Doctor Who: 12 Great Big Finish Stories You Have To Listen To

With the TV show doing so well these days, it's easy to forget that back in the 1990s and 2000s Doctor Who as a TV show - bar the one off TV Movie of 1996 - was no more. The show had died on the BBC and a proposed US version failed to launch. In these dark days, other media took on the mantle of telling new Doctor Who stories. While Virgin and then the BBC produced new novels featuring first the Seventh and then the Eighth Doctor, a few long term fans formed Big Finish Productions and campaigned for a licence - which they received in 1999 - to make Doctor Who audio plays featuring three of the classic Doctors and a host of companions and monsters.

Since then, Big Finish has expanded to include 5 of the classic era Doctors, spin offs that include Daleks, Cybermen, Gallifrey and Victorian duo Jago and Litefoot. They're created new companions for audio such as Lucie Miller, Charlotte Pollard, Thomas Brewster and Hector Schofield and even created their very own version of the Master, played by the highly entertaining Alex Macqueen. Notching up over 200 monthly releases plus numerous series of Fourth and Eighth Doctor adventures, these audios offer a whole other collection of Doctor Who that many regard as canon and as good - if not sometimes better - than TV Who.

To celebrate the news that they've just had their license extended until 2020, here's our countdown of 12 Big Finish stories that you have to listen to. Whether you're a regular listener or someone who is intrigued to try one out, what follows are adventures that show the company at the very top of their unbeatable game.