William Hartnell’s legacy as the First Doctor has lived on in the years since he left Doctor Who. Now the latest actors to take on Doctor Who’s earliest stars are reuniting to continue that legacy for a new series of audio dramas.
Big Finish has announced a new volume of stories featuring David Bradley in the starring role as the First Doctor, continuing the role he played in the 50th Anniversary docudrama An Adventure in Space and Time—a role he’ll reprise in Peter Capaldi’s final Doctor Who story this Christmas. But The First Doctor Adventures will also include a few more familiar faces, with Jamie Glover, Jemma Powell, and Claudia Grant returning to reprise their own Adventure in Space and Time Roles as the Doctor’s first companions: Ian, Barbara, and his granddaughter Susan.
The first volume will contain two full-cast audio stories: “The Destination Wars” by Matt Fitton, and “The Great White Hurricane” by Guy Adams. The stories will blend the Doctor and his fellow wanderers in the fourth dimension meeting strange new alien beings with historical stories befitting Doctor Who’s original mandate as an an (occasionally) educational children’s program—but will also include some groundbreaking new additions to the First Doctor’s televisual adventures, including the first ever encounter between the First Doctor and a new incarnation of The Master, seen on the cover above and played by James Dreyfus.
It will already be a delight to see Bradley in action as The Doctor again on TV for “Twice Upon a Time” this Christmas, but getting his take on the Time Lord that started it all continue with new adventures beyond that is wonderful. The First Doctor Adventures’ first volume will be out in January 2018, with a second volume following in July.