Big Finish Productions: Difference between revisions

|founding date  = 1996

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{{you may|Big Finish (The Zygon Isolation)|n1=the DWU company}}

==History ==

According to [[James Goss]], by December 2017, Big Finish has become the second largest producer of original audio dramas in the UK after Radio Four.<ref>https://www.bigfinish.com/news/v/12-days-of-big-finishmas-10-20-years-of-bernice-summerfield</ref>

==Product lines ==

===Classic era ''Doctor Who''===

Big Finish began their ''Doctor Who'' range with a series of [[The Monthly Adventures (audio series)|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 Doctor|Fifth]], [[Sixth Doctor|Sixth]], [[Seventh Doctor|Seventh]], and, from 2001 on, [[Eighth Doctor|Eighth]] Doctors, all portrayed by their original actors. Over the years this range included many classic companions portrayed by their original actors, such as [[Nyssa]], [[Tegan Jovanka|Tegan]], [[Turlough]], [[Peri Brown|Peri]], [[Melanie Bush|Mel]] and [[Ace]], and also introduced new ones such as [[Evelyn Smythe|Evelyn]], [[Charlotte Pollard|Charley]], [[C'rizz]], [[Hex]], [[Thomas Brewster|Brewster]], [[Elizabeth Klein|Klein]], [[Flip Jackson|Flip]], [[Constance Clarke|Constance]] and [[Marc]]. In addition to the monthly releases, the classic Doctors appeared in occasional [[Classic Series - Special Releases|Special Releases]], such as the [[Excelis Saga]], [[Bonus Releases]] for subscribers and specials for ''[[Doctor Who Magazine]]''.

In [[2007 (releases)|2007]], a separate monthly series of one-hour ''[[The Eighth Doctor Adventures (audio series)|The Eighth Doctor Adventures]]'' was created that ran for four series. Initially the range was also broadcast on [[BBC Radio 4 Extra|BBC 7]] and featured [[Sheridan Smith]] as [[Lucie Miller]]. Following the conclusion of the fourth series, the range was reformatted into boxset releases, beginning a run of 16-episode sagas; ''[[Dark Eyes (audio series)|Dark Eyes]]'', ''[[Doom Coalition (audio series)|Doom Coalition]]'', ''[[Ravenous (audio series)|Ravenous]]'' and ''[[Stranded (audio series)|Stranded]]''. The Eighth Doctor would continue to appear very occasionally in the monthly range, including the anthology release ''[[The Company of Friends (audio anthology)|The Company of Friends]]'' which featured companions from the Eighth Doctor's series in [[DWM comic stories|DWM's comic]] and [[BBC Books]].

In [[2009 (releases)|2009]] Big Finish launched a new range adapting scripts that had been abandoned for TV, entitled ''[[The Lost Stories]]''. The range began with the stories originally intended for [[Season 23]] prior to the hiatus and eventually encompassed stories from every classic Doctor. The range came to an end in [[2013 (releases)|2013]] but was later revived in [[2019 (releases)|2019]].

In [[2010 (releases)|2010]], Big Finish revived their ''[[Short Trips (series)|Short Trips]]'' series, which had ended in prose after their licence to publish prose ''Doctor Who'' was not renewed, in an audiobook format. Initially the series was released in volumes, with each volume including stories for each classic Doctor, until [[2015 (releases)|2015]] when it was reformatted into monthly releases. In [[2020 (releases)|2020]] the monthly range was ended and the series returned to volumes, with the first of the new volumes being released in [[2022 (releases)|2022]].

In [[2012 (releases)|2012]], Big Finish released a [[Love and War (audio story)|full cast adaptation]] of the [[Virgin New Adventures|Virgin New Adventure]] Seventh Doctor novel ''[[Love and War (novel)|Love and War]]'' as part of their celebrations of [[Bernice Summerfield]]'s twentieth anniversary. This release led to a series of ''[[Novel Adaptations]]'', including the Fourth Doctor in addition to the Seventh. The range ended in [[2016 (releases)|2016]] with the release of [[Cold Fusion (audio story)|an adaptation]] of ''[[Cold Fusion (novel)|Cold Fusion]]'', featuring the Fifth and Seventh Doctors together. Big Finish later produced a boxset of original stories with characters from the Virgin novels, entitled ''[[The Seventh Doctor: The New Adventures: Volume One|The Seventh Doctor: The New Adventures]]''.

