Ahead of the next Twelfth Doctor Chronicles boxset, You Only Die Twice, Alex Hewitt spoke to writers Georgia Cook, Ben Tedds, and Fio Trethewey along with script editor Max Kashevsky to preview the release exclusively for Who Review.

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Hello all! Let’s kick things off – how did You Only Die Twice come about?

Max Kashevsky: Matt Fitton was originally supposed to be the script editor and he assembled most of our team here. He unfortunately had other commitments which meant he wasn’t able to do the whole boxset. He and Alfie [Shaw, producer] very kindly agreed to let me take it over.

It was fun to work on something totally from scratch – although this is the second half of Keira Sanstrom’s story it is pretty self-contained as its own adventure. Having three stories interlinked – but not part of a wider series like the Eleventh Doctor Chronicles – has been was a really fun and interesting challenge.

It came together when we came up with the idea of the Doctor being forcibly recruited as a Time Agent, which gives it a lot of fun vibes – a lot of really good set pieces.

How does the boxset take shape around the central Time Agency idea?

MK: Each story leads directly into the next, but they all stand independently too. It was a fun challenge as a script editor – we have a MacGuffin in the first story that goes in through the next two stories and you have to make sure that the rules make sense and still fit the plots of the next two episodes. Also, making sure that the character arcs all go through. So it’s three stories but it does feel like one big story.

Georgia – you’ve written the first episode, Sunstrike. What was the idea for opening this boxset?

Georgia Cook: I think out of all of them, it’s the most ‘Doctor Who has taken a little diversion into James Bond‘. The original title was the best pun I’ve ever made but Alfie and Max didn’t let me keep it-

MK: It is in the dialogue though!

GC: I need it on record, because I will never write anything as good as that pun. Sunstrike is Keira and the Doctor on their first little mission together to face down the villain, and they have to infiltrate a big party on a private sun for a quartermaster who supplies all the galaxy’s villains with their ammo and weapons.

How did you find putting the Twelfth Doctor into that environment?

GC: He’s got a certain wit. It’s him and Three that feel the most ‘James Bond’ out of all the Doctors. It’s the Doctor reluctantly being James Bond and then deciding, “no, I’m going to ham the hell out of this,” while also annoying Keira because he doesn’t want to be there. It was a really fun dynamic to explore.

The second episode is Ben’s Never the End Is…

Ben Tedds: Never the End Is is a time loop story but done purely on the last day of that time loop. What does it look like when you’ve only got one chance to get it right? In this case, we are following a sort of evangelical Joan of Arc character called Elinor who is helping a painter called Christoph, who is based on the historical figure Christoph Haizmann, who appears to have made a deal with the devil.

Elinor seems to be the central nexus of this time loop and she manages to drag the Doctor and Keira off course into this time loop where perhaps they can help, perhaps they can’t.

Which thread of this story came first – the time loop or the deal with the devil?

BT: The time loop story came earlier in the process. The boxset went through a couple of iterations when we figuring out exactly what it was going to be. I pitched the time loop idea as a story for an earlier iteration, and then when we landed on the Doctor becoming a Time Agent I was given a list of things the story needed to do.

One of those things lent itself very well to going into the occult. I thought it would be very interesting to go into something that Doctor Who hasn’t really dealt with before, and that is deals with the devil. We’ve had bargains with evil people – look at the Black Guardian and Turlough, for instance. But it hasn’t touched a deal with the actual devil for your soul, so I was keen to give that a go.

We then move into Fio’s finale – You Only Die Twice! This has possibly the shortest blurb on the Big Finish website EVER.

Fio Trethewey: I went into this interview thinking, “I can’t say anything”. Everything is redacted. I can’t really tell you anything about it, because if I tell you anything it’s massively spoilerific. The way the third episode functions, it is very much the end of the story and therefore everything gets tied up. Even saying who’s in it is difficult!

There’s no good way to explain any of it, and the funny part is that I didn’t even write the blurb! When I saw it was released, it was perfect. I can understand now why these things are so difficult – there was an event not long ago where James Goss and Scott Handcock were on stage and weren’t allowed to talk about anything! I now know what that’s like.

What I will say is I think it’s kind of my fault we landed on the Time Agency idea in the first place. I was actually invited on this project back in 2019, just after I’d finished my Short Trip. Alfie just went, “your favourite Doctor’s Twelve, isn’t it?” and I was like, “yeah…” and he went, “do you want to write one for him?”. I was just sat there going “yes please!”. It’s vastly changed since then.

GC: I think you two [Fio and Ben] were signed onto it before I’d ever met you, Ben!

BT: I was first asked in January 2021. Alfie was talking to me about my Short Trip I was working on at the time, and he said, “by the way, I’ve got you pencilled in for this Twelfth Doctor story,” and I was like “YES”.

FT: He does it so casually!

