TheChroniclesofTimePodcast

Big Finish is delighted to announce that Kate Stewart and her UNIT team from the Doctor Who TV series will be starring in a brand new series of audio dramas, in a licensing deal with BBC Worldwide.

Kate is the daughter of Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, and Head of Scientific Research at the Unified Intelligence Taskforce, which investigates and confronts alien attacks on the planet Earth. The role is portrayed by Jemma Redgrave (Dracula, Frankie, Cold Blood) who has appeared opposite Matt Smith and Peter Capaldi on television, and returns for the audio series.

“We’re thrilled that Jemma is on board for our brand new UNIT adventures,” says series producer David Richardson, “and we feel privileged to work within the universe of New Series Doctor Who for the first time. UNIT: Extinction will showcase all the excitement, drama and wit that viewers of Doctor Who love.”

“Having worked with the greatly missed Nicholas Courtney and his magnificent portrayal of the Brigadier since the early days of Big Finish, it is wonderful to see the return of UNIT under the Brig’s daughter,” says executive producer Jason Haigh-Ellery. “We are all very excited about bringing UNIT back to Big Finish with the next generation and look forward immensely to working with Jemma again, who appears in this month’s Doctor Who main range release Doctor Who - Mistfall.”

“I’m really excited to hear Jemma and her team battling to save the Earth,” says executive producer Nick Briggs. “They’ve been such an important part of the many exciting things to come out of the Doctor Who TV series in recent years.”

Additional cast members for the first box set, UNIT: Extinction, will be revealed later. This first box set release comprises four hours of adventure, in which Kate and her team confront an alien invasion by the Nestene Consciousness and its army of plastic Autons.

UNIT: Extinction will be released in November 2015, and is available for specially-priced pre-order, with all pre-orders getting a copy of Nicholas Courtney’s memoirs A Soldier in Time as a free download as Supplementary content in Big Finish accounts.

CYBER MONDAY SALE!!!

"It is a very pretty painting."

Thirty Days of Big Finish - Day 10: Most character development (TV companion)

Throughout the Gallifrey series, taking place decades after she leaves the Doctor, Leela gets a chance to grow and change. Her husband, Andred, becomes a stranger to her; she befriends Time Lords and finds her place in Gallifreyan society; she shares her wisdom at the Academy, learns to see the world from Romana’s perspective, reluctantly teams up with the Celestial Intervention Agency and comes to accept things in life that, back in “Horror Of Fang Rock”, would have been the end of her. Although she never stops being Leela, she adapts and develops and becomes a very well-rounded character. 

All that would have been interesting enough by itself, but Big Finish pushes it a few steps further. Early on in the Gallifrey series, Leela also travels back to Earth on a mission to team up with Jago & Litefoot, and befriends the two in the process — as well as developing a close companionship with the Sixth Doctor. Her new perspective on Victorian society, after having spent years and years living with Time Lords, is incredibly interesting. 

I had a desire to quickly sketch some Tom Baker Doctor Who.

I’m thrilled that you want to write for Doctor Who. It definitely needs some women writing for it.

If you’re serious — and I assume you are: the BBC can be stubborn, yes, but possibly not as stubborn as you imagine. They really want writers. They may be more stubborn about Doctor Who, mostly because it’s their flagship show. If they are hiring a writer, they want to know that they are hiring someone who can do it, who, having pitched a great idea will, at least, turn in a script that they can shoot.

So my advice to anyone who really wants to write specifically for Doctor Who would be, write stuff that’s going to get you noticed, write stuff as a calling card. Write plays. Make fantastic, well-written, small cheap films with friends, write short stories and books and comics, do things so that when you ask to write Doctor Who they get excited. It’s the BBC’s flagship show, and if you are going to write an episode, make them want you. 

I remember, when I was about 20, walking past the BBC in Portland Place. Back then they had a doorman outside, and I went over to him and said, “How would I write for the BBC?”

"You can’t, mate," he told me. " You ‘ave to know someone who’s already in ‘ere."

These days I know how not-true that is, and how not-true it was then. The BBC want scripts and writers, and even, now, have websites which tell you how to  submit/format etc your work, including unsolicited scripts.

My reply about “nobody to hug” was mostly wistful, by the way, and not, as I’ve seen it interpreted, an attack on the Doctor Who team or anyone on the team.

In the six years I’ve been working with the Doctor Who team, the producers and script editors I’ve directly worked with (four out of six of whom have been women) have had a lot of attention on getting women writers onto the team. They’ve reached out to a lot of women writers — I know that Steven Moffat has personally been in touch with a lot of female writers and been defeated over and over by scheduling problems, and people saying no, and been as frustrated as anybody (probably much more frustrated as he’s the one reaching out). It’s a priority for them too.

To get started, head over to http://www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/. 

The BBC Writersroom informs new writers about how to submit unsolicited Drama and Comedy scripts to the BBC. They are on the lookout for writers of any age and experience who show real potential.

BBC Writersroom will read all unsolicited scripts for BBC Films, TV Drama, Children’s Drama, TV Comedy, Radio Entertainment and Radio Drama. They accept unsolicited scripts written for film, television, radio or stage.

Please choose your own favorite way to describe these gifs:

The Tenth Doctor putting on the Fifth Doctor’s coat

David Tennant putting on Peter Davison’s Doctor’s coat

David Tennant putting on his father-in-law’s coat

A Doctor Who fan putting on the coat belonging to one of his favorite Doctors

Father of The Doctor’s Daughter putting on the coat belonging to the father of The Doctor’s Daughter