Big Finish are bringing us two further alternate takes on familiar tales from the Fourth Doctor’s first season.
With most of the best-known “lost” Doctor Who stories now produced on audio – that’s stories which for one reason or another originally didn’t make it to the small screen – audio producers Big Finish have begun to cast the net a little wider.
May 2021 brought us ‘Return of the Cybermen’, a production based on writer Gerry Davis’s original scripts for the story which eventually became ‘Revenge of the Cybermen’. With that tale gaining a welcome reception, Tom Baker’s Fourth Doctor is back for more in the coming months. Once again, he’ll be ably assisted by Sarah Jane Smith (Sadie Miller) and Harry Sullivan (Christopher Naylor).
Daleks! Genesis of Terror
First up, in May, is ‘Daleks! Genesis of Terror’ which adapts Terry Nation’s original plans for the story which became the beloved ‘Genesis of the Daleks’. The story’s first episode is presented as a cast reading with Nicholas Briggs providing stage directions. Then the adventure continues with individual cast members reading the storylines for subsequent instalments.
In a paved garden outside time, the Doctor is presented with an awful prophecy: the conquest of all time by the Daleks. To prevent this terrible fate, the Time Lords have decided on a radical course — to weaponise time themselves, and destroy the Daleks before they were ever created. And they want the Doctor to carry out this extraordinary task!
Soon, he and his companions Sarah and Harry are on the battle-ravaged planet Skaro, where a war has been raging for centuries. The war is now waged by teenagers using the last surviving weapons. Everything is desperate. But the Kaled’s chief scientist has a new weapon that he thinks might just change everything…
Producer Simon Guerrier says of the tale: “The Daleks! Genesis of Terror script is largely the same basic story [as seen on TV] but with some key differences that are really striking – which I won’t spoil here! This has been thrilling to work on and quite unusual.”
The story also comes with an interview of Doctor Who producer Phillip Hinchcliffe by broadcaster Samira Ahmed.
Doctor Who and the Ark
In June ‘Doctor Who and the Ark’ follows, adapting original scripts by writer John Lucarotti; the story became ‘The Ark in Space’ after an extensive rewrite by script editor Robert Holmes.
A space station orbiting Earth has lain dormant for 8,476 years. Its systems are clogged with dust, so the human crew kept frozen in cryogenic storage have never woken up.
When the Doctor, Sarah and Harry arrive to resuscitate the sleepers, they discover something else on board. A small, golf-ball like object gives Harry an electric shock, and has a more sinister impact on the awakening crew. Soon, the Doctor and his friends are battling to save the space station — and Earth — from a ravenous puffball!
Writer Jonathan Morris says:
“This is the chance to hear a Doctor Who story from the writer of [the TV stories] Marco Polo, The Aztecs, and The Massacre. It’s a story that was presumed to be completely lost and it paved the way for one of the all-time classics, The Ark in Space.”
“It has the same basic setting, and a couple of similar set-pieces, but it’s otherwise a very, very different story. Even if you think you know what it’s about from summaries given in behind-the-scenes guides you don’t know it at all. It is a strange and wild ride along a road not taken.”
Doctor Who – The Lost Stories: Daleks! Genesis of Terror and Doctor Who and the Ark are available to preorder now from Big Finish.