‘THE GREAT BEYOND’
Please feel free to comment on my review.
Beyond with the Fifth Doctor, Nyssa, Tegan and Adric
This six-part ‘Doctor Who’ audio story by Big Finish wasn’t quite what I expected. 😐
When the second volume of the ‘Forty’ saga to celebrate 40 years of Peter Davison as the Fifth Doctor was released in September 2022, I was disappointed it didn’t have Sarah Sutton as Nyssa in it as well as Matthew Waterhouse as Adric, despite the advertisement.
Or rather, Big Finish gave the false impression Nyssa and Adric were going to be in the second ‘Forty’ volume before they updated it. It turned out to be a Fifth Doctor, Tegan and Turlough story set during Season 21 with the Brigadier, the Master and Kamelion in it too.
And the story turned out to be a six-part story called ‘The Auton Infinity’. The story happened to be a decent conclusion to the ‘Forty’ saga to celebrate 40 years of Peter Davison as the Fifth Doctor, but it’s a pity Sarah Sutton and Matthew Waterhouse weren’t in it at all.
Thankfully, two years later, Big Finish would release a brand-new six-part story called ‘The Great Beyond’, featuring the Fifth Doctor, Nyssa, Tegan and Adric set during the Season 19 period. This did make up for the disappointment I had with the second ‘Forty’ volume.
I was looking forward to checking out ‘The Great Beyond’ and hear a full-on six-part audio adventure with Peter Davison, Sarah Sutton, Janet Fielding and Matthew Waterhouse as their ‘Doctor Who’ characters. It’s a notion that a Fifth Doctor/Season 19 fan can’t resist.
The announcement for ‘The Great Beyond’ came at a good time in April 2024 when I was in Leicester and about to attend the ‘Comic Con Mania Leicester’ with Peter Davison and Sarah Sutton as guests. I was in a Frankie & Benny’s restaurant when the announcement came. 🙂
Six-part ‘Doctor Who’ stories are rare in the Peter Davison/Fifth Doctor era. They never happened in the TV series, as the producer John Nathan-Turner wasn’t keen on six-part stories, and he kept the Peter Davison era confined to having four-part stories and a few two-parters.
As far as I’m concerned, Big Finish did six-part stories twice before ‘The Great Beyond’ happened. There was ‘The Game’ by Darin Henry, featuring the Fifth Doctor and Nyssa, although the episodes were quite short and the six-part story was released on a 2-disc set.
‘Cold Fusion’ happened as a six-part story, featuring the Fifth Doctor, the Seventh Doctor, Nyssa, Tegan, Adric, Chris and Roz, although Lance Parkin originally wrote the story in book form before it was adapted into an audio story and it was structured as a six-parter then.
I believe ‘The Great Beyond’ is the first original six-part story featured in the Fifth Doctor era by Big Finish. I don’t mind this being a six-part story, as any audio story featuring Sarah Sutton as Nyssa along with the Fifth Doctor, Tegan and Adric is going to grab my attention.
Speaking personally, I’ve done my own take on writing six-part stories in my ‘Fifth Doctor’ series, including ‘Dawn of the Dwaxi’ and ‘The Stockbridge Terror’. They’re far more challenging to write compared to four-part stories, but I’ve enjoyed the experience of them.
The cast of ‘The Great Beyond’. From left to right: Philip Hurd-Wood, Maggie Service, Anna Crichlow, Janet Fielding, Peter Davison, Sarah Sutton, Paksie Vernon and Matthew Waterhouse.
I was intrigued about how ‘The Great Beyond’ would work as a six-parter and how a writer like James Kettle would do his own take on the six-episode structure. James Kettle is a writer I’ve come across before in ‘Doctor Who’, although my exposure to him hasn’t been that great.
My first encounter with James Kettle was when he did ‘The Hunting Season’, an episode in ‘The Ninth Doctor Adventures’ audio anthology ‘Lost Warriors’ with Christopher Eccleston. It has been a while since I’ve heard that episode, but according to my review, I enjoyed it.
I hoped with checking out ‘The Great Beyond’, I’d enjoy more of James Kettle’s writing. I was looking forward to his take on the Fifth Doctor, Nyssa, Tegan and Adric as a team. From what I’ve gathered, according to interviews, James Kettle writes comedy and sci-fi.
So, ideally, there should be a good amount of comedy to balance out some of the darker aspects of this ‘Doctor Who’ audio story. This is especially considering when ‘The Great Beyond’ is dealing with dark themes on unerring dread as well as on the afterlife, I believe.