Before we move on – Fio, is there aaaaanything you can say about your story?

FT: One thing I can say is that there is a non-binary character who is played by a non-binary actor. I like to include queer people in my stories as much as I can – it was nice to once again be able to include a non-binary character. I had a non-binary character in my first Gallifrey script and that went down really well so it was nice to be able to do it again.

It’s also important to have representation and awareness behind the scenes – how important is it to you all to have pronouns included on the covers of these scripts?

BT: Oh, it’s lovely – my name is the first you see on my script, so it’s so nice to see ‘he/they’ there, it’s so affirming.

GC: It’s such a simple quality-of-life thing, it’s so good to see.

MK: The only one that doesn’t have a pronoun under it is the ‘Doctor Who’ at the top of the script!

Also, about Fio’s episode – one more thing we can say is that he was very keen on it being a Time Agency-centric story, and we take that to its limit. It really is like, “what if there was a temporal MI6?” and we take that to its extreme.

FT: And it was really emotional to know that I was writing the final story.

This is also Jacob Dudman’s final boxset with Big Finish – how does it feel having crafted that?

GC: It’s really nice – he was the first Doctor actor I ever wrote for.

BT: Me too! I got to write for him for the Paul Spragg memorial opportunity – for a Twelfth Doctor story, actually. So it just feels really lovely and sweet to be able to give him a thank-you send-off in this way.

MK: Victory of the Doctor was his spiritual send-off, but this being the chronological last release, he pulls off his best Twelfth Doctor yet. He pulls the character together brilliantly, he gets what makes Twelve tick. This particular boxset puts him through the wringer and Jake absolutely nails every scene.

There’s a whole gamut of emotions – awkward comedy bits in Georgia’s, epic stuff in Fio’s, big emotions in Ben’s. All those Doctor scenes are very tonally different and it shows both the range that Jake can do as well as that Twelve can do, and that he’s not just generically crotchety like some people seem to think sometimes.

New material gives you endless storytelling space. Anything can happen – and everything happens in this boxset!

You Only Die Twice is a homage to the Bond films – do any of you have a favourite James Bond?

FT: I’m a really big fan of Skyfall–

GC: I was going to say that’s my favourite.

FT: I think Daniel Craig is great. I grew up watching a lot of James Bond because it used to be repeated on ITV late at night, and the adverts would play in the middle so you’d get a really long James Bond. My brain is saying Thunderball was good even though I haven’t seen it for years! Sean Connery’s amazing.

MK: Goldfinger for me. I just think it’s got so many iconic images and lines. It feels like classic “sit on the sofa when you’re sick and watch a movie”.

Finally, how are you all feeling about listening to the boxset?

FT: I’m really excited. I didn’t get to go to studio, so it will be really interesting to hear how it all sounds in post!

BT: I’m extremely excited! It’s been a long road to get here, but I’m thrilled to have a full-cast audio out on CD – which is going to be a first for me – but also that I got to do it with such a wonderful group of people. This one felt so collaborative in many ways.

Especially me and you, Fio – we were talking through ideas together and figuring out what would be best to work with each other’s stories. And having Max as script editor – he absolutely nailed it. These scripts are so brilliant, because of Max as well as because of Fio and Georgia. He’s responsible for so much of the brilliance of what will be heard.

FT: I’ll second that – it was quite fun when Georgia was brought on board (she was brought on later), because we could discuss about seeds that she could plant in the first one that I could then bring back in the third one. It’s such a fun way of doing it. This has felt a lot more collaborative in that way, and it’s something I want to continue doing when I work in boxsets. It’s happening with the War Room stuff as well – all the writers are in sync with what everyone’s doing and it’s something I really hope continues forward as new writers come in, and new producers, and new script editors.

MK: For me personally, I love everything that Big Finish prints out but I think my favourite stuff is when Doctor Who does a bit of serialisation, when stories feel like they had to be told in this exact order, like with the Eleventh Doctor stuff.

As this was my first time script editing, I was really keen on doing that, and making no story felt like it didn’t have to be right where it is. Now I realise the amount of work that the four of us plus Alfie have done on this, I know why it’s so hard to do that! It’s a really difficult thing and I really hope that people listening appreciate both the wonderful drama, but more importantly how much work we put into this!

GC: I don’t think I can add anything that hasn’t already been said! It’s been so wonderful to have been put on board this boxset with this wonderful crew. It’s one of those things that could only exist as it is with the creative group that it has. One of the wonderful things about working with Big Finish is you can have this way of doing things. I remember the three hour Zoom call Max and I had at the start – you just can’t have that when you’re working on your own. It’s been such a joy.

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Many thanks to Georgia, Max, Ben, and Fio for their time. The Twelfth Doctor Chroncicles: You Only Die Twice is available to pre-order now as a CD or download from bigfinish.com, ahead of its release next week on Tuesday 26th March.