Here’s our guide for navigating the 10th Doctor on Big Finish. Big Finish audios are a great way of keeping up with Doctor Who while it’s off the air. But at a high price point, with hundreds of titles and sometimes complicated continuity, it can be hard to know where to start. Luckily, the 10th Doctor has one of the most accessible eras.
Most stories with the 10th Doctor on Big Finish feature David Tennant and other key cast members reprising their roles. This is a big draw of the era for anyone who struggles to listen to impressions. Tennant is still one of only two leading new series Doctors to have joined the company (along with Christopher Eccleston, who debuted in 2021.)
This era also has a lot of stand-alone episodes, loosely connected stories, and crossover events. So there are only a couple of ranges where continuity matters. We’ve listed the ranges from most to least accessible for new listeners – and included an overview of 10th doctor spin-offs at the end.
The 10th Doctor Adventures
The 10th Doctor Adventures was the first range to see the main cast return. The range has lighthearted stories which evoke a cosy sense of nostalgia for the era. The main draw point is that the chemistry between the actors is just as fantastic as on-screen.
Volume 1 – The 10th Doctor and Donna Noble (Played by Catherine Tate.) Average Rating: 7.7/10
- 1.1 Technophobia by Matt Fitton – A sinister mystery inside London’s Technology Museum.
- 1.2 Time Reaver by Jenny T Colgan – A gangster adventure on the spaceport planet of Calibris.
- And 1.3 Death and the Queen by James Goss – Donna’s courtship with a European Prince leads to a battle with Death himself!
Volume 2 – The Doctor and Rose Tyler (Played by Billie Piper.) Average Rating 6.5/10
- 2.1 Infamy of the Zaross by John Dorney – Jackie Tyler only wanted to visit her friend in Norwich. But her trip gets interrupted by an alien Invasion. Camille Coduri returned to reprise the role of Jackie.
- 2.2 The Sword of the Chevalier by Guy Adams – The Doctor and Rose meet The Chevalier d’Eon in 1791.
- 2.3 Cold Vengeance by Matt Fitton – The Doctor and Rose arrive on a freezer satellite. While there, they must confront an Ice Warrior’s vengeance.
Volume 3 – The 10th Doctor and Donna Noble (Played by Catherine Tate.) Average Rating 7.5/10
- 3.1 No Place by James Goss – The Doctor and the Nobles appear on the supernatural reality TV show ‘Haunted Makeovers.’ This episode also features Jacqueline King as Sylvia Noble and the late Bernard Cribbins as Wilf.
- 3.2 One Mile Down by Jenny T Colgan – Donna and the Doctor take a holiday in a domed underwater city. And the dome’s starting to leak…
- 3.3 The Creeping Death by Roy Gill – The Doctor and Donna get caught up in alien schemes in the deadly London Smog of 1952.
These stories are available as CDs and/or downloads in standard or limited edition box sets. Each episode is also available as a standalone. ‘Infamy of the Zaross’, ‘Cold Vengeance’, Death and the Queen’, and ‘The Creeping Death’ are also available on Vinyl.
The 10th Doctor Chronicles
The Tenth Doctor Chronicles was released in the gap between the first two volumes of the Tenth Doctor Adventures. The set consists of 4 adventures narrated by impressionist Jacob Dudman. Each story focuses on a different companion dynamic.
- Episode 1.1 The Taste of Death by Helen Goldwyn – The Doctor and Rose visit a sinister holiday resort. 7.0/10
- 1.2 Backtrack by Matthew J Elliott: A Doctor and Martha story. Martha’s medical skills are put to the test on a dangerous time-ship. 7.0/10
- 1.3 Wild Pastures by James Goss: Focuses on The Noble family and guest stars Jacqueline King as Sylvia Noble. 7.4/10
- Finally episode 1.4 Last Chance by Guy Adams reunites The Doctor with Lady Christina de Souza. Michelle Ryan returned to perform the role. 8.0/10
While everyone’s happy that Tennant joined Big Finish, Dudman proved to be a worthy successor to the role. Reviews called his performance: ‘more than simply uncanny…completely authentic.’
Short Trips and Adaptations
Short trips are one of Big Finish’s most accessible story formats. They are usually one-off episodes with a single narrator. Short trips are a great way to test if you’ll enjoy the audio format. The stories below are all between 45-30 minutes long. They’re also very cheap, with all these stories costing £2.99 or below.
- Free Speech by Eugene Pusejank – The 10th Doctor visits a planet where it costs money to speak. This story is currently free to download on the Big Finish website. 7.6/10
- The Shattered Hourglass by Robert Napton – The Time Agency has removed an entire galaxy from the timeline. And it’s up to the Doctor to shut them down. 6.6/10
- The Siege of Big Ben by Joseph Lidster – Camile Coudori narrates the story as Jackie Tyler. This is the first of a duology of stories about her relationship with the Metacrisis Doctor on parallel Earth. 8.6/10
- Flight into Hull by Joseph Lidster – The second story focuses on the relationship between Jackie Tyler and the Metacrisis Doctor. 8.8/10. The 10th Doctor on Big Finish also has one short book adaptation which is in a similar style.
- Destiny of the Doctor: Death’s Deal by Darren Jones – Adapted from the 50th Anniversary anthology series Destiny of the Doctor. The Doctor and Donna struggle to survive on a planet dubbed ‘The Deadliest Planet in the Galaxy’. Catherine Tate narrates this story as Donna and Duncan Wisbey.
