Sci-Fi Bulletin: Exploring the Universes of SF, Fantasy, Horror and Spy-fi!

Paul McGann is back for more adventures in May in a new box set entitled Echoes.

Liv Chenka (Nicola Walker) and Helen Sinclair (Hattie Morahan) star alongside McGann’s Eighth Doctor for the first time since 2022’s Connections, in three new stories that take them to mysterious new planets and to early twentieth-century England.

As the Doctor, Liv and Helen explore the universe, they come across lost souls, troubled minds and long-kept secrets. From a lonely world with birdsong but no birds, to an English university whose undergraduates tell ghostly tales, and a distant galaxy where a utopian society lives in the shadow of enormous creatures, the TARDIS crew are haunted by echoes of past, present and future…

Birdsong by Tim Foley

The TARDIS arrives on an empty world where two scouts await the rest of their colony. Except this world may not be as empty as everybody thinks. There’s a figure in the woods – and a strangely familiar sound… As the Doctor and his friends learn more about the planet’s inhabitants, the birdsong they hear becomes a deadly chorus.

Lost Hearts by Lauren Mooney & Stewart Pringle

Michaelmas term, 1903. In one of England’s ancient universities, strange apparitions float between quads and cloisters. While Liv and Helen protect a naïve undergraduate from a sinister society, the Doctor finds a ghost-hunting ally. One who happens to be the era’s foremost chronicler of things that go bump in the night…

Slow Beasts by Dan Rebellato

The Doctor takes Liv and Helen to see one of the Wonders of the Outer Galaxy – to Ran-Zoan, where immense alien figures loom over the plains and settlements of the Renn. But the Slow Beasts hide a secret – a secret that, once unleashed, spells doom for this entire world.

Writer Lauren Mooney said: “I love writing for Liv and Helen. They’re two of my favourite companions of the Big Finish range, and in fact overall. Their dynamic with each other and with the Doctor is really interesting. So of course, what a pleasure it is to torture and torment them by putting them into a quite bleak world!”

Actor Hattie Morahan added: “It’s so rare to have a character that lasts – it’s been almost ten years that I’ve been playing Helen. I’ve played her through so many different situations and so many stages of her growing friendship with Liv and the Doctor that it’s like slipping on an old jacket or pair of shoes.”

Doctor Who – The Eighth Doctor Adventures: Echoes is now available to pre-order as a collector’s edition 3-disc CD box set (+ download for just £22.99) or as a digital download only (for just £18.99), exclusively at http://www.bigfinish.com.