New Weekly Who Episodes for 2009
(
15/12/2008)
It may be a
Doctor Who lite year on television for 2009, but you can still get your weekly fix of excitement with the
Audio Adventures of Doctor Who.
Paul McGann and
Sheridan Smith are back as the
Eighth Doctor and Lucie Season 3 for a new series of adventures in time and space. This time, though, the stories will be released for download every
Saturday night in half-hour episodes, for sixteen consecutive weeks from
Saturday 7th March. Each complete two-part story will subsequently be available on CD as normal, with one a month being released from March. Plus, there will be a bonus ninth adventure which will be released as a
Christmas special in December 2009.
The season begins with
Orbis by Alan Barnes and Nicholas Briggs, which picks up from the previous season’s cliffhanger in
The Vengeance of Morbius. Guest stars for this story include
Andrew Sachs (Manuel in Fawlty Towers) as Crassostrea and
Laura Solon (Ruddy Hell! It’s Harry and Paul) as Selta.
The Krynoids (The Seeds of Doom, 1976) return in
Hothouse, a cautionary ecological tale by Jonathan Morris.
Nigel Planer (The Young Ones, The Colour of Magic) plays Alex Marlowe, while
Lysette Anthony (Dark Shadows, Dracula: Dead and Loving It) is Hazel Bright.
There’s death and mystery in a small German town in the year 1827 in
The Beast of Orlok by Barnaby Edwards. The impressive guest cast includes
Miriam Margolyes (Being Julia, Happy Feet, the Harry Potter films) as Frau Tod and
Samuel Barnett (The History Boys, Beautiful People) as Hans.
The Doctor and Lucie are then thrown into a war in deep space in
Wirrn Dawn by Nicholas Briggs, which sees the return of the parasitic insect monsters from The Ark in Space (1975).
Colin Salmon (Hex, Alien vs Predator, Resident Evil, Die Another Day and Dr Moon in Doctor Who: Silence in the Library and Forest of the Dead) is trooper Salway, while
Daniel Anthony (Clyde in The Sarah Jane Adventures) is Delong.
Renowned comics writer and editor Pat Mills contributes the script for
The Scapegoat, which is set in Nazi occupied France during World War II. The cast list includes
Samantha Bond (Miss Moneypenny in the Pierce Brosnan Bond movies, Ms Wormwood in The Sarah Jane Adventures) as Mother,
Clifford Rose (Secret Army, Doctor Who: Warrior’s Gate) as Major Treptow and
Paul Rhys (The Cazalets, Hellraiser: Deader) as Max Paul.
Jonathan Morris contributes his second story of the season with
The Cannibalists, which is set on a space station in the future.
Phil Davies (Bleak House, The Curse of Steptoe, Lucius in Doctor Who: The Fires of Pompeii) plays Titus,
Phill Jupitus (Rex the Runt, Never Mind the Buzzcocks) plays Servo while
Nigel Lambert (Hardin in the 1980 Doctor Who story The Leisure Hive) is Diode.
The series comes to a climactic conclusion with the two-part
The Eight Truths and
Worldwide Web by Eddie Robson, in which the Doctor once again faces his Eight Leg adversaries from
Planet of the Spiders (1975). Attempting to conquer their arachnophobia for this story are
Stephen Moore (Brassed Off, Mersey Beat and Marvin the Paranoid Android in The Hitch-Hikers’ Guide to the Galaxy) as Clark Goodman,
Sophie Winkleman (Peep Show) as Kelly Westwood and
Sanjeev Bhaskar (The Kumars at No 42, Notting Hill) as Dr Avishka Sangakkara.