In the 2010s, the classic Doctors began to appear in boxsets outside of the monthly range including a Seventh Doctor crossover with ''[[UNIT (audio series)|UNIT]]'' entitled ''[[Dominion (audio story)|Dominion]]'', a [[The Fifth Doctor Box Set|box set]] featuring the [[Season 19]] crew to mark [[Matthew Waterhouse]]'s return as [[Adric]], a release expanding on the Sixth Doctor's [[regeneration]], entitled ''[[The Sixth Doctor: The Last Adventure]]'', which gave Colin Baker the chance to perform a regeneration story for his Doctor, and a Fifth Doctor crossover with ''[[Graceless (audio series)|Graceless]]'', ''[[Wicked Sisters (audio anthology)|Wicked Sisters]]''.

As of 2022, Big Finish has been successful in recruiting every surviving classic-era companion actor to reprise their original roles. In addition, both "companion" actors from the 1996 TV movie, [[Daphne Ashbrook]] and [[Yee Jee Tso]], have recorded several ''Who'' releases for the company, but portraying different characters, as the company does not have the rights to non-Doctor movie characters.

====Adventures of the first four Doctors====

Alongside their full cast dramas, Big Finish launched a monthly series entitled ''[[The Companion Chronicles]]'' in [[2007 (releases)|2007]], featuring hour-long "enhanced audiobooks" narrated primarily by former companions of the Doctor. The story's companion narrates the adventure, relating the events to the listener in-character, while usually 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 unwilling to participate at the time. As a result, all eight "classic series" Doctors were now represented in some way within their range.  

In 2012, following a [[The Fourth Doctor Box Set|box set]] of [[The Lost Stories|Lost Stories]], Tom Baker returned to the role of the Fourth Doctor in a brand new series of ''[[The Fourth Doctor Adventures]]'', completing the set of surviving "Classic ''Who''" Doctor actors. Unfortunately, by that time companion actors [[Elisabeth Sladen]], [[Ian Marter]] and [[Nicholas Courtney]] were all 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]] and [[Lalla Ward]] reprising their roles [[Leela]] and [[Romana]] respectively, with occasional appearances by [[John Leeson]] as [[K9]] and [[Matthew Waterhouse]] as [[Adric]]. Big Finish also began to incorporate the first three Doctors into ''[[The Lost Stories]]'' range, featuring larger casts including original companion actors, and using such actors to provide narration and lines for the Doctors.  

===Revived era ''Doctor Who''===

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 [[Last Great Time War|Time War]], most notably ''[[Dark Eyes (audio anthology)|Dark Eyes]]'' in [[2012 (releases)|2012]] and ''[[Gallifrey VI]]'' in 2013. For ''Gallifrey'', Big Finish was also granted special permission to use the [[Bronze Dalek|revival series Daleks]] on the packaging. The "origin" story ''[[The Beginning (audio 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 (TV story)|The Name of the Doctor]]'' and to implicitly reference [[Clara Oswald]]. Additionally, Big Finish depicted an apparent future Doctor's TARDIS on the cover of ''[[Dominion (audio story)|Dominion]]'' with the exterior of the [[The Doctor's TARDIS|Eleventh Doctor's]]. However, many references in the past had been able to get around licensing restrictions through vagueness and implicature: the [[2006 (releases)|2006]] story ''[[The Kingmaker (audio story)|The Kingmaker]]'' mentioned a [[Ninth Doctor|"northern chap with big ears"]]; the [[2010 (releases)|2010]] story ''[[Klein's Story (audio story)|Klein's Story]]'' quoted from ''[[Time Crash (TV story)|Time Crash]]'', referencing the [[TARDIS control console|TARDIS console]]'s "leopard skin desktop theme," whilst another, ''[[City of Spires (audio story)|City of Spires]]'', quoting ''[[Rose (TV story)|Rose]]'', referenced the "assembled hordes of [[Genghis Khan]]" and their attempt to enter the TARDIS. Later stories such as ''[[Luna Romana (audio story)|Luna Romana]]'', along with numerous ''[[Gallifrey (audio series)|Gallifrey]]'' and ''[[The New Adventures of Bernice Summerfield (audio series)|The New Adventures of Bernice Summerfield]]'' releases more directly referenced an escalation in conflict on Gallifrey. Finally, the company's [[Damaged Goods (audio story)|audio adaptation]] of the novel ''[[Damaged Goods (novel)|Damaged Goods]]'' directly referenced the [[Torchwood Institute]] and the Last Great Time War.

