S26BE07 - THE CURSE OF RENWICK

 

In terms of time from concept to finish, The Curse of Renwick probably took the longest and this wasn't because it was altogether difficult to make. Indeed, the story included many special effects shots of a style we had never attempted before however, there was no difficulty in making them.

No, this story took so long to put together because it was intended as a sequel to Time of the Destroyer featuring the return of companion Lucie Miller and we didn't want to release it before that story as it may have caused confusion.

By this point we were obviously moving forward from the obvious villains and moving towards some of the less obvious ones; this time it was the Zygons. In addition, keep your eye out for another familar species featured in one episode of the new series.

Finally, this is what I consider to be the "mid season finale" of Season 26B, in the same way that A Good Man Goes to War was for the new series and a scene featuring a familiar face was included in the end of the story to signal this and the direction the series would be taking in future episodes.

S26BE06 - TIME OF THE DESTROYER

Although this was the fifth episode to enter production, it was actually originally released sixth to the heavy amount of reordering and restructuring of scenes necessary in order to make the story work.

The Dream Master had really been the "reinvention" of Season 26B - where we started using material from a wide range of sources to tell a story as opposed to restructuring an existing story to fit the Doctor Who enviroment.

So with Time of the Destroyer, we went that one step further and began to let the story tell itself. Prior stories had relied on the voice of K9 to explain to the audience what exactly was happening however this time we decided, in the true vein of Doctor Who, to keep it a mystery until the very end where our Villain explains everything himself.

This was also our first venture into proper chromakey. In the past, we had strayed away from it, besides a little bit of experimentation in The Dream Master. However now, in order to tell a story featuring Big Finish companion Lucie Miller, we really felt that this story needed to see Doctor and companion in scenes together.

Lucie would later return in our next story: The Curse of Renwick!

S26BE05 - THE GIRL THAT TIME FORGOT

 

This episode of our series was actually made sixth but was brought forward into the fifth position. Due to the extensive editing time needed to make Time of the Destroyer possible, it meant that further episodes would not be forthcoming for awhile. Except - it didn't.

At the last minute we managed to pull out all the stops to put together The Girl That Time Forgot, a story seeing the return of fan favourites Sgt Benton and the Brigadier starring opposite our villain, the Trickster.

Due to the simplicity of the story, we were able to put it together in a matter of weeks meaning that our fans would not miss out on new material.

In fact, two versions of this episode were created. The original starred the Brigadier as the main character while the second starred Sgt Benton. It was decided however to use the second version as it allowed us to use not just one, but two old faces.

This story also gave us further time to experiment with chromakey which became a major part of the next episode: Time of the Destroyer!

S26BE04 - THE DREAM MASTER

 

The Dream Master (at the time called The Nightmare Man) was really a reboot of Season 26B. For example, it was the first episode that was actually called Season 26B. It was also the first episode to use a multitude of sources to create an episode. 

This episode is a technical triumph being set after the events of Last of the Time Lords while being set before it from the perspective of the Doctor. In actual fact, our story was made before The End of Time but more or less fits into continuity; except for Lucy Saxon. 

Our story either can be set while Lucy was awaiting her appearance in The End of Time or - if you prefer, Lucy Saxon managed to survive the events of The End of Time. I subscribe to the second theory but of course, this is debateable.

The Master would later go on to appear in the TV movie Time of the Doctors in his Anthony Ainley form while also appearing in the final TV movie: The Last Great Time War in his Eric Roberts incarnation!

S26BE03 - THE CYBER LORDS OF TIME

S26BE02 - THE CYBER SEAS OF RHYE

 

This was in fact the first episode produced for the series but has been pushed back to second place as we didn't want to start the series with a returning enemy. This episode in fact sees the return of two enemies; the Cybermen of the classic series and the Cybusmen of the new series.

The episode sees the Doctor sent by President Romana to track down an old forgotten Time Lord, excellently played by David Warner whom of course has appeared in numerous Big Finish audio dramas. As this was our first story, we were still learning the skills of editing and while this has been improved for the "remastered and regenerated" cut - it still relies heavily on the original source footage.

The first of a two part story, this epic adventure continues in: The Cyber Lords of Time!

S26BE01 - MEMOIRS IN TIME

 

Although this was our third episode produced, it was decided to make it the first in the "regenerated and remastered" series in order to kick the show off with a bang. The first two episodes produced, while good conceptually, do rely heavily on existing footage therefore we felt it better to show our strengths in this tale featuring a Time Lord demon feasting on the peoples of Earth.

In the original edition, it was suggested that the Doctor was in love with his companion however these sequences have been removed for the "remastered" edition as we didn't want the Doctor to be shown to be in love with every companion he has. Also, in the original edition, the paranormal research team is not named - we chose to correct this by implying the team is Torchwood.

Finally, eagle-eyed viewers may have noticed that Bill Paterson plays the leader of Torchwood. He would go on to play Bracewell in Series 5 of the New Series. We like to imagine that the Daleks made Bracewell...anatomically correct and he and Dorabella went on to father a child: Monahan in this story.

Anyway - enjoy the first episode of Season 26B: Regenerated and Remastered and as always, let us know what you think in the comments below.