduced spin-off characters, including UNIT members Matheson and Sato, portrayed by TV movie actors Daphne Ashbrook and Yee Jee Tso, whilst The Mahogany Murderers, reuniting detectives Jago and Litefoot from The Talons of Weng-Chiang, became a backdoor pilot for the spin-off series.

Big Finish also began to incorporate the first three Doctors into their Lost Stories range, featuring larger casts including original companion actors, and using such actors to provide narration and lines for the Doctor.

At the conclusion of The Lost Stories and the monthly Companion Chronicles in 2013, Big Finish announced the launch of a new range entitled The Early Adventures starring the surviving members of the black and white era stories. Nicholas Briggs said (of the end of The Companion Chronicles) “It’s always sad to say goodbye to something, especially if they are popular. But at Big Finish we feel we must always be moving forward, and finding new ways to tell exciting Doctor Who stories on audio.” [6] Following this, the company announced a brand new range for the Third Doctor, which began with the boxset release The Third Doctor Adventures: Volume One.

Spin-offs

Apart from stories featuring the Doctor, Big Finish has produced numerous spin-offs set within the Doctor Who universe.

Books

Through much of the 2000s, Big Finish complemented its audio line with a series of short story collections entitled Short Trips, a continuation of a series established by BBC Books. Most volumes centred around particular themes, with most books containing at least one story for each of the first eight Doctors, as well as occasional stories focusing on other characters. After BBC Books retired its BBC Past Doctor Adventures novels at the end of 2005 in favour of focusing on the current Doctor, Big Finish's Short Trips became the only source for officially licensed fiction featuring the first eight Doctors.

In April 2009, Big Finish was forced to terminate its prolific Short Trips anthology series when the BBC did not renew its licence to publish Doctor Who-related prose.[7] However, in February 2010, Big Finish announced that they had opted to continue producing the Short Trips range in the form of anthology audiobooks featuring brand new authors accompanied by prolific Big Finish writers.[8] Big Finish also published prose fiction featuring characters such as Erimem, Bernice Summerfield and Iris Wildthyme. Non-fiction books related to its series have also been published, including select audio scripts and Bernice Summerfield - The Inside Story.

Other work

Big Finish previously produced original audio dramas based on franchises such as Sapphire & Steel, Stargate SG-1, 2000 A.D. and The Tomorrow People, and continues to produce original audio dramas based on a number of other franchises including Blake's 7, Highlander, Sherlock Holmes, The Avengers, Terry Nation's Survivors, Dark Shadows and The Omega Factor. It has also produced wholly original comedy and sci-fi audios.

Big Finish has also published original prose, including Love Songs For the Shy & Cynical and other short story collections by Rob Shearman and The Mervyn Stone Mysteries by Nev Fountain.

Doctor Who related series

External links

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Big Finish (March 23, 2014). Big Finish FAQ (From 2002). Big Finish. Retrieved on 2002.
  2. ↑ Doctor Who: Licence Extended to 2020!. Big Finish Productions (27 March 2015). Retrieved on 28 June 2015.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 More New Series Doctor Who from Big Finish. Big Finish Productions (27 June 2015). Retrieved on 28 June 2015.
  4. ↑ http://www.bigfinish.com/pages/v/faqs
  5. ↑ http://www.bigfinish.com/news/v/doctor-who-the-war-doctor
  6. ↑ Doctor Who: The Early Adventures Announced!. Big Finish Productions (8 February 2013). Retrieved on 28 June 2015.
  7. ↑ Short Trips Announcement. Big Finish - News (17/04/2009). Archived from the original on April 20 2009. Retrieved on 18th September 2012.
  8. ↑ The Return of Short Trips. Big Finish - News (10/02/2010). Archived from the original on March 30 2010. Retrieved on 18th September 2012.
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