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 who 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.
Recorded on: 18-20 July 2023
Recorded at: The Soundhouse
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..."
Writer James Kettle said: "When I'm asked to come up with a Doctor Who story, I always think about fusing different influences together. Here there's quite a bit of Christopher Priest's novels, and a dash of John Carpenter as well. Then I was thinking about prisons, the aftermath of war, and the long-time fascination I've had with the Mitford sisters.
"I also wanted to come up with a new kind of threat, something primal that lurks in all of humanity's deepest fears. So, while robots and zombies are among the enemies in this story, really the enemy at the heart of it is mortality. I’m possibly making it sound gloomier than I mean to – don’t worry, there are also jokes in it!"
Philip Hurd-Wood, Maggie Service, Anna Crichlow, Janet Fielding, Peter Davison, Sarah Sutton, Paksie Vernon, Matthew Waterhouse
