The final main range mini-series of 2012 has been confirmed, and it forms a sweeping storyline, with each story focusing on a different Doctor.

“We wanted to do something a bit different with the year's final trilogy,” says script editor Alan Barnes, “so what we've come up with is an epic space saga spanning 60-odd years involving three Doctors, a royal wedding and a brooding villain… not to mention psychic powers, swamp monsters, barbarian hordes, bounty hunters and a space-faring snail!

“It all begins when the Fifth Doctor becomes caught up in the hunt for a missing princess in John Dorney's The Burning Prince (September), continues with the Sixth Doctor stuck in the middle of an interplanetary war in Rick Briggs' The Acheron Pulse (October) and concludes with the Seventh Doctor witnessing the fall of an intergalactic empire in Jonathan Morris' The Shadow Heart (November).”

Recording on the first two stories is now complete.

For The Burning Prince, Caroline Langrishe (the Dominic Hyde plays, Lovejoy, Casualty) guest stars as Shira, George Rainsford (Call the Midwife) plays Prince Kylo, Dominic Rowan (Law and Order UK) is Corwyn and Clive Mantle (Robin of Sherwood) is Tuvold.

James Wilby (A Room with a View, Maurice, Titanic) shows his dark side in The Acheron Pulse, guest starring as the villainous Tenebris. Our picture shows James with Sixth Doctor Colin Baker…