Return of the Mara

February 6, 2010, 9:40 pm

Christian Cawley

Following news and photos in Doctor Who Magazine 418 of the 1983 TARDIS team of Peter Davison, Sarah Sutton, Mark Strickson and Janet Fielding (the Doctor, Nyssa, Turlough and Tegan) Big Finish have announced details of the upcoming series of adventures – including a return of the bizarre Mara entity previously seen in Kinda (1982) and Snakedance (1983).

The Mara returns in The Cradle of the Snake, written by Marc Platt, in an adventure that sees the TARDIS crew return to Manussa, a planet last seen in Snakedance.

“When we knew we could get these characters back together, we realised we wanted to bring back the Mara because it was an iconic monster from the Davison era,” says Nicholas Briggs. “Original writer Christopher Bailey gave us his blessing, and Marc Platt seemed the obvious choice to write it – because Marc does ‘weird’ so wonderfully!”

Other episodes in the new series of Fifth Doctor adventures – which might well be continued given the apparent mood in the studio during recording as few weeks ago – are Cobwebs by Jonathan Morris and The Whispering Forest by Stephen Cole.

This series kicks off in July with Cobwebs – visit www.bigfinish.com for more information!