Sylvester McCoy’s Doctor Takes On Soviet Cybermen This Christmas

Doctor Who News · Edition of Wednesday 4 November 2026 · covering 28 October–4 November

Sylvester McCoy’s Seventh Doctor is heading into a Christmas battle with Soviet-allied Cybermen, in a new Big Finish box set that also brings back Peter Davison’s Fifth Doctor and Alex Kingston’s River Song. Elsewhere this week, Jo Martin’s Fugitive Doctor goes looking for her origins in Running Wild, out today, Peter Capaldi sets out what the next era must never lose, a new writer’s First Doctor story wins Big Finish’s Paul Spragg competition, and our classic pick remembers John Leeson with K9’s very first adventure.

The Doctor Who News That Matters

Sylvester McCoy’s Seventh Doctor takes on Soviet Cybermen in Big Finish’s Christmas box set

• New development: Big Finish announced Doctor Who: Christmas – Out of the Dark and Other Stories on Tuesday 3 November, a box set of four festive full-cast audio stories due in December
• The title story: In Jonathan S Powell’s Out of the Dark, the Seventh Doctor and Ace (Sophie Aldred) are battling a Cyber-Soviet alliance in Moscow in 1991 when a glowing weapon sends them on a chase through Christmas history. Nicholas Briggs voices the Cybermen
• The other three: John Dorney’s Merry Christmas, Mr Chimbly reunites the Fifth Doctor (Peter Davison) with Tegan (Janet Fielding) and Nyssa (Sarah Sutton); Hannah Kennedy’s From the Realms of Glory strands River Song (Alex Kingston) in an abandoned Highland town; and James Goss’s And Tiny Tim, Who Did Not Die pairs Bernice Summerfield (Lisa Bowerman) with Miles Taylor’s Eleventh Doctor
• Where to listen in the UK: Available to pre-order now, exclusively from Big Finish, at £24.99 as a download or £35.99 with a collector’s edition CD set limited to 1,500 copies. The exact December release day has not been confirmed

Powell says the idea goes back to his childhood: “Silver Nemesis on VHS was my first encounter with the Cybermen, and some part of me has always been itching to give them a rematch with the Doctor and Ace.” His story opens at the end of that rematch, which he calls “the kind of three-parter we could have had in 1991”, a nod to the seasons that never were after the series came off air in 1989. Goss, meanwhile, has given Benny a new summer intern who happens to be the Eleventh Doctor, sent to a planet that claims to be Trenzalore. “Lisa was blown away by Miles,” he said.

It is a generous line-up, and it matters more than usual this year. There is no Doctor Who special on BBC One this Christmas while the show goes out to tender, so for many fans this box set will be the only new Doctor Who under the tree. It follows Big Finish’s Halloween set, and the two can be bought together in a seasonal bundle.

Update: Jo Martin’s Fugitive Doctor goes looking for her origins in Running Wild, out today

• What is new: Since the trailer arrived last month, Big Finish has released Doctor Who – The Fugitive Doctor: Running Wild, today, Wednesday 4 November. It runs to three full-cast episodes and 206 minutes
• The stories: Alex Hewitt’s Tholos takes the Doctor to a temple floating in space and a dream-walking tiger; Katharine Armitage’s Scripture visits scribes who record the whole history of the universe, with the Daleks close behind; and Rochana Patel’s Genesis of the Doctor goes looking for where this Doctor began
• The cast: Jo Martin as the Doctor, with Helen Lederer as the newly regenerated Division agent Cosmogon, Nicholas Briggs as the Daleks and Nicholas Asbury as the mysterious Man in the Grey Suit
• Where to listen in the UK: Out now, exclusively from Big Finish, at £19.99 as a download or £29.99 with a collector’s edition CD box set limited to 1,000 copies. Big Finish is running a digital-first schedule, so CDs will post later but the download is available now

This is the set where the Fugitive Doctor stops running and starts fighting back. Patel is promising more than a hint: “Genesis of the Doctor is a deliberately provocative title,” she said. “I’d promised myself if I ever got the opportunity to write for the Fugitive Doctor again, I’d swing big, really big!” Script editor Robert Valentine said this Doctor “can’t help helping wherever she goes”, even as she goes after the person she thinks framed her.

We won’t spoil where it leads. It caps a big year for Jo Martin’s Doctor, after the summer’s Circuit Breaker saga, which now even has its own set of Battles in Time cards.