Around August 2014, ([[BFX]]: ''[[Extinction (audio anthology)|Extinction]]'') it was revealed that the terms of their licence changed and that it was now extended to encompass a part of the "new series." <ref name="New Series DW June">{{cite web |url=http://www.bigfinish.com/news/v/bf27june |title=More New Series Doctor Who from Big Finish |date of source=27 June 2015 |website name=Big Finish Productions |accessdate=28 June 2015}}</ref> Later in the beginning of 2018, [[Nicholas Briggs]] confirmed during a Q&A on his [[Facebook]] that Big Finish's licence was further extended and now included the [[Twelfth Doctor]] era.<ref name="Nicholas Briggs Q&A 1">{{cite web|url=https://www.facebook.com/NicholasBriggsOfficial/posts/1705719019481094?reply_comment_id=1705910052795324|title=Nicholas Briggs Facebook Q&A|date of source=2 January 2018 |website name=Facebook |accessdate=5 February 2018}}</ref><ref name="Nicholas Briggs Q&A 2">{{cite web|url=https://www.facebook.com/NicholasBriggsOfficial/posts/1705719019481094?reply_comment_id=1705911532795176|title=Nicholas Briggs Facebook Q&A|date of source=2 January 2018 |website name=Facebook |accessdate=5 February 2018}}</ref>  

In 2014 Big Finish announced that they would be producing stories featuring [[Winston Churchill]], [[Strax]], [[River Song]], members of [[Unified Intelligence Taskforce|UNIT]] featured in the new series, and a new box set entitled ''[[Classic Doctors, New Monsters: Volume One|Classic Doctors, New Monsters]]'', featuring new series aliens such as the [[Weeping Angel]]s, [[Judoon]] and [[Sycorax]], and the [[Sontaran]]s 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 television series ''[[Torchwood (TV series)|Torchwood]]''.<ref name="New Series DW June" />

In [[2016 (releases)|2016]] [[The Tenth Doctor Adventures: Volume One|a set]] of ''[[The Tenth Doctor Adventures (audio series)|Tenth Doctor Adventures]]'' starring [[David Tennant]] and [[Catherine Tate]] was released, marking the company's first true foray into "New Series" ''Doctor Who''.<ref name="The Tenth Doctor Adventures">{{cite web |url=http://www.bigfinish.com/news/v/doctor-who-the-tenth-doctor-adventures |title=Doctor Who: The Tenth Doctor Adventures |date of source=26 October 2015 |website name=Big Finish Productions |accessdate=26 October 2015}}</ref> Later volumes of ''The Tenth Doctor Adventures'' featured [[Billie Piper]] reprising her role as [[Rose Tyler]], [[Alex Kingston]] as [[River Song]], and also included characters established in other Big Finish ranges, such as [[Anya Kingdom]] from ''The Fourth Doctor Adventures''.  

