Audio Adventures in Time & Space

Audio Adventures in Time & Space, originally just Adventures in Time and Space, was a and umbrella title for several subseries of audios with varying levels of legal and narrative ties to the Doctor Who universe.

Name origins
It is somewhat unclear when the name originated, or who devised it. Certainly it was coined by the fan group, Audio Visuals, in the mid-1980s. It did not appear on AV covers until the second, 1986 season — though re-issues of the first, 1984 season bore the label retroactively. As the original AV producer, Bill Baggs was certainly in a position to have conceived the name, but it's uncertain that he did. In any case, Baggs began using the title in the late 1990s as the main label for his BBV Productions audio plays. Indeed, several BBV releases were based on old AV plays, and there was a great deal of staff crossover between the two groups. When Baggs co-opted the name, he added the word "Audio" before "Adventures in Time and Space" for clarity, since he had a thriving line of videos at the time.

BBV usage
Audio Adventures in Time & Space was a label used by BBV from 1998 to 2004. It referred to four "seasons" of audio output that featured a wide variety of characters, and indeed was comprised of several different series. Things like The Time Travellers, The Stranger, Zygons, Sontarans, Adventures in a Pocket Universe and others were all released under the label. The fourth season used a radically re-designed cover template which removed the "Audio Adventures in Time & Space" label from the front cover.

Although the overwhelming majority of BBV audio titles were released under this label, not all of them were. Notably the Tom Baker novel, The Boy Who Kicked Pigs, and the Richard Franklin story, The Killing Stone, were firmly not released under this label upon first release, although the 2021 relaunch of the series, now available for download on a revamped BBV website, included The Boy Who Kicked Pigs in its trailer for the Audio Adventures.

On 8 May, BBV announced the start of a fifth series of Audio Adventures in Time & Space, launching with a reading of The Door We Forgot by Bill Baggs, distinct from the previously-released Arcbeatle Press audiobook of the story.

Content
BBV used the label differently than AV. Whereas the AV Adventures in Time and Space had all featured the Doctor in an unlicensed, non-commercial context, BBV didn't have that luxury. As a commercial entity, they had to find some way of delivering a legal product for sale. They took two approaches to solve this problem.

First, they created approximations of characters from televised Doctor Who and hired the same actors to play them. Adventures in a Pocket Universe and so on. Thus a "season" could contain a highly eclectic variety of stories. Colin Baker was not playing the Sixth Doctor in The Stranger. Indeed, between the first and second season, the British Broadcasting Corporation had a stern word with BBV when they felt that the McCoy/Sophie Aldred output was getting too close to the Seventh Doctor and Ace. From the second season forward, therefore, all the McCoy/Aldred releases were relabelled The Time Travellers and their characters were decidedly distanced from their season 1 personas.

Second, they tried to get the permission of one of the original Doctor Who writers to use the species or characters that the writer owned. Most of these stories could then be marketed as taking place within the DWU. The cover to The Choice, for instance, quite legally claims that it is the "return of K9", since permission was obtained from Dave Martin and Bob Baker.

It is only the second type of story that this wiki makes an attempt to cover. However, it is worth noting that the whole of the series was advertised as coming "from the Worlds of Doctor Who"; while only some stories had a legal link to "prove" it, the intent was that all of them took place in the Doctor Who universe. While it might be odd to imagine the Professor and Alice existing, separately from Ace and the Seventh Doctor, within their universe, it is worth remembering that many characters over the years have been introduced who mimick recurring DWU foes while being distinct from them, from the 196Os' comics' Trods (Dalek stand-ins) to Iris Wildthyme's avowed in-universe status as a living parody of the Doctor.

Behind the scenes

 * Those wishing to understand more about this wiki's policies towards BBV's Audio Adventures in Time & Space should consult this discussion.
 * Due to our valid sources policy, this article concentrates on the usage of "" by BBV Productions. Those wishing a fuller explanation of this title's long history with Audio Visuals should consult the AV website.