Originally published October 5, 2015. Updated April 14, 2018.
We only got to witness the War Doctor for mere minutes during the Doctor Who 50th Anniversary episode “The Day of the Doctor“, however John Hurts presence as the Doctor captured the imagination of Whovians across the globe and made us internally and externally scream for more knowledge on the short life of this incarnation. Well now Big Finish are doing just that with twelve full cast War Doctor audio plays featuring John Hurt himself!
“I have been a huge fan of John since first seeing him in the repeats of I, Claudius in the 1980s and in his Oscar-nominated role as the eponymous The Elephant Man,’ says Big Finish executive producer Jason Haigh-Ellery. ‘Watching his performance in The Day of the Doctor I did find myself fantasising that some far off day we might have the chance to work with him on the audio adventures of Doctor Who and now two short years later it’s happened! John wove a fantastic character together from a great script by Steven Moffat. Now we have the chance to get to know that character more and hear John stretch in the role. We’re all in for a hell of a ride as the War Doctor engages in battle. But who are the greater threat — the Daleks or the Time Lords?”
This saga will be stretching across four box-sets, each containing three linked hour-long episodes, with the first box set called Only The Monstrous, which is being written and directed by Nicholas Briggs, whose many successes for Big Finish include the BBC Audio Award-winning masterpiece Doctor Who: Dark Eyes.
“The story of the Doctor who refuses to call himself the Doctor in order to do the unthinkable upon the ultimate battlefield — all of space and time — was irresistible to me,” says Nicholas. “Such a deeply disturbing and engaging character created by the formidable talents of writer Steven Moffat and actor John Hurt. It’s such a privilege to be working on this.”
Jacqueline Pearce will be appearing in The War Doctor as a Time Lord Cardinal called Ollistra — an arch manipulator who is waging the Time War against the Daleks. Jacqueline’s work includes The Avengers, Callan, Doctor Who: Death Comes to Time, Moondial and Russell T Davies’ Dark Season, and she is known to many science fiction fans for her role as Servalan in the cult classic Blake’s 7.
Only The Monstrous will be released in December 2015, this will be followed in February 2016 by the second volume, called Infernal Devices, which is written by John Dorney, Phil Mulryne and Matt Fitton. The final two volumes – Volumes Three and Four – are currently in pre-production.
“What an utter privilege it is to work with such an iconic actor, playing such a brilliantly devised role,” says producer David Richardson. “This is Doctor Who at its darkest — the era in which our hero casts aside his core values in order to try and save the galaxy in its most terrible hour. We promise bold and brilliant story-telling with gripping character drama, and epic and cinematic audio productions.”
Not only are Big Finish producing the The War Doctor saga, but arriving in November 2017 will be a prequel box set to the saga Doctor Who: The Eighth Doctor — The Time War. Here we will get to see the early stages of the Time War from the Eighth Doctor’s perspective. Paul McGann stars, alongside characters first introduced in the War Doctor box sets.
You can now pre-order Doctor Who: The War Doctor Saga, plus The Eighth Doctor — The Time War from Big Finish.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PL18yMRIfoszEaHYNDTy5C-cH9Oa2gN5ng&v=C_zu6XuI_g4
