Forever Young

One of Doctor Who's most mysterious unmade adventures is revived on audio

- WORDS: WILL SALMON

DOCTOR WHO'S LONG history is full of paths not taken - stories that were planned but, for whatever reason, never made it as far as filming. Over the last 16 years, audio drama publisher Big Finish has been steadily adapting these as part of its Lost Stories strand. This September, Big Finish is turning its attention to "Alixion", one of the most mysterious of all the show's unproduced adventures.

Penned by screenwriter Robin Mukherjee, "Alixion" would have formed part of the classic show's 27th season and was intended to star Sylvester McCoy as the Seventh Doctor and Sophie Aldred as Ace. "The idea was a few pages of outline, really," Mukherjee tells Red Alert. "We were getting there, and we were confident, but it wasn't a fully detailed scene-by-scene."

Alas, plans for Season 27 were abandoned, and Doctor Who entered its lengthy "wilderness years". Losing the opportunity to write for the show was a blow for the young writer, but Mukherjee moved on to other projects. "Andrew Cartmel [Doctor Who's then-script editor] became script editor on Casualty, and I followed him to that. My first episode worked really well, so I did more, and then got other TV gigs."

Still, nothing is ever truly forgotten when it comes to