Beginner's Guide to Doctor Who on Big Finish - Part 3: Free on Big Finish

Okay, we’ve looked at streaming platforms, we’ve looked at what’s available through BBC Sounds; now it’s time to officially check in with the Big Finish website. I waited for a bit before we got here because, where streaming was included to make use of accounts users are already using, and BBC Sounds doesn’t need one, Big Finish requires making an account to access its content. It’s free to sign up, but the actual access is a little counter-intuitive. Once the account is set up, getting to the freebies involves ‘unlocking’ them, and if you’re one of those weirdos who still use PCs and laptops to browse the Internet (which includes me, so no actual judgement there), you’ll be able to download ZIPs containing the audios. If you want a streaming option, you can download the Big Finish app, although be aware that the interface is a little antiquated. It also doesn’t allow for purchases through the app itself (similar to Amazon’s Comixology), so the best way to go is to use a web browser to unlock (and, later on, purchase) content, and then access it through the app.

Most of what’s available for free on the website are Part 1s and excerpts of larger stories and boxsets, similar to the official Soundcloud, which we won’t be covering here. Feel free to peruse them to maybe find something you’d like to check out in full later on, but for right now, this Guide is just going to focus on self-contained, complete stories. And there’s quite a few of them here.

Beginner's Guide to Doctor Who on Big Finish - Part 2: BBC Sounds

Now that we’ve sampled what’s available on services you’re already using, it’s time for a bit of exploring. This section will cover more free audios, although I’m not expecting most of you reading to already be familiar with the website where they can be found: BBC Sounds. These were all uploaded to the site as part of the show’s 60^th anniversary back in 2023, and quite a few of them are tailored towards fans of the revived era. At time of writing, they’re apparently going to do some reorganising soon for those accessing the site outside of the UK, but I’ll do my best to keep this up-to-date when that comes around. Same deal as with Part 1: I’ll give some general thoughts on each story, and provide links, although thankfully, there’s not as much need for digging around with this one.

Beginner's Guide to Doctor Who on Big Finish - Part 1: Streaming

Doctor Who is my favourite show. Hell, that’s probably not selling it enough: It is my favourite media franchise, across all forms it has taken over the past 60+ years.

At time of writing, the show has aired 884 individual episodes, encompassing 312 complete stories. But that represents just a fraction of what is available out there. There’s the numerous comic strips and series, there’s novelisations of the televised episodes that often went into much more detail and even redeemed some of the weaker stories, there’s original novelised adventures that kept the franchise alive during the wilderness years of the ‘90s… and then there’s the audio dramas, in particular the ones made by Big Finish Productions. Doctor Who on TV has just under 900 episodes. Doctor Who on Big Finish is at over two thousand and counting.