Big on cd

TV I have noticed that I've been geeking out all over for the past the months (months?) with my one track mind flying about in space and time somewhere. It's been a long time and I'm giving myself some room and enjoying the adventure. One of the knock on effects of Doctor Who going mainstream is that all of the various story streams which have kept the dream alive these past few years are being looked at by a wider audience. For example, the last of the ongoing Eighth Doctor novels The Gallifrey Chronicles, which apparently usually sell not more six thousand copies jumped to third at Amazon's pre-release chart, just under both versions of the new Harry Potter novel. Even since release, it's been scarce.

Also taking a bow are Big Finish's range of audio cds which I've mentioned before. The next to last episode of the Doctor Who Confidential series had a whole entire slot talking about them, with footage from a recording session. That's pretty impressive. Then I open the paper today and find that Andrew Collins is writing about them in his diary, because he's going to be in one:

"Here is the news: I'm going to be in Doctor Who. Seriously. (Would I joke about such an honour?) Alright, I'm going to be in an audio episode, but it still counts! This is the ongoing branch of Who that, along with the novels, talking books and animated webcasts, kept the franchise alive during the 16 years it was off the telly. It may have been a revelation to part-time armchair fans that the Doctor's been back in the fleeting form of Christopher Eccleston these past 13 weeks, but to the dedicated "Whovian" (or whatever they prefer to be called), he never went away."

It's only a few paragraphs but the I love the way he namedrops the main Who fan website Outpost Gallifrey without explaining what it is as though anyone reading is supposed to know anyway. For the uninitiated three fun facts on how the new series relates to Big Finish:

When they secured the participation of Paul McGann to play the Eighth Doctor they were rolling his stories out in annual seasons. Paul Cornell, Mark Gatiss and Robert Shearman all wrote classic stories for the pearless second season. They've all written an episode for the new tv series.

Shearman also wrote a Colin Baker adventure for them called Jubilee. This formed the basis for the Dalek episode in the new tv series.

All of the Daleks in the new tv series were voiced by Nicholas Briggs. Briggs also voiced all the Daleks for Big Finish and has written and directed the Dalek Empire series for them, which features new Doctor David Tennant in a starring role.

BF have had their license renewed into 2007 so there will still be plenty of new Who about while the show is off air. Now if only they could talk Tom Baker into recording a few ...