The fifteenth run of The Fourth Doctor Adventures with Big Finish brings the Doctor and Sarah Jane back to Earth for a reunion with UNIT. 

After foiling the Zygon invasion as the start of season 13, Doctor Who rather loosened its Earthbound shackles. Despite a few visits back home, there were no more fully-fledged stories with the familiar faces of the UNIT family.

However, with Sadie Miller on board in her mother’s role of Sarah Jane Smith, with Christopher Naylor’s Harry and Jon Culshaw as the Brigadier, there’s nothing to stop Big Finish imagining occasions where the Doctor made house calls in his role as Scientific Adviser…

The Ministry of Death

Robert Valentine’s perfectly pitched tale begins with the Doctor and Sarah responding to just such a summons. Arriving in the right time, but wrong place, we’re soon reunited with Harry Sullivan (who places this encounter after ‘The Android Invasion’) and later Brigadier himself.

The Doctor’s expertise is needed to help puzzle out the impossible death of an electronics expert who appears to have died from a lightning strike. While indoors.

Before too long, they’re dealing with a spate of mysterious deaths, all appropriate to their work, including a frozen cryogenics specialist frozen and a computer expert crushed by their computer.

As these events play out, there’s a testy dynamic between the Doctor and the Brigadier which is intriguing. We also see events from the villain’s side; a heavily accentled Carolyn Seymour plays the tormented Diana Stravius whose monstrous henchmen enact the murders.

The Inhuman Empire

Phil Mulyrne’s story leads on from the previous one, with the Brigadier keeping the TARDIS from the Doctor and forcing him to help with the clean-up. Whie he and Harry are knee-deep in paperwork; Sarah’s off meeting Alison Carmichael (Jayne Ashbourne), an old friend who works at the National Museum and knows she has a passion for “rum goings-on.”

We’re drawn into the tale of a dodgy museum curator who seeks to reunite a set of Abyssinian obelisks. While the Doctor’s soon on the case too with the Brigadier, some good old-fashioned red tape gets in the way.

This is an entertaining tale which doesn’t outstay its welcome and manages a surprise or two as creatures come to life at the museum. We loved the Doctor’s mock outage that Sarah has gone out to tea without him, and his repeated demands for a Knickerbocker Glory!

In the guest cast. John Heffernan entertains as the deluded Carson Baylis, while Nick Ellsworth has fun with the Museum’s stuffed-shirt director Sir William Kenyon.

In Summary

While we never enjoyed repeat appearences for this line-up of friends and allies, this boxset does a superb job of imagining how it might have been. Tom Baker appears on buoyant form, as ever, and the surrounding core cast recreate their characters brilliantly.

The Fourth Doctor and Sarah with UNIT brings us gothic horror vibes, a foot in the Pertwee era and the Doctor grudgingly rendering his assistance. Mission accomplished!

Doctor Who – The Fourth Doctor Adventures: The Ministry of Death is out now from Big Finish.

Catch up with our reviews of previous series here.

Next: Lethal Progress

Series 15 continues in June 2026 with ‘Lethal Progress’ which contains three 2-part stories: ‘Green and Pleasant Planet’ by Tim Foley, ‘The Continuum’ by John Dorney and ‘The Audience’ by Lizzie Hopley.

Doctor Who – The Fourth Doctor Adventures: Lethal Progress is available to pre-order now from Big Finish.