BBV Productions

BBV Productions (also known as Bill & Ben Video and sometimes, erroneously, as Bill Baggs Video) is a British video production company known for its many unofficial video and audio Doctor Who spin-offs. A number of personnel behind-the-scenes and in front of the camera would go on to work on the revival of Doctor Who after 2005, most notably Nicholas Briggs, who acted in, wrote and directed a number of BBV productions, and author/actor Mark Gatiss. BBV developed a repertory company of actors that appeared in many of these productions, often playing different roles. Many of these actors were well-known from their work in Doctor Who and included former Doctor actors Jon Pertwee, Peter Davison, Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy, and companion actors Caroline John, Louise Jameson, Nicola Bryant and Sophie Aldred. Several actors appearing in these productions early in their careers went on to some notability, including Mark Gatiss and Alan Cumming.

Work in Video
BBV's first production was the 1991 video release of Summoned by Shadows which was co-produced by the BBC Film Club and stared Colin Baker playing an unnamed character only known as the stranger and Nicola Bryant as Miss Brown. The stranger's adventures were chronicled on six videos and an audio adventure many of which featured former cast members of Doctor Who. The sixth video Eye of the Beholder was later re-released as the audio story Eye of the Storm.

BBV's next release was the ecologically-themed thriller The Airzone Solution which was about a near future conspiracy. The video was released in 1993 coinciding with the 30th anniversary of Doctor who and featured four actors previously cast as The Doctor.

In 1994 BBV released the first video in the P.R.O.B.E. series, The Zero Imperative which saw a departure for BBV as Liz Shaw was the only character from the Doctor Who universe to appear although numerous actors who had appeared in Doctor Who made appearances as different characters. This proved problematic for the series as Liz Shaw seemed a different character of that of the one appearing in the doctor who universe, which was due to BBV only acquiring the rights to use the character and therefore had no rights to Doctor Who meaning that the series could make no explicit reference to any other aspect of Doctor Who even the stories that Liz was present in.

BBV's next series of spin off videos focused on the organization UNIT and their battles with the Autons the first video of the series Auton was originally going to feature  Nicholas Courtney who would have reprised his Doctor Who role as UNIT commander Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart but had to withdraw from the project due to ill health making this the first BBV production not to feature any cast from the doctor who series. The Brigadier's character was replaced by an original character of Lockwood, an enigmatic UNIT agent played by Michael Wade.

After the success of the Auton trilogy of videos, BBV went on to produce Cyberon which featured an alien race of cyborgs reminiscent of the Cybermen called the Cyberon. The Cyberon would later go on to appear in an audio story, Cybergeddon.

In 2001 BBV released a Spoof video featuring Sylvester McCoy titled Do You Have a License to Save this Planet? in which McCoy played a character called the Chiropodist which means the foot doctor. The video not only made references to past BBV productions but to Doctor who as well.

BBV's latest video production is called Zygon: When being you just isn't enough though previously titled Zygon: When Being Me Is Not Enough In which Mike Kirkwood dreams of being a monster, he is in fact a Zygon, believeing himself to be human. This story also features Jo Castleton's character of Doctor Lauren Anderson from Cyberon.

Work in Audio
After experimenting with audio for a few years BBV released their first audio drama in 1998 under the umbrella title Audio Adventures in time and Space after which BBV began regularly releasing audios beginning  with a line of adventures called The Time Travellers staring Sylvester McCoy and Sophie Aldred as The Professor and Ace which closely resembled the characters they portrayed in the Doctor Who series even using the same companion name and the nickname for McCoy's incarnation of The Doctor. The resemblance was so close to that of the Doctor Who characters that the BBC eventually stepped in and by the time of the seventh audio drama a number of changes had been made. The main one being the change of the main characters to The Dominie and Alice.

The first of the Audio Adventures in Time & Space that didn't feature Sylvester McCoy and Sophie Aldred was a 2 story series called The Wanderer both of which featured Nicholas Briggs who played the character of an amnesic space traveller whom one of the other characters dubb's Fred after his pet goldfish. Briggs had previously played a version of the Doctor for the unlicensed fan audios made by Audio Visuals.

BBV moved away from audio stories about characters that could be the doctor after the establishment of Big Finish's officially licensed line of Doctor Who audio dramas and instead moved on to audios featuring characters from the Doctor Who universe such as Romana and K9. Following the success of the Autons trilogy stand alone audios featuring alien races from doctor who licensed directly from the writers that created them and in some instances allowing the writers to author new stories featuring their characters for the audio drama's such as a story by Pip & Jane Baker explaining what happened to the Rani who was last seen in Doctor Who being abducted by a group of aliens. Also the series of stories by Lawrence Miles about his history-spanning cult organisation the Faction Paradox.

In 2002 BBV announced that it would be no longer producing audio stories and instead would focus on video releases.

The Stranger

 * Summoned by Shadows
 * More Than a Messiah
 * In Memory Alone
 * The Terror Game
 * Breach of the Peace
 * Eye of the Beholder

P.R.O.B.E.

 * The Zero Imperative
 * The Devil of Winterborne
 * Unnatural Selection
 * Ghosts of Winterborne

The Auton Trilogy

 * Auton
 * Auton 2: Sentinel
 * Auton 3: Awakening

Other

 * The Airzone Solution
 * Cyberon
 * Do You Have a License to Save this Planet?
 * Zygon: When being you just isn't enough

Documentaries

 * Stranger than Fiction
 * Stranger Than Fiction 2: From script to screen
 * Bidding Adieu: A Video Diary
 * The Doctors: 30 Years of Time Travel and Beyond

The Time Travellers

 * Republica
 * Island of Lost Souls
 * Prosperity Island
 * The Left Hand of Darkness
 * The Other Side
 * Guests for the Night
 * Ghosts
 * Only Human
 * Blood Sports
 * Punchline

The Wanderer

 * Cyber-Hunt
 * Vital Signs

The Stranger

 * The Last Mission
 * Eye of the Storm

Adventures in a Pocket Universe

 * The Choice
 * The Search

Zygons

 * Zygons: Homeland
 * Zygons: Absolution
 * The Barnacled Baby

Krynoids

 * Krynoids: The Root of All Evil
 * Krynoids: The Green Man

Sontarans

 * Sontarans: Silent Warrior
 * Sontarans: Old Soldiers
 * Sontarans: Conduct Unbecoming

Cyberons

 * Cybergeddon

The I

 * I Scream

The Rani

 * The Rani Reaps the Whirlwind

Wirrn

 * Wirrn: Race Memory

The Faction Paradox Protocols

 * The Eleven Day Empire
 * The Shadow Play
 * Sabbath Dei
 * In the Year of the Cat
 * Movers
 * A Labyrinth of Histories

Rutans

 * In 2 Minds

Guy de Carnac

 * The Quality of Mercy

Mike Yates

 * The Killing Stone

Other

 * Infidel's Comet
 * The Pattern

Also See

 * Reeltime Pictures
 * Audio Visuals