Doctor Who Unbound

Doctor Who Unbound was a series produced by Big Finish Productions. It featured hypothetical stories set in variants of the Doctor Who universe with premises fundamentally altered.
These premises were often built upon "what if" propositions such as; "what if the Doctor hadn't left Gallifrey" (Auld Mortality), "what if the Doctor hadn't been UNIT's scientific advisor?" (Sympathy for the Devil) and "what if the Valeyard had won" (He Jests at Scars...). Others like Full Fathom Fives story was more vague built upon the idea of "what if the Doctor believed the ends justified the means?", while Deadline takes on the more meta-textual premise of "what if Doctor Who had never existed?" The final story in the ongoing series, Exile, featured a female Doctor, an idea that has been raised several times throughout Doctor Who's production. Each one featured a Doctor created specifically for the series, aside from He Jests at Scars, which featured the Valeyard.
First released in 2003, the first series of six Unbound stories were part of Big Finish's celebration of the 40th anniversary year of Doctor Who. Two subsequent stories were released in later years: the 2005 story A Storm of Angels was a sequel to Auld Mortality, and the 2008 story Masters of War was a sequel to Sympathy for the Devil.
In 2016, the Sympathy for the Devil version of the Doctor and the Master returned for The New Adventures of Bernice Summerfield Series 3, The Unbound Universe, in which Benny, a companion to the mainstream Doctors, crossed over into the parallel world of the Unbound Third Doctor, finding it devastated by a cosmic war. This Doctor and Master would return in the subsequent volume, Ruler of the Universe, after which the Unbound Doctor travelled with Benny to the mainstream universe, with their travels subsequently continuing in Series 5, 6 and 7 of the New Adventures, Buried Memories, Lost in Translation, and Blood & Steel. This Doctor also appeared alongside Benny in one story of The Story So Far: Volume Two. The Master of this universe also reappeared in stories opposite mainstream incarnations of the Master in the fourth volume of The War Master, Anti-Genesis, and in Masterful, the special marking the 50th anniversary of the Master's television debut.
The series relaunched in 2022 with Doctor of War, a saga exploring possible events had the Fourth Doctor fulfilled his mission in Genesis of the Daleks. It starred Colin Baker as an alternative version of the War Doctor known as the Warrior. Also in 2022, Big Finish released Unbound: 1 - 8 Collected, a boxset containing the first eighth releases of the series.
== Stories ==
=== Original range ===
#	Title 	Author 	Doctor / Main character 	Featuring 	Released
1	Auld Mortality 	Marc Platt 	The Doctor (Unbound 1) 	Susan (Unbound) 	May 2003
2	Sympathy for the Devil	Jonathan Clements	The Doctor (Unbound 2) 	Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart (Unbound), Unbound Master 	June 2003
3	Full Fathom Five 	David Bishop 	The Doctor (Unbound 3), The New Doctor (Unbound 3) 	Ruth 	July 2003
4	He Jests at Scars... 	Gary Russell 	The Valeyard, Melanie Bush 	Ellie Martin, Vansell 	August 2003
5	Deadline 	Robert Shearman 	Martin Bannister/Doctor Who 	Barbara, Philip, Amy/Susan 	September 2003
6	Exile 	Nicholas Briggs 	Previous Doctor (Unbound 6), The Doctor (Unbound 6)	Cherrie, Cheese 	October 2003
7	A Storm of Angels 	Marc Platt 	The Doctor (Unbound 1) 	Susan (Unbound) 	January 2005
8	Masters of War 	Eddie Robson 	The Doctor (Unbound 2) 	Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart (Unbound), Davros (Unbound)	December 2008
=== Doctor of War ===
==== Genesis ====
# 	Title 	Author 	Doctor / Main character	Featuring 	Released
1.1	Dust Devil 	John Dorney 	The Warrior 	Fourth Doctor, Harry Sullivan, Sarah Jane Smith, Sixth Doctor, Peri Brown, Narvin	13 April 2022
1.2	Aftershocks 	Lou Morgan 	The Warrior 	The Master, Daleks, Narvin 	13 April 2022
1.3	The Difference Office	James Kettle	The Warrior 	Romana, Borusa 	13 April 2022
==== Destiny ====
# 	Title 	Author 	Doctor / Main character	Featuring 	Released
2.1	Who Am I? 	Nigel Fairs 	The Warrior 	The Master, Leela 	27 September 2022
2.2	Time Killers 	Lizzie Hopley	The Warrior 	The Master 	27 September 2022
2.3	The Key To Key To Time	Tim Foley 	The Warrior 	White Guardian, Davros	27 September 2022
== Other usage of the term ==
Aside from stories officially released under the Doctor Who Unbound range, the "unbound" term has been adopted as a general descriptor of out-of-continuity stories or concepts. Paul Cornell, writer of Scream of the Shalka (which was retroactively subsumed in continuity by the BBC Wales Doctor Who series) once jokingly captioned an image taken of himself with cosplayers of the Doctor and Master from Scream of the Shalka, "Dude, they’re, like, cosplaying my unbound!" Nicholas Briggs has also informally described certain stories in Big Finish's Sherlock Holmes range which don't fit into its general continuity as "Sherlock Holmes Unbound."https://www.bigfinish.com/news/v/have-you-heard-sherlock-holmes Furthermore, prior to the Big Finish website update removing the ability to filter by Doctor, Trevor Martin's Doctor from AUDIO: Seven Keys to Doomsday was categorised as an "Unbound" incarnation.
== Cover gallery ==
Auld Mortality cover.jpg|Auld Mortality
Sympathy for the Devil front cover.jpg|Sympathy for the Devil
Full Fathom Five front cover.jpg|Full Fathom Five
He Jests at Scars main cover.jpg|He Jests at Scars...
Deadline front cover.jpg|Deadline
Exile front cover.jpg|Exile
A Storm of Angels front cover.jpg|A Storm of Angels
Masters of War.jpg|Masters of War
Genesis (audio anthology).jpg|Genesis
Destiny (audio anthology).jpg|Destiny
== External links ==
* The DiscContinuity Guide: Doctor Who Unbound
== Footnotes ==
 
Category:Audio overviews
fr:Doctor Who Unbound