Sidestep

In 2013, as part of the 50th Anniversary celebrations, the BBC produced the docudrama An Adventure in Space and Time by Mark Gatiss, a semi-fictionalized account of the creation of Doctor Who. It starred David Bradley as William Hartnell / The Doctor, Claudia Grant as Carole Ann Ford / Susan, Jamie Glover as William Russell / Ian, and Jemma Powell as Jacqueline Hill / Barbara. Jemma Powell was recruited by Big Finish to play Barabara in the third series of Early Adventures in 2016, and in 2018, Big Finish decided to go whole-hog and cast all the actors to recreate the roles of the first TARDIS team. This would be the second time that Big Finish specifically recast a Doctor, and the first time they recast parts whose original actors are still alive -- although in fairness, William Russell was over 90 at the time, and had retired from Big Finish. What nobody knew at the time was that the BBC was about to cast Bradley to play the First Doctor in “Twice Upon a Time,” which came out around the same time as the first box set here.

Craig Brawley, whose timeline I’m following for this project, doesn’t consider these stories to be canon, as they feature none of the original actors, so he isn’t placing them in the timeline. The Big Finish covers feature the likenesses of the new actors, not the originals, and they haven’t made any reference to these stories from others, thus “canonizing” them, although James Dreyfuss has appeared as the First Master in other Big Finish stories. I’m not including any other “unbound” stories in this project just yet, but I think these are pretty good stories, so I may as well include them at this point, just after Susan’s departure.