Audio Visuals (fan work)

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The Audio Visuals were an unlicensed series of fan Doctor Who audio dramas produced in Britain during 1980s and the early 1990s. Many of the personnel involved would go on to professional work connected with the revived version of Doctor Who, Torchwood, and Big Finish Productions. Twenty-eight audio plays in all were recorded and distributed on cassette between 1984 and 1991.

History

The pilot episode, "The Space Wail", featuring the Doctor as voiced by Stephen Payne, was recorded in 1984. The first full seasons (1985-1988) were produced by Bill Baggs and starred Nicholas Briggs as his own version of the Doctor. The fourth and final season (1989-1991) was produced by Gary Russell. Briggs and Russell would have healthy careers ahead of them in the worlds of Doctor Who and, in the case of Russell, Torchwood as well, both before and after Russell T Davies' revival of the series.

Although the Audio Visuals productions were in violation of copyright, the BBC chose to look the other way. Gary Russell later told an interviewer

We were fans doing some stuff for a handful of people. We never advertised in professional magazines, we kept ourselves to ourselves. In doing so, we broke every copyright rule in the book (hell, Terry Nation would have crucified us — although I think our Dalek stories knocked spots off Saward's!) JNT was certainly aware of us, but he didn't care. Why should he? We were no more than any other fan product and at least we weren't printing articles about him or the show. I doubt Saward knew or cared. He wouldn't know drama if it bit him.Gary Russell [src]

Professional actors, Nabil Shaban (Sil) and Michael Wisher (the first actor to play Davros, as well as the voice of the Daleks in several stories) lent a hand.

Many of those involved in the Audio Visuals went on to work on BBV Productions (founded by Bill Baggs) or Big Finish Productions, which in 1999 began producing licensed Doctor Who audio drama under the guidance of Gary Russell. Nicholas Briggs has worked for both BBV and Big Finish as an actor and as a writer. He also worked on additional Doctor Who-related/inspired productions for Reeltime Pictures and beginning in 2005, has done vocal work as Daleks and other roles for the new Doctor Who series.

Relationship to mainstream Doctor Who universe

Continuity references

The series' version of the Doctor and his companion Ria appeared in the Doctor Who Magazine comic story Party Animals, also written by Gary Russell, with the Audio Visuals Doctor depicted as a future incarnation of the Seventh Doctor. He reappeared in The Incomplete Death's Head (set in part during the events of Party Animals). The multi-part Eighth Doctor story Wormwood saw Shayde, posing as the Doctor, faking a regeneration into a fictitious Ninth Doctor who was identical to the Audio Visuals Doctor. Nicholas Briggs himself would go on to portray alternative versions of the Doctor on two occasions, although neither of them were otherwise depicted as overly similar to the Audio Visuals incarnation, unlike the character's appearances in the aforementioned comics.

Separately from this, BBV Productions' Cyber-Hunt, an audio play in the Audio Adventures in Time & Space range which did not feature licensed DWU concepts, and also notable for introducing the Cyberons, introduced an amnesiac character going by "Fred" or "the Wanderer", played by Nicholas Briggs. As freely discussed by Briggs in interviews,[1] Fred was intended to come across as an amnesiac version of his Audio Visuals Doctor, with the amnesia device allowing the story to continue in a professional context without impinging on the BBC's copyright. Fred reappeared in a second audio, Vital Signs, without the Cyberons. Many years later, BBV Productions published Cyber-Hunt, a novelisation of the original audio play which also featured further legal ties to the DWU. The novel reified the effective "decanonisation" of the Audio Visuals by later licensed media into an in-universe rewriting history, revealing that Fred had formally sacrificed his former identity, allowing another version of him to replace him, as a way of removing the destruction of his homeworld from history.

Minor continuity references to Lord Barset's Antarctic expedition from Endurance appear in The Scales of Injustice and City of Devils by Audio Visuals veteran Gary Russell. Lord Barset's grandson attempts to find the Silurians' Antarctic city in Frozen Time by Nicholas Briggs, who wrote the original story under a pseudonym.

The novel Legacy, which originally intended to be an Audio Visual, references several things from the series: the Nematodian Border from The Secret of Nematoda, the Orion androids from Sword of Orion, and the Rigellons from Connection 13.

Majus Seventeen from More Than A Messiah is mentioned in the novel The Scales of Injustice.

The Audio Visuals story Planet of Lies depicts the destruction of Gallifrey by Daleks. This ended up being a plot point within licensed Doctor Who, although in a very different context, in the Last Great Time War.

Carson's Planet, originally from Cyber-Hunt, reappeared in "Death to the Daleks!".

The Temperons, the Conglomerate, and drudgers, which first appeared in the Audio Visuals, have also appeared in stories made by Big Finish Productions.

The recurring Audio Visuals villain Cuthbert and his Conglomerate served as arc antagonists for series 2 and 5 of Big Finish's Fourth Doctor Adventures.

Remakes

A number of remakes or sequels to Audio Visuals stories (some very loosely adapted) have been produced mainly in the form of another audio story created by Big Finish Productions.

Novels

Virgin New Adventures

Audio

Big Finish Productions

Video

BBV Productions

Remakes not based in the Doctor Who universe.

  • More Than a Messiah: The Stranger series.
  • In Memory Alone: The Stranger series, based on Conglomerate.

List of Audio Visuals stories

Pilot episode

  • The Space Wail

Season 1

  • The Time Ravagers
  • Connection 13
  • Conglomerate
  • Cloud of Fear
  • Shadow World

Season 2

  • Maenad
  • The Mutant Phase
  • The Destructor Contract
  • Vilgreth
  • The Trilexia Threat
  • Minuet in Hell
  • Blood Circuit

Season 3

  • Second Solution
  • The Secret of Nematoda
  • Enclave Irrelative
  • More than a Messiah
  • Sword of Orion
  • Carny
  • Planet of Lies

Season 4

  • Deadfall
  • Requiem
  • Cuddlesome
  • Endurance
  • Mythos
  • Truman's Excellent Adventure
  • Subterfuge
  • Geopath
  • Justyce

Season 5

Some further stories were planned but never actually produced.

  • Spawn of the Beast[2]
  • Boom City[3]
  • Legacy
  • Untitled story by Nigel Fairs[4]

External links

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Interview of Nicholas Briggs and Gary Russell on Justyce.org in 2000
  2. ↑ Nick Briggs interview
  3. ↑ Gary Russell interview
  4. ↑ Nigel Fairs interview
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