In January 2001, Paul McGann reprised the role of the Eighth Doctor for the first time since the 1996 Doctor Who TV Movie, in the full-cast audio drama Storm Warning, part of Big Finish Productions’ monthly range. 

This electrifying adventure saw the Doctor visit the British airship R101 in the year 1930, where he encountered a ruthless spy, monsters from the time vortex, and the adventuress Charley Pollard (India Fisher) – who boarded the TARDIS as his new travelling companion. 

Across the following three monthly range releases, the Doctor and Charley fought Cybermen in the far future, discovered the fate of Venice, and found the Brigadier (Nicholas Courtney) in the newest American state. 

In the month of Storm Warning’s twenty-fifth anniversary, these four classic audio adventures are due to be re-released in a repackaged digital edition.  

Producer Gary Russell said: “It is always so exciting, and a bit daunting, to give newer Big Finish audiences a chance to go back and discover, or for many re-discover, these early adventures for the Eighth Doctor and Charley Pollard. 

“Making them was as exciting a six days as I can remember; it was new, uncharted territory with a Doctor and companion who we didn’t have to put back carefully in the sandbox when we finished playing with them. These four stories represent our first time doing audio adventures with no known endpoint. Paul and India were our Champions of Time and made it all possible because they were, and still are, utterly brilliant.” 

Doctor Who – The Eighth Doctor and Charlotte Pollard: Series One is now available to pre-order exclusively from the Big Finish website, as a digital download to own, for just £11.99. 

The four audio adventures in this collection, each of which is approximately two hours, are: 

Storm Warning by Alan Barnes 

October 1930. His Majesty's Airship, the R101, sets off on her maiden voyage to the farthest-flung reaches of the British Empire, carrying the brightest lights of the Imperial fleet. Carrying the hopes and dreams of a breathless nation. 

There's a storm coming. There's something unspeakable, something with wings, crawling across the stern. Thousands of feet high in the blackening sky, the crew of the R101 brace themselves. When the storm breaks, their lives won't be all that's at stake... 

The future of the galaxy will be hanging by a thread. 

Sword of Orion by Nicholas Briggs

The human race is locked in deadly combat with the 'Android Hordes' in the Orion System. Light years from the front line, the Doctor and Charley arrive to sample the dubious delights of a galactic backwater, little suspecting that the consequences of the Orion War might reach them there. But High Command's lust for victory knows no bounds. 

Trapped aboard a mysterious derelict star destroyer, the Doctor and Charley find themselves facing summary execution. But this is only the beginning of their troubles. The real danger has yet to awaken. 

Until, somewhere in the dark recesses of the Garazone System, the Cybermen receive the signal for reactivation... 

The Stones of Venice by Paul Magrs

The Doctor and Charley decide to take a well-deserved break from the monotony of being chased, shot at and generally suffering anti-social behaviour at the hands of others. And so they end up in Venice, well into Charley's future, as the great city prepares to sink beneath the water for the last time... 

Which would be a momentous, if rather dispiriting, event to witness in itself. However, the machinations of a love-sick aristocrat, a proud art historian and a rabid High Priest of a really quite dodgy cult combine to make Venice's swansong a night to remember. And then there's the rebellion by the web-footed amphibious underclass, the mystery of a disappearing corpse and the truth behind a curse going back further than curses usually do. The Doctor and Charley are forced to wonder just what they have got themselves involved with this time... 

Minuet in Hell by Gary Russell and Alan W Lear

The 21st century has just begun, and Malebolgia is enjoying its status as the newest state in America. After his successful involvement with Scotland's devolution, Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart has been invited over to Malebolgia to offer some of his experiences and expertise. 

There he encounters the charismatic Brigham Elisha Dashwood III, an evangelical statesman running for Governor who may not be quite as clean-cut and wholesome as he makes out. One of Dashwood's other roles in society is as patron of a new medical institute, concentrating on curing the ills of the human mind. One of the patients there interests the Brigadier - someone who claims he travels through space and time in something called a TARDIS. 

Charley, however, has more than a few problems of her own. Amnesiac, she is working as a hostess at the local chapter of the Hell Fire Club, populated by local dignitaries who have summoned forth the demon Marchosias. And the leader of the Club? None other than Dashwood, who seems determined to achieve congressional power by the most malevolent means at his disposal... 

The guest cast of these four stories includes Gareth Thomas (Blake’s 7), Mark Gatiss (Sherlock), and Michael Sheard (The Empire Strikes Back, several classic Doctor Who serials), as well as Hylton Collins, Barnaby Edwards, Helen Goldwyn, Nicholas Pegg, Michelle Livingstone, Toby Longworth, Ian Marr, Bruce Montague, Alistair Lock, Elaine Ives-Cameron, Nick Scovell, Morgan Deare, Robert Jezek, and Maureen Oakeley. 

Doctor Who – The Eighth Doctor and Charlotte Pollard: Series One is now available to pre-order exclusively from the Big Finish website, as a digital download to own, for just £11.99. 

All the above prices (including pre-order and multibuy bundle discounts) are fixed for a limited time only and guaranteed no later than 28 February 2026.