In ‘The Great Beyond’, the Doctor has been sent to a prison planet simply known as Beyond for the rest of his natural lives. He’s not alone, of course. He has Nyssa and Adric to keep him company. Tegan gets help from someone called Ocean Starclair to get into Beyond.
Once Tegan is reunited with her friends, a set of mysteries begin to unravel concerning how Beyond functions as a prison planet. The Doctor has to make a series of sacrifices in order to preserve the lives of his three friends as well as those he meets within Beyond.
In terms of this story’s placement, I’m sure ‘The Great Beyond’ takes place between ‘Black Orchid’ and ‘Earthshock’ and is set after ‘Dream Team’ and ‘Dark Contract’. I might be wrong on this, but Tegan has namedropped certain events that preceded this audio story.
She mentions the Doctor’s regeneration in ‘Logopolis’, Monarch in ‘Four to Doomsday‘, and London and the Terileptils in ‘The Visitation’. This is when Tegan is trying to get the Doctor and Adric to recall her in ‘Part Two’ of the story when they don’t know who she is.
I must admit, I found ‘The Great Beyond’ to be rather underwhelming as a six-part ‘Doctor Who’ story. Now, I’m sure there’s plenty of sci-fi enthusiasts that found this story very engaging and to an extent, I couldn’t help get a sense of enjoyment from listening to this.
But I had to listen to ‘The Great Beyond’ twice to get a sense of what was going on in this story. Normally I wouldn’t do that, but at the time of this review, I was in the process of updating my reviews on the Season 15 ‘Doctor Who’ reviews based on its Blu-ray box set.
I was working on updating my ‘Horror of Fang Rock’ review simultaneously whilst listening to ‘The Great Beyond’. Because of the story being very complex on my first listen, I decided to hear it again before assessing what my thoughts were on this story and whether I liked it.
The thing about ‘The Great Beyond’ is that it’s set in a futuristic environment, landscape and society. There’s a lot going on to understand the world James Kettle has created, such as a devastating intergalactic war and what the three notorious Starclair sisters’ part is.
I don’t think I’ve grasped a full picture of what the worldbuilding featured in this story is all about. Mainly because I’m not invested in the characters as I would like to be. And I think that is quite a problem for me regarding how I found the listening experience of this.
‘The Great Beyond’ is not as character-driven as I would like it to be. There may be some development for the guest cast, particularly with Ivan and the Starclair sisters, but I don’t think the four regulars have plenty of focus given compared to what the supporting cast has. 😦
I get the impression ‘The Great Beyond’ is more plot-driven than character-driven. Maybe if the Fifth Doctor, Nyssa, Tegan and Adric were at the forefront more than the supporting characters, I would be emotionally invested in the story compared to what it ended up becoming.
Also, according to interviews with James Kettle, he was influenced by other writers’ works, including ‘a bit of Christopher Priest’s novels, and a dash of John Carpenter as well’. Now, I haven’t come across many of Christopher Priest’s nor John Carpenter’s works in my life.
I know that makes me sound ignorant, but because of my unfamiliarity with those works, it’s difficult for me to appreciate some of the homages and references that might be in this story whilst trying to focus on the Fifth Doctor, Nyssa, Tegan and Adric as characters.
Speaking of the cast, the performances of the actors are very good. Peter Davison, Sarah Sutton, Janet Fielding and Matthew Waterhouse always manage to shine for me. I liked it when they got to have scenes as a foursome at times, whether in the TARDIS or in Beyond.
Peter Davison’s performance as the Fifth Doctor is excellent in this audio story, and I like how he’s working things out in terms of what’s going on with Beyond. I like the moments where he uncovers that Beyond is more than simply a prison planet and it’s actually alive.
I would have liked a more psychological and torturous experience for the Fifth Doctor’s character when he’s put in Beyond. There are touches of that here and there, particularly in ‘Part Six’ where he must live out his life with the three Starclair sisters within Beyond. 🙂
It’s quite amusing and disturbing that Peter’s Doctor doesn’t age whilst the three Starclair sisters age in ‘Part Six’. I think it would have been good to set things up for the Doctor about to lose Adric in ‘Earthshock’ when the themes of death and the afterlife are concerned.
Sarah Sutton is equally excellent as Nyssa in this ‘Doctor Who’ story. I recall telling Sarah that I hadn’t listened to ‘The Great Beyond’ yet when I saw her at the ‘Exeter Comic Con and Gaming Festival’ in October 2024 and I tried to explain to her what the story is about.
