Peter Davison’s first TARDIS crew faces The Great Beyond in a six-part audio by James Kettle coming in September from Big Finish.

2024’s second Fifth Doctor Adventures release sees the Time Lord banged up in a terrifying deep space prison. He’s not alone, though – among his jail mates are companions Tegan (Janet Fielding), Nyssa (Sarah Sutton), and Adric (Matthew Waterhouse).

The Doctor has been sent to Beyond – for the rest of his natural lives.

In the years after a devastating intergalactic war, a prison facility was set up on a distant planet. To preserve the fragile peace, the most dangerous former combatants are sentenced to life in Beyond. Like the notorious Starclair sisters, whose involvement on both sides of the war is the stuff of legend – as well as a certain Time Lord with a reputation for interfering in things that don’t concern them.

But there’s something else on the planet too. Something that adds an infinite variety of agony to a life sentence on Beyond, and makes the inmates wish for the relative comfort of death. Because what’s coming to those that stay too long in Beyond is almost too hideous to contemplate. Alive and conscious, deprived of your senses and all movement. Just locked in, alone in a darkness that lasts forever.

Doctor Who – The Fifth Doctor Adventures: The Great Beyond guest stars Philip Hurd-Wood, who voiced the Graske in Doctor Who: Music of the Spheres and The Sarah Jane Adventures, as the villainous prison governor Ivan.

Also on the cast list are Maggie Service (Good Omens), Anna Crichlow (Sense & Sensibility), Paksie Vernon (Angels in America), John Hopkins (Masters of the Air), and Andrew Wincott (The Archers).

Producer David Richardson said: “The Fifth Doctor and his companions had brilliant stories on TV, but none of them went beyond four episodes. The Great Beyond is a massive six episodes – three hours of audio – which allows writer James Kettle so much more scope for worldbuilding and character development, and more opportunities to up the stakes.

“This is the Doctor and his friends in prison – but it’s a prison with a difference, on a bleak alien world, and they’ll discover that there’s a terrible price to pay if they are ever to return to their old lives…”

Doctor Who – The Fifth Doctor Adventures: The Great Beyond is now available to pre-order for just £22.99 (collector’s edition CD box set + download) or £18.99 (digital download only), exclusively from http://www.bigfinish.com.

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