Jo Martin’s Fugitive Doctor makes her Big Finish debut, and she’s up against the War Doctor – Once and Future: Coda: The Final Act is released today. Once and Future is a full-cast audio series celebrating the sixtieth anniversary of Doctor Who and the Doctor faced a ‘degeneration’ crisis, flitting between his past and future faces. When that series came to a dramatic climax in October 2023’s The Union, he finally stabilized as the War Doctor (Jonathon Carley) but that’s not the end of his troubles.
In Once and Future: Coda: The Final Act, the Doctor is recovering from this crisis when he finds himself hunted down by another previous incarnation, one he didn’t even know existed – the Fugitive Doctor (Jo Martin). This Doctor-on-Doctor pursuit will take the two Time Lord incarnations across time and space, and see them encounter a motley crew of characters, some very familiar. There are Benny Summerfield (Lisa Bowerman), a 26th-century archaeologist and friend of the Doctor, along halvar (Nicholas Khan), leader of the alien Voord, and Vienna Salvatori (Chase Masterson), a bounty hunter who’s fallen on hard times. Finally, there’s Queen Elizabeth I (Imogen Stubbs), coming to the end of her reign, who finds one Doctor’s face strangely familiar.
Doctor Who – Once and Future: Coda: The Final Act was written by Tim Foley and is now available to own as a single-disc collector’s edition CD (+ download for just £10.99), or digital download only (for just £8.99), exclusively from www.bigfinish.com. Big Finish listeners can purchase all eight Once and Future audio adventures together in a standard edition series bundle for just £72 (on collector’s edition CD and download) or £60 (download only). The special edition series bundle contains extended behind-the-scenes extras and music suites for each story is also available to purchase for just £62 (as a digital download only). All prices include the special pre-order discount and are subject to change after general release.
Dealing with the repercussions of degeneration the Doctor has a limited window of time to evade capture, recruit old allies, wage a war, and find out what’s really going on. A warrior is being hunted by a mysterious stranger in a TARDIS and a rogue agent has been assigned a mission to eliminate a dangerous foe – this is a fight between a war criminal and a fugitive and a fight between Doctors starts.
The story is Jo Martin’s debut on audio for Big Finish Productions after having played the Fugitive Doctor in three TV episodes from the years 2020 to 2022. She said: “Doing Doctor Who on telly was life-changing. It’s led to more opportunities than I’ve ever had before. And now I’m here, doing the audio, which is just incredible. And meeting these guys who have been here so many years, and are still looking fabulous and sounding great – it’s all good!”. Her co-star Jonathon Carley added: “I recorded the surprise twist appearance of the War Doctor at the end of The Union but assumed that was it. But then when I found out about Coda and who would be in it, I was just giddy. “To pair these two ‘secret’ Doctors together, it takes that antagonism of different incarnations to a whole new level. Not so much two Doctors teaming up together, at least not initially, but actually fighting each other. Jo’s Doctor is really no-nonsense and quite formidable – it was a journey of discovery to react to that, because we’ve seen so little of her Doctor on screen, it’s really new and exciting.”
