The voracious plant life has its sights set on domination in Planet Krynoid: Nightfall from Big Finish Productions.
Ever busy exploring The Worlds of Doctor Who, audio producers Big Finish have revealed details of a new horror-tinged spin-off. Following the news of Zygon Century, which kicks off in January, 2025 also heralds the revival of another nightmarish Fourth Doctor era monster.
The Krynoid, carnivorous plant life from the Tom Baker classic ‘The Seeds of Doom’, has only made a couple of returns in official Doctor Who media – on audio and in a short story collection. Now, they will dominate their own series of audio dramas; Planet Krynoid begins with 3-episode box set titled Nightfall.
The story stars Reece Shearsmith (Inside No. 9, The League of Gentlemen), making his Big Finish debut. Of course, the horror icon is no stranger to Doctor Who, having appeared on screen in 2015’s ‘Sleep No More’, opposite Peter Capaldi’s Doctor.
In addition, Paul McGann’s Eighth Doctor will appear in the set’s second tale.
Here’s the synopsis for Planet Krynoid: Nightfall
For a hundred years, Sunlight has been a beacon of hope shining across a troubled galaxy, an artificial paradise on a frozen world offering safe haven for the super-rich, and employment for even the poorest of labourers. At least, that’s what the adverts say.
Unfortunately for Governor Robert Hodan, one of his engineers has just discovered a pair of strange-looking pods lodged in a satellite. So Sunlight, that glittering verdant oasis, will never be the same again.
Because, as the Doctor knows only too well, on planets where the Krynoid gets established, the vegetation eats the animals…
The box set’s three episodes are ‘Sunlight’ by Jonathan Morris, ‘Sunset’ by Jonathan S Powell and ’Darkness’ by Chris Chapman.
Reece Shearsmith said:
“I know a lot of actors on Big Finish’s roster – David Warner was a great friend, and he used to love doing them and would tell me about them: ‘Why haven’t you done one?’ So I was thrilled to be asked to be in this. It’s a really huge drama, it feels a proper disaster movie of the 1970s, like The Poseidon Adventure – things just get worse and worse.”
Nightfall’s cast of characters also includes xenobiologist Bryn Forrester (Melody Chikakane Brown) and the impoverished Hart family (Sarah Whitehouse, Ian Conningham, and Nye Occomore).
Producer Jonathan S Powell added:
“Planet Krynoid is Doctor Who’s answer to The Last of Us and The Walking Dead, a heart-stopping vision of society’s collapse under the weight of one of television’s most terrifying creations: the Krynoid.
“The Krynoids themselves are terrifying because they do that great sci-fi thing of inverting the ordinary and making you petrified of pot plants. More than that though, they’re a sentient infection utterly antithetical to our existence, for which we are woefully unprepared, which makes them the perfect monster to explore today, half a century on from their debut.
“I adore The Seeds of Doom – not just for its B-movie brilliance, but for the creeping feeling it evokes that this time, for the first time, the Doctor really might lose. That’s what we’ve tried to convey in this set, that the gloves are off and nobody is safe.”
The Worlds of Doctor Who – Planet Krynoid: Nightfall is now available to pre-order on Collector’s Edition CD (+download), or download only, exclusively from Big Finish. It’s out in April 2025.