The Third Doctor

The era of the Third Doctor represented a major change in the format of the show, and for the most part, the Big Finish series reflects that. The most prominent change was that the show was in color, but along with that, the pacing became more dynamic and action-oriented. At the same time, Jon Pertwee played the Doctor as a more physical character than his predecessors. He was more physically imposing, and more likely to take charge of a situation. In addition, he spent a lot of his era exiled to Earth, for budgetary reasons, but that also means that he had a “home base” and a regular cast of supporting characters in UNIT. Although I’ve divided the eras by companion, the UNIT characters are often present in these stories. Exactly which UNIT actors were available for a story varied, especially after the death of Nicholas Courtney in 2011. Although there are some Companion Chronicles from this era, Big Finish drew a line separating out the first two Doctors for their extended Chronicles series and the Early Adventures. Instead, in 2015, they made a deliberate decision to recast the Doctor for the first time, bringing in Tim Treloar. They seem to have done this with great care and even trepidation, going very slowly to see how the audience would react to a recast Doctor. However, the reception seems to have been positive, leading them to risk recasting the Brigadier in 2019, and Liz and Sarah Jane in 2021.