In [[2017 (releases)|2017]] Big Finish began releasing a series of partially narrated stories, ''[[The Doctor Chronicles]]'' featuring the Ninth, Tenth and Eleventh Doctors, with [[Nicholas Briggs]] and [[Jacob Dudman]] performing the narration and Doctor's dialogue. This allowed Big Finish to tell stories with Doctors whose actors were not currently contributing to the company. The range expanded to include the Twelfth Doctor. In [[2021 (releases)|2021]] the ''Chronicles'' series was changed to a full cast format, with Dudman now playing the Eleventh and Twelfth Doctors. Beginning with the Tenth and Eleventh Doctors in ''[[The Jago & Litefoot Revival (audio story)|The Jago & Litefoot Revival]]'', revived series Doctors also began to appear in the ''Short Trips'' range and were later included in ''The Audio Novels'', beginning with ''[[Emancipation of the Daleks (audio story)|Emancipation of the Daleks]]''.

In 2021, [[Jonathon Carley]] debuted as a recast War Doctor in a new range exploring the younger days of the character following ''[[The Night of the Doctor (TV story)|The Night of the Doctor]]'', entitled ''The War Doctor Begins''.  

In 2021 [[Christopher Eccleston]] made his Big Finish debut as the [[Ninth Doctor]] in a new series entitled ''[[The Ninth Doctor Adventures]]''. This leaves only three of the shows' headlining actors left to partake in this aspect of the ''Doctor Who'' franchise ([[Matt Smith]], [[Peter Capaldi]] & [[Jodie Whittaker]], respectively).

===Spin-offs===

===Books===

==Other work==

More recently Big Finish has also produced a number of original and reworked releases based on the works of celebrated TV producers [[Gerry Anderson|Gerry]] and [[Sylvia Anderson]], including ''[[Captain Scarlet (TV series)|Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons]],'' ''[[Space: 1999]]'' and ''Terrahawks'' (the latter of which was a direct continuation of the original TV series, rather than an adaptation of novels or a remake like the former two). It has also produced wholly original comedy and sci-fi audio dramas.

==''Doctor Who'' related series==

===Legend===

*To distinguish them from officially recognised ranges, series titles are on a light blue background, following either a small dark blue rectangle or, in case of subseries of the ''Torchwood'' range, the name of the range. The latter treatment is also applied to named subranges of the ''Bernice Summerfiled'' range.

*Ranges and series marked "DW" are under ''Doctor Who'' license.

*Ranges and series marked "NS" are parts of ''The New Series'' range and include licensed elements from the post-2005 series.

*The "DW" and "NS" designations are not applicable to audio ranges and series based on the television spin-offs ''Torchwood'' and ''Class''.

*An empty polygon represents the start of a range or series; a filled polygon represents its end; years with releases in between are marked with filled circles.

*Only the first release of a story counts. Neither individual re-releases such as ''[[Cyberman: The Complete Series 1 and 2]]'' nor re-release ranges such as ''[[Short Trips Rarities]]'' are represented in the table.

*Special and bonus stand-alone stories such as ''[[The Sixth Doctor: The Last Adventure]]'' are not represented in the table. Neither are subscriber specials released alongside another story.

*More generally, "collected" ranges that are created postfactum by collecting stories from other ranges featuring a particular Doctor are not represented in the table.

*"Bonus Releases" and "Special Releases", representing a mix of the previous two situations, are excluded too.

*Books are not represented in the table.

*The ''[[Bernice Summerfield (series)|Bernice Summerfield]]'' range is broken into three subranges: Single Releases (1998–2010), Box Sets (2011–2013, 2018) and ''[[The New Adventures of Bernice Summerfield (audio series)|The New Adventures of Bernice Summerfield]]'' (2014–2017). They are distinguished by vertical shifts and varying polygons used (including for the years in between).

*The symbol ✹ is used in the ''Torchwood'' range to represent years that had both regular releases and special releases not represented in other rows. An example of such a special release is ''[[The Torchwood Archive (audio story)|The Torchwood Archive]]''. By contrast, ''[[Before the Fall (audio anthology)|Before the Fall]]'' is represented in the row of ''[[Torchwood One (audio series)|Torchwood One]]'' subrange.

*Series that are not presented as ranges on the Big Finish website, such as ''The Third Doctor Adventures'' are identified based on the combination of a recognisable name and designated consecutive [[List of production codes#Big Finish original|production codes]].

==External links==

==Footnotes==