I don’t think my explanation helped, as she got confused quickly. 😀 I don’t blame her, and I’m not sure if she understood the story when recording it with Peter, Janet and Matthew. With that said, I like that Nyssa gets to have her own story when paired with Alison Starclair.
Nyssa and Alison manage to get out of Beyond and explore a desolate wasteland with ‘coffins’, I believe, containing human corpses that are standing upright, which is quite disturbing. They also come across Ivan and zombie-like ‘sleepwalkers’ when they’re exploring.
Janet Fielding as Tegan has a fascinating journey in this audio story. Initially, she’s on her own and acquires help from Ocean, one of the Starclair sisters. They arrive inside Beyond to search for the Doctor, Nyssa and Adric. Once Tegan finds them, they don’t know her. 😮
This was a surprise twist by the end of ‘Part One’. When we get to ‘Part Three’, it turns out the Doctor and his friends were wearing bracelets to form a memory coronet, which I believe is Gallifreyan technology. This was so they could forget each other if they got captured.
It didn’t quite go according to plan and Tegan becomes very angry with the Doctor for making her forget him and the others. It’s also intriguing when Tegan becomes broody with the Doctor after experiencing what ‘Forever’ is like, claiming that he can’t ‘imagine’ it.
Sadly, I don’t think Matthew Waterhouse as Adric is given a strong outing in this ‘Doctor Who’ audio story. To be fair, Matthew Waterhouse delivers a fine performance as Adric. But a lot of his dialogue is mundane. He doesn’t have many standout character moments.
I liked it when Adric shows concern for his friends whenever they’re in trouble. This includes when the Doctor is establishing contact with Beyond and I liked it when Adric asked Nyssa if she was alright once they and Tegan are forced into the TARDIS by the story’s end. 🙂
Sometimes, Adric’s smugness comes into play in the story, particularly when a mathematical problem needs to be solved, as requested by the Starclair sisters. He advises Tegan to let the sisters argue away whilst they’re trying to escape their prison cell.
The story’s guest cast includes Philip Hurd-Wood as Ivan. Apparently, Philip Hurd-Wood provided the voice of the Graske and the Groske in several ‘Doctor Who’ mini-episodes as well as several ‘Sarah Jane Adventures’ on TV. That’s a fact which totally escaped me.
Initially, I thought Ivan was the governor of the Beyond prison. But it turns out he’s not really in control of the place as he would like us to believe. In fact, there are occasions where he goes to the point of mentally unstable and is ignoring the presence of others. 😐
Also, I don’t know if it’s me, but from looking at Philip Hurd-Wood on the story’s cover, he looks a little bit like Eric Saward, ‘Doctor Who’s script editor from 1982 to 1986. 😀 I believe Philip Hurd-Wood is the voice of Forever, a parasite that adopts Ivan’s form in ‘Part Six’. 😐
Anna Crichlow and Paksie Vernon in ‘The Great Beyond’.
There are the three Starclair sisters, including Maggie Service as Alison, Anna Crichlow as Nairobi and Paksie Vernon as Ocean. Maggie Service has been in the TV episode ‘Deep Breath’ and she played Morag Stewart in the episode ‘Regrets’ in the ‘Redacted’ audio series.
Maggie Service has also been in ‘Good Omens’ whilst Anna Crichlow has been in a TV production of ‘Sense & Sensibility’ and Paksie Vernon has been in ‘Angels in America’. I can’t say I was won over by the three Starclair sisters as characters when I heard them. 😐
Nothing to do with the actresses’ performances, but for the most part, they tended to bicker with each other a lot. It’s only when they’re getting older and being looked after by the Doctor in ‘Part Six’ that they reconcile their differences before they slowly age to death. 😐
The story also features the robotic drones called the Princesses, that are essentially the guardians or caretakers of the Beyond prison. There are two of them voiced by Anna Crichlow and Paksie Vernon. Honestly, I couldn’t tell much difference between them. 😀
There’s one point where a Princess is reprogrammed by the Doctor to provide him answers on the Beyond prison and she even expresses “I love you” to the Doctor. But I don’t know which Princess it was, whether it was voiced by Anna Crichlow or Paksie Vernon. 😐
The story also features John Hopkins as Fairfield, who I suppose you could say is the equivalent of a World War II air pilot in the future. Fairfield mostly appears in the story’s first two episodes and sadly ends up being zombie-like when he becomes one of the ‘sleepwalkers’.
Andrew Wincott in ‘The Great Beyond’.
