October 30th, 2024 12 comments

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Big Finish The Worlds of Doctor Who Zygon Century Infiltration

Available to order from www.bigfinish.com

The Second Doctor joins the Zygon Century

Story and cast details are revealed today for Zygon Century: Infiltration, the first box set in a brand-new audio series, coming January 2025.

The Zygons have come to claim the Earth, and this time they’re playing the long game. For the Black Cadre have a plan, a plan that will take exactly one hundred years to come to fruition. Prepare yourselves… the Zygon Century has begun!

Zygon Century is a new range of audio dramas from Big Finish Productions, starring the shape-shifting aliens who have appeared in both the classic and new series of Doctor Who. The series has an anthology format, telling stories set across a hundred-year period during which the Zygons gradually infiltrate the human race.

The first box set in the series, Zygon Century: Infiltration, is due to be released in January 2025 and comprises three exciting and varied stories, each with a star-studded cast.

The set begins with a turn of the century occult horror, featuring the Big Finish debut of Patricia Allison (known for starring alongside Ncuti Gatwa in Sex Education).

Then, there’s a romantic but sinister Cornish folk tale, which marks the Big Finish debuts of two other talented stars: James Northcote (The Last Kingdom) and Charlie Russell (The Play That Goes Wrong).

Finally, the Second Doctor (Michael Troughton) joins the fray, in a Fleming-inspired spy adventure set on an island overrun with both Zygons and Skarasen.

The Worlds of Doctor Who – Zygon Century: Infiltration is now available to pre-order for just £24.99 (collector’s edition CD box set + download) or £19.99 (download only), exclusively from www.bigfinish.com.

The three stories in the box set are:

1901: The Unknowing Mirror by Jonathan Barnes

In Edwardian London, that scandalous investigator of occult phenomena, Mr Herbert Scott, and his associate, Father Felix Cromwell, are confronted by a case of possession.

A young woman, suffering from unusually vivid dreams, seems also to exhibit signs of a completely separate personality. Another being is speaking through her, a being which claims not to be from Earth at all, a being which calls itself… Zygon.

Writer and series script editor Jonathan Barnes said: “For this script, I wanted to go back – without apology – to my comfort zone, which is late Victorian, early Edwardian England, London in particular, and that world of occult detectives.

“There’s a dash of Conan Doyle in there, but also a much greater flavour of weird fiction. I was influenced in particular by Arthur Machen’s fantastic novella The Great God Pan, in which various investigators end up uncovering the edge of a cosmic horror.”

1935: The Miracle of Pendour Cove by Lauren Mooney and Stewart Pringle

Freddie Trewella has found a mermaid, beautiful and strange, washed ashore in a Cornish bay. He names her Vorvoren, and she comforts him in his harsh life of servitude to a zealot father.

As they grow together, Vorvoren shows Freddie her secret power, to change her appearance into anything she desires. But Freddie has secrets of his own, terrible secrets, and soon Vorvoren’s great adventure among the humans becomes a nightmarish fight for survival…

Barnes said: “Right from the start, I wanted as big a range of voices and styles as possible, and I’m a big fan of the work of Stewart Pringle and Lauren Mooney.

“I asked them to pitch a story set in the 1920s or 1930s, and they came back within almost 48 hours to pitch a Cornish folktale with a dash of Hans Christian Andersen, but very much grounded in the Cornwall of this Earth in the 1930s. In the annals of Doctor Who spin-offs, this is a truly unique piece of storytelling.”

1957: Double Agent by Trevor Baxendale

In an England gripped by Cold War paranoia, wounded MI5 operative Caldwell is itching to rejoin the fray abroad.

So why are the service sending him to a remote Cornish island? Can the future of the world really be at stake? Will he be able to complete his mission without falling foul of the hideous monsters stalking the caves? And who exactly is the island’s other new arrival: an operative of quite a different kind, known only as the Doctor?

Barnes said: “For this third one, I knew we needed something tougher, more hard-edged, so I thought, let’s bring us into the Cold War era, with an Ian Fleming pastiche – one that has that quite cold, hard quality, not of the James Bond movies, but of the original novels.

“The Zygons’ shapeshifting ability is a great fit for this paranoid thriller, in which the British secret service is infested by traitors and nobody is what they seem.”

The Worlds of Doctor Who – Zygon Century: Infiltration is now available to pre-order for just £24.99 (collector’s edition CD box set + download) or £19.99 (download only), exclusively from www.bigfinish.com.

All the above prices include the special pre-order discount and are subject to change after general release.

Categorised under: Big Finish, CD, spin-offs