Beyond the Vortex

Beyond the Vortex was a 2007 series of audio documentaries broadcast on BBC7. They followed the BBC Radio broadcast of the first and second series of audio adventures of the Eighth Doctor and Lucie Miller. The behind-the-scenes programme was essentially the audio equivalent of Doctor Who Confidential, the show which accompanied BBC Wales televised episodes.

A standard episode of the Eighth Doctor/Lucie adventures did not completely fill an hour-long programming block. Vortex thus filled in the remaining few minutes of the hour. Because the related stories did not have a standard run time and the impetus for Vortex was to offer a complete hour to BBC7, Vortex ran between five and nine minutes.

Each episode of the first series was accompanied by its own episode of Vortex, but BBC7 only requested six episodes for the second series, which they broadcast between 19 October and 23 November 2008. Because they didn't opt to transmit Sisters of the Flame and The Vengeance of Morbius, no Vortex was made for those episodes.

As a BBC7 production – and not a Big Finish Productions one – Vortex did not appear on Big Finish Productions CD releases of the various stories from the New Eighth Doctor Adventures range. However, the Big Finish-made behind-the-scenes interviews that appeared on the CD releases typically covered the same beats as Vortex and were much longer.

The series was mainly produced by Martin Montague, the BBC7 producer who originally commissioned the New Eighth Doctor Adventures for BBC7.