Out of Time
The ‘Out of Time’ series consists of 3 episodes, with the 10th Doctor meeting a different classic doctor in each. The stories feature Classic Doctors and easter eggs for their eras. But the main attraction is how the Doctor’s personalities play off each other. So you don’t need previous knowledge of the other Doctor’s runs on Big Finish or TV.
- Out of Time 1 by Matt Fitton – The 10th Doctor meets the 4th Doctor, played by Tom Baker. The two doctors must unite to stop the Daleks from invading a chapel that exists outside the bounds of time.
- Out of Time 2 – The Gates of Hell by David Llewelyn – The collision of the 10th and 5th Doctor (played by Peter Davidson)’s timelines allows the Cybermen to take dominion over Earth.
- Out of Time 3 – Wink – by Lisa McMullin – The 10th Doctor meets The 6th doctor, played by Colin Baker, in a new battle against the weeping angels.
These are standard edition stories available individually on CD and/or download.
Tenth Doctor, Classic Companions
Getting the 10th Doctor on Big Finish has resulted in many highly anticipated multi-doctor stories. But this story will be the first time a collection has focused on him meeting classic companions. This collection will be released this September with a host of fan favourites. It will probably focus on character moments more than continuity, but it might be harder to get into if you have less general knowledge of any of these companions.
- Splinters by John Dorney – The 10th Doctor finds k9 floating in space and starts a mission to clear up Time War fallout. Then, he finds Louise Jameson’s Leela, companion of the 4th Doctor.
- The Stuntman by Lizzie Hopley – The 10th Doctor and K9 must help Nyssa, companion of the 4th and 5th Doctors, escape from the scheme of a Time War criminal.
- Quantum of Axos by Roy Gill – 7th Doctor companion Ace, played by Sophie Aldred, meets the 10th Doctor and K9 while investigating a suspicious new tech company.
The collection is available for pre-order on CD and or download.
Dalek Universe
Dalek Universe has a unique concept for the 10th Doctor on Big Finish. The Doctor is pulled out of time and sent back to the era before the Time War, where he battles many former versions of the Daleks, their enemies like the Movellans, and their creator Davros. Due to callbacks to the missing first doctor story, ‘the Daleks Masterplan’. This audio series is the least accessible to new listeners.
Most of the range is led by the 10th Doctor. But it starts with the prequel ‘The Dalek Protocol’, which stars the 4th Doctor and Leela, which just under half of the listeners say is a prerequisite to the main range. The 10th Doctor’s episodes include:
Volume 1
- 1.1 Buying Time by John Dorney – The Doctor meets Anya Kingdom of the Space Security Service on a distant jungle planet. The order of history is at stake. 8.3/10
- 1.2 The Wrong Woman by John Dorney – The Doctor, Anya and Mark try to stop the launch of the time tunnels, but will they be able to put history back in order? 8.5/10
- 1.3 The House of Kingdom by Andrew Smith – The Doctor and friends try to locate a scientist for help on their mission but are halted by an attack on a space station. Anya grapples with the history of the Kingdom family. 7.6/10
Volume 2
- 2.1 Cycle of Destruction by Roy Gill – The Doctor and Anya land on an isolated research base while looking for their missing friend Mark. 6.9/10
- 2.2 The Trojan Dalek by John Dorney – The Doctor and friends search for a missing temporal scientist – and uncover a heinous plot involving the Doctor’s oldest foes. 8.3/10
- 2.3 The Lost by Robert Valentine – The Doctor fails to get back to the future, trapping the team in a strange world where the truth will be exposed for good. 8.4/10
Volume 3
- 3.1 The First Son by Lizzie Hopley – The Doctor’s attempts to return to his timeline leave him in the middle of a war zone, where he encounters a version of River Song, who claims to be a member of the Movellan race. 6.6/10
- 3.2 The Dalek Defence by Matt Fitton – The Doctor and Anya are trapped in a battle between Daleks and Movellans, while humans have imprisoned Davros. 7.5/10
- 3.3 The Triumph of Davros by Matt Fitton – The mistakes of the Doctor’s past come back to haunt him on a familiar planet. 8.1/10
These stories are only available in boxset form, with the levels not available individually. They can be bought on CD, Downloaded, or on limited Edition Vinyl.
10th Doctor Spin-Offs
You can see that there are loads of options for exploring the 10th Doctor on Big Finish, but there are even more for exploring other characters and elements from his era. Listing all the individual episodes would make this article even longer, so here’s a quick overview of the 10th doctor-related ranges:
- The War Master – Stories featuring Derek Jacobi as the reigning Master of the Time War before he disguised himself as professor Yana.
- Jenny The Doctor’s daughter – Stories featuring Georgia Moffet (David Tennant’s wife!) as The Doctor’s Daughter.
- Tales from New Earth – Stories are set in the ‘New Earth’ and ‘Gridlock’ world.
- The Diary of River Song and other River Song adventures.
- Rose Tyler the Dimension Canon – Stories between ‘Doomsday’ and ‘Turn Left.’ Rose tests the Dimension Canon to find her way back to the 10th Doctor.
- The year of Martha Jones – 4 stories about Martha Jones’ experience of walking the world in ‘the year that never was.’ Freema Agyeman returned to voice the character.
- Donna Noble, Kidnapped – 4 stories about Donna and Sylvia Noble, played by Catherine Tate and Jacqueline King.
Conclusion
Now is perfect for getting into the Tenth Doctor’s adventures with Big Finish! David Tennant is set to reprise his role as the incarnation of the Doctor for the show’s 60th Anniversary.
The 10th Doctor Wallpaper for this article was created by “Chriscastielredy” via DeviantArt.
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