"To catch a wolf, I may have unleashed a tiger." - The Doctor (Ghost Light)

Reviews of the Doctor Who Audio Adventures

INTRO

Doctor Who is the world's longest running sci-fi television and novel series. It is now in it's thrity-seventh year, with twenty-six of them on television. The only sci-fi show to come close to that record is, of course, Star Trek, with fifteen years (the orginal series' three years, and twelve years so far with The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine and Voyager).

22nd November 1963: President Kennedy was assasinated, and British literature lost one of its most famous names. C.S Lewis was taken into glory. The next day, a new legend was born...Doctor Who. As a TV show Doctor Who ran through twenty-six season until December 6th 1989 when it was taken off air, although it is curious to note that the BBC never made any official statement about it's cancellation. It was some seven years later that Doctor Who was to return to the television screens. 1996 saw the premier of the Doctor Who TV movie, a co-production between America and Britain. Now (three years after the movie, and ten years after the last full series) Doctor Who continues in the form of audio adventures, produced by Big Finish Productions, the first company to recieve a lincense from the BBC since they took Doctor Who in-house at the beginning of 1997. At the moment they feature Peter Davison (fifth Doctor), Colin Baker (sixth Doctor) and Sylvester McCoy(seventh Doctor) in stories set during the TV stories. Hopefully in time we will also see Tom Baker reprise his role as the fourth Doctor. And, more importantly, Paul McGann as the eighth Doctor. And all I can say is, it is good to have Doctor Who back, but, did it ever go away?

Across three decades Doctor Who has existed in the form of novels. Up until 1991 they were based on the television stories, but from that year on they took on a new form. Full length orignal novels, continuing the series from the point where the 1989 season left off. Even now these novels are still being released monthly.

From 1991 to April 1997 they covered the gap between season twenty-six and the TV movie. But from May 1997 the novels continued the series from the point where the TV movie left off, with the eighth Doctor travelling all on his own. Since 1994 there has been another series of novels to companion the first, a series of novels dealing with Doctor Who's history, telling stories set between various televison shows.