Bill Potts is returning to the Whoniverse in a brand new adventure from Big Finish.
Titled ‘Emancipation of the Daleks,’ the latest offering from Big Finish takes place during Doctor Who Series Ten, when Bill Potts was travelling in the TARDIS with the Twelfth Doctor. This isn’t a standard Big Finish audio adventure though; the new story is a seven hour enhanced audiobook read by Dan Starkey, perhaps best known to Whovians as the Sontaran Strax from the Paternoster Gang. Nicholas Briggs also stars as the voice of the Daleks.
Here’s the official synopsis from Big Finish…
“Bill Potts has an unexpected visitor: another Bill Potts from twenty years in the future. Bill summons the Doctor, who confirms that the other Bill is the genuine article. She has come to see her younger self for a reason… but she can’t say what it is without creating a paradox!
“Moments later, the TARDIS Cloister Bell sounds. A damaged Dalek war saucer is travelling back through the time vortex on a collision course. The Doctor dematerialises the TARDIS to avoid it, only to cause the spaceship to crash-land in Earth’s recent past. When it re-materialises, the TARDIS is now in a world altered beyond recognition. The city of Bristol has been reduced to rubble, save for an interstellar rocket construction site and a top-security research complex. The complex is guarded by ‘Robomen’ and flying security drones piloted by Dalek mutants.
“The Doctor quickly realises what has happened. History has been changed, and the Daleks have conquered the Earth, enslaving the human race.
“He couldn’t be more wrong. And Bill is about to discover that her past, present and future are no longer her own.”
This intriguing premise harks back to the First Doctor adventure ‘The Dalek Invasion of Earth,’ which laid-out a similar scenario in which the Daleks had conquered the Earth and demolished sizeable chunks of London. In addition, this First Doctor story introduced the concept of Robomen – human slaves that the Daleks had converted to do their bidding.
At the same time, ‘Emancipation of the Daleks’ will be a welcome addition to the Series Ten canon with the return of Bill Potts, portrayed on TV by Pearl Mackie. She hasn’t been seen on screen since 2017’s ‘Twice Upon a Time‘ – the last to feature Peter Capaldi as the Doctor.
But it remains to be seen how ‘Emancipation of the Daleks’ will expand the character of Bill Potts, and what it will add to the Series Ten arc.
Here’s how producer David Richardson describes the production…
“Series Ten just got bigger – welcome to a timey-wimey journey through a disastrous future for Bill Potts, in which she meets herself and discovers a world changed by the Daleks.
“Jonny’s script was a page turner, and Dan’s reading is glorious – accompanied by Dalek maestro Nicholas Briggs, of course. With full FX and score, this is going to be a thrilling treat for the ears.”
‘Emancipation of the Daleks’ will be released in July 2022, and can be pre-ordered as a digital download here.
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