Andrew Wincott guest stars as Beyond, the sentient prison planet that the Doctor gets to interact with by the time we come to ‘Part Six’. Andrew Wincott also plays Jardan, a prisoner that meets Ivan before he gets taken away to be delivered to Forever in ‘Part One’.
Incidentally, Andrew Wincott has voiced characters like Crestin and Bill in the BBC radio story ‘The Paradise of Death’ with Jon Pertwee, Elisabeth Sladen and Nicholas Courtney. He has also played a variety of characters in many Big Finish audio stories over the years.
I would have liked it if Beyond appeared sooner rather than later in ‘The Great Beyond’. It would have been better if Beyond’s voice was introduced in ‘Part Five’ instead of ‘Part Six’, as Beyond doesn’t get to have a huge part to play in the story, despite being a silent presence.
The story concludes with the Doctor fulfilling his time in Beyond by looking after the Starclair sisters and eventually defeating Forever, who had been a parasitic influence throughout this story. The Doctor later returns to the TARDIS and he reunites with his friends.
As the Doctor tries to set the TARDIS controls to somewhere and somewhen, the power goes out. The Doctor and his friends become worried, as they wonder what’s happening. It transpires that this is going to be followed up in the next story called ‘Hooklight’ in 2025.
And as we speak, ‘Hooklight’ is going to be a 12-part epic adventure featuring the Fifth Doctor, Nyssa, Tegan and Adric. I’d like to point out that I announced my 12-part epic story ‘Orionis’ for my ‘Fifth Doctor’ series before Big Finish announced their 12-part epic story.
‘The Great Beyond’ has been a fascinating six-part ‘Doctor Who’ audio story to listen to. I can’t say it’s a great six-part story. There are a lot of complexities to get your head around, particularly in terms of the worldbuilding, which distracts from character development. 😦
Despite that, I’m glad I’ve had the experience of checking out this audio story twice, and the performances of Peter Davison, Sarah Sutton, Janet Fielding and Matthew Waterhouse are a joy to listen to. I’m really looking forward to checking out more of them.
Incidentally, apparently, ‘The Great Beyond’ was co-produced by Sonny McGann, Paul McGann’s real-life son. And he’s played Alex Campbell in several Big Finish audio stories over the years. As well as attended the ‘Scarborough Comic Con’ with his dad in November 2023.
I’m intrigued about where the TARDIS team of the Fifth Doctor, Nyssa, Tegan and Adric will go next once we get to the 12-part epic story ‘Hooklight’. I hope the story will be more character-driven and focused on the TARDIS regulars compared to ‘The Great Beyond’. 😐
I’d like to think so, especially with the story being 12 episodes in length. I’m sure there’ll be plenty to take away from hearing a 12-part story featuring the Fifth Doctor, Nyssa, Tegan and Adric. Much like there was to take away from seeing and hearing ‘The Daleks’ Master Plan’.
As of January 2025, I’ve had my CD covers of ‘The Great Beyond’ signed by Sarah Sutton, Peter Davison and Janet Fielding at ‘Happy Who Year at the Playhouse’ in January 2025. I’m pleased about this and happy that I got share my thoughts with them about this story.
I hope I’ll get to see Matthew Waterhouse again at a convention and share my thoughts on ‘The Great Beyond’ with him as well as have one of my CD covers of the story signed by him. Whether he’ll be with Sarah, Peter and Janet at a convention or not, I don’t know.
At the end of Discs 1, 2 and 3 of ‘The Great Beyond’, there are behind-the-scenes interviews with the cast and crew, including Peter Davison, Sarah Sutton, Janet Fielding, Matthew Waterhouse, Philip Hurd-Wood, Maggie Service, Anna Crichlow, Paksie Vernon, Andrew Wincott, writer James Kettle and producer David Richardson.
‘The Great Beyond’ rating – 7/10
| The previous story
For the Fifth Doctor was For Adric was For Nyssa was For Tegan was |
The next story
For the Fifth Doctor is For Adric is For Nyssa is For Tegan is |
| Return to The Fifth Doctor’s Timeline | |
| Return to Adric’s Timeline | |
| Return to Nyssa’s Timeline | |
| Return to Tegan’s Timeline | |
| Return to The Doctors’ Timelines Index | |
| Return to The Companions’ Timelines Index | |
| Return to Doctor Who Timelines | |
| Return to The Nyssa Challenge | |
| Return to Doctor Who | |
| Return to Sci-Fi |
Bradley's Basement 