Although there won't be a full series on television in 2009, Big Finish Productions have announced that they plan to release five series of Doctor Who on audio in 2009. For the first time in its 12-year history Big Finish Productions will be releasing stories as consecutive collections.

‘The idea of putting things into seasons is something we've been talking about for a long time’, explains executive producer Nicholas Briggs‘ and as Doctor Who fans, let's face it, we think of stories in terms of seasons. This is the beginning of a move to, retrospectively, put all our stories into three-story blocks’.

Between January and March 2009, is the 'Key 2 Time' season, starring Peter Davison as the Fifth Doctor and Ciara Janson as new companion Amy - a sentient Tracer created to find the all-powerful Key to Time - first seen in television show back in 1978/79.

‘This is a very different adventure from the original Key to Time,’ says producer David Richardson. ‘It's all about consequences...’

The season begins with "The Judgement of Isskar" by Simon Guerrier, in which the discovery of a segment of the key on Mars has grave repercussions... This story sees the return of the Ice Warriors, last heard in "The Bride of Peladon" and last seen on television in the 1974 Third Doctor story "The Monster of Peladon".

The next story, "The Destroyer of Delights" by Jonathan Clements, takes the Fifth Doctor and Amy into the distant past, where they realise that a missing segment doesn't seem to exist anywhere in space and time.

The season concludes with "The Chaos Pool", in which the Fifth Doctor becomes embroiled in an epic race to save the universe.

The other collections in 2009 will be: three stories featuring the Seventh Doctor released between April and June; three stories featuring the Sixth Doctor out between July and September; at least eight stories featuring the Eighth Doctor, which will be released concurrently with other releases from March onwards; and four adventures from September to December 2009, details of which have yet to be announced.