Update: Peter Capaldi’s wish list for the next Doctor Who: a 1960s TARDIS and no more than two companions

• What is new: After he revealed that he had turned down offers to join the tender bids, more of the Twelfth Doctor’s interview on the Half the Picture podcast was reported by Doctor Who TV on Sunday 1 November, this time setting out what he thinks the next era must keep
• The TARDIS: “No, you don’t mess with the TARDIS,” he said. “It’s got to retain its 60s essence. It can be amped up obviously, but its essence has to be a 60s thing”
• The team: “You can’t have more than two” companions, he said, and he liked the idea of one man and one woman. The Doctor “shouldn’t have a beard”, and when it was pointed out that Ncuti Gatwa’s Doctor had a moustache, he replied: “I don’t think that’s canon”
• Where to watch in the UK: All three of Capaldi’s series as the Doctor stream on BBC iPlayer. The next series is planned for 2028/29 on the BBC; UK date not yet confirmed

At heart, Capaldi says, “it’s actually quite a small show”: the Doctor and their friends in the TARDIS, heading into worlds full of monsters. “I think kids love monsters,” he added, pointing out how few programmes still offer them. He admits his own taste is shaped by the classic series, and joked that he could hardly ask for black and white and wobbly sets.

It is a fan’s list rather than a pitch, and it is fun to set beside Tom Baker’s advice for the next Doctor. Whoever wins the BBC’s tender, from the three companies in the running, will be deciding exactly these things: how big the TARDIS team should be, and how much of the old show to keep.

A new writer’s First Doctor story, The Underwater Prison, wins Big Finish’s Paul Spragg competition

• New development: Big Finish named Daniel Tout the winner of the 2026 Paul Spragg Memorial Short Trips Opportunity on Thursday 29 October. This year’s theme was the First Doctor
• The story: Ignoring his friends’ warnings, the Doctor sets off alone to explore a glowing underwater realm, and when he decides to protect a childlike creature, he wonders if he will ever be able to leave. It is read by Stephen Noonan, Big Finish’s First Doctor since 2022
• The shortlist: For the first time, Big Finish also named the runners-up: Jamie H. Cowan (Vacancy), Victoria Ellis (Due Date), Harry Rogers (The Final Bell) and Joshua Tomes (The Cup of Tea at the End of the World)
• Where to listen in the UK: A free download from Big Finish on Tuesday 29 December 2026, and open to pre-order now. It comes with interviews, the studio script and Tout’s winning entry

The competition remembers Paul Spragg, the Big Finish colleague and champion of new writers who died suddenly in 2014, and the release date is his birthday. The judges included creative director Nicholas Briggs and Noonan himself. It is a real break for a new writer, and the First Doctor theme fits a busy autumn for the original TARDIS crew, who were in wartime Malta last month.

Classic pick: The Invisible Enemy, K9’s first adventure, in memory of John Leeson

• Why now: John Leeson, who voiced K9 for almost 50 years, died on Sunday 1 November aged 83. His robot dog made its debut in this 1977 Tom Baker story
• The story: Four episodes from Season 15, written by K9’s creators Bob Baker and Dave Martin. A space-travelling virus takes hold of the Doctor himself, and the hunt for a cure takes him and Leela to a far-future hospital, where they meet a very clever metal dog
• Update from Big Finish: In its tribute on Monday 2 November, creative director Nicholas Briggs called Leeson’s “the definitive K-9 performance”, and producer Gary Russell remembered his “thesaurus-like mind” and the crossword races he and Lalla Ward held in the recording booths
• Where to watch in the UK: All four parts stream on BBC iPlayer in the Doctor Who (1963–1996) collection. K9’s 2006 return with Sarah Jane, “School Reunion”, is on BBC iPlayer too

K9 was only meant to appear once. The production team liked the character, and Leeson’s clipped, know-all voice, so much that the dog stayed aboard the TARDIS until 1981. Leeson once said he was asked to sound as if he came from “a tiny little elliptical speaker in a cheap radio”, and he made it one of the most loved voices in the show. Look out, too, for The Power of Kroll the following season, where he finally appears on screen, as Dugeen.

Gary Russell summed him up as “a very genuine and decent human being who got on with everyone”. K9 also has a place in our feature The Two Pillars of British Entertainment, and every era of the show is in our Doctor Who watch order.

Which Doctor would you most like to spend Christmas with: the Fifth, the Seventh or the Eleventh?