‘Doctor Who’: Billie Piper Returning in ‘Rose Tyler: The Dimension Cannon’

Billie Piper is returning to her fan-favorite Doctor Who role as companion Rose Tyler in a new […]

November 26, 2018, 5:42pm

Billie Piper is returning to her fan-favorite Doctor Who role as companion Rose Tyler in a new audio series from Big Finish.

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Rose Tyler: The Dimension Cannon follows Rose as she jumps through dying parallel worlds in search of the only person who can save the multiverse, the Doctor.

In addition to Piper as Rose, the four-episode series also stars Camille Coduri as Rose’s mother Jackie, Shaun Dingwall as Rose’s dad Pete, Mark Benton as alien investigator Clive Finch and Elli Garnett as Caroline Finch.

“I love how normal Rose is, and yet really extraordinary,” Piper says in a statement from Big Finish. “She lived a normal average life but she is incredibly curious and has an enormous capacity for love and empathy and is really spirited. She is extraordinary.”

Producer David Richardson reveals that Rose Tyler’s creator and former Doctor Who showrunner Russell T. Davies played a vital role in conceptualizing the new series.

“I approached Russell T. Davies with the idea of Big Finish making a Rose Tyler spin-off,” Richardson says. “He was very enthusiastic – as always – and suggested we followed Rose’s journey that ultimately leads to her finding the Doctor in ‘The Stolen Earth.’ I found the proposal irresistible, and instantly script editor Matt Fitton and I were throwing around ideas. There is a whole multiverse of possibilities. Russell suggested including Jackie and Pete, and embraced my idea of including a parallel universe version of Clive – who of course was killed off in the TV series (in the 2005 episode ‘Rose’).

“Russell guided us gently through the development – steering us towards ideas that worked brilliantly, ensuring things that needed improvement were fixed, and also throwing out the ideas that didn’t work. I’m absolutely delighted with what we have – a family drama about the end of worlds. It’s about love and loss and things that might have been – and our brilliant cast have embraced the emotional scripts.”

Richardson also says that the series tries to recapture the spirit and tone of the Davies era of Doctor Who, focusing more on the human characters and less on alien threats and monsters.

“What we have is different to previous iterations,’ says Richardson. ‘It’s rather dark (though never short on wit and charm) but it’s not really about villains. It focuses on the fight to survive against the odds, and on the power of family and love.”

Piper adds, “That’s the great thing about Doctor Who. It challenges new-thinking. It’s progressive and it can be political in amongst these human emotions and relationships. I think that’s its greatest appeal.”