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

… of the Powell Estate, that is.

Christopher Eccleston and Billie Piper head to 2036 in The Ninth Doctor Adventures: The Last Days of the Powell Estate – and Rose’s old home is haunted by a terrifying figure.

In the second story of this new season – The Last Days of the Powell Estate by Timothy X Atack, due for release in October – the time-travelling duo jump forward three decades into Rose’s future.

But in 2036, the Powell Estate is nothing like how Rose knows it. It lies abandoned, a place the people of London dare not enter.

But there’s help on hand, as Rose recruits over-the-phone support from her mother Jackie (Camille Coduri) and Jackie’s friend Brainy Betty (Mandi Symonds, The Wheel of Time). Will Jackie and Betty be able to help Rose survive a threat that resonates across the present and future of the Powell Estate?

South London, 2036. The Doctor and Rose team up with an urban explorer to investigate the case of Mr Fingers, an invisible killer haunting an abandoned corner of the city. If you feel a hand on your shoulder: don’t look around…

The Last Days of the Powell Estate guest stars Harki Bhambra (Our Girl, The Good Karma Hospital) as the urban explorer and influencer Ellis Coates, who teams up with the Doctor and Rose to explore the abandoned tower blocks.

Writer Timothy X Atack said: “I’ve got a book called Abandoned Places and it’s a photographer who travels the world and finds hotels that are slowly rotting away or islands that used to be inhabited but have been left to the elements. These amazing photographs were an inspiration for what might happen with an urban explorer, in more of an influencer space, and from that a frisson with the Doctor and with Rose started to build up in a very natural way.

“And I have this deep love of Doctor Who’s more eldritch, Lovecraftian villains, especially when you end up not really knowing any more about them at the end than at the beginning. Sometimes you just want something that hates, and that’s what Mr Fingers is. He despises life.”

Director Helen Goldwyn added: “We’re seeing different incarnations of the Powell Estate, this familiar setting from the TV series, and exploring more of what that community might look and feel like.  Here, we get to see the future version of the estate, which is a very bleak, dystopian vision. It’s a really cleverly constructed script where you get that picture of the modern flat and the destroyed flat – it creates such a vivid visual image in your mind as you’re listening.”

Doctor Who – The Ninth Doctor Adventures: The Last Days of the Powell Estate is now available to pre-order from just £9.99 (download to own) or £11.99 (download to own + collector’s edition CD), exclusively from http://www.bigfinish.com. Please note: the collector’s edition CD is strictly limited to 1,500 copies and will not be repressed.