Absent Friends was the planned fiftieth story in the Torchwood - Monthly Range from Big Finish Productions. It was written by James Goss and had already been fully recorded, but was pulled before release following misconduct allegation on the set of Doctor Who.^[1][2] Along with the unbroadcast radio plays Journey into Time and City of the Saved, and the unreleased webcast 41.1978.A ^[+]Toby Price, Realms of Ink., this is one of only four performed DWU-related stories known to have been fully recorded, but cancelled before being officially broadcast or released in any form.

This release would have brought the Tenth Doctor into the Torchwood series directly, playing off the Torchwood Institute's original aim, to capture and contain the Doctor, as established in series 2 of Doctor Who. It would have seen the Doctor messing up, with Jack sort of taking the lead over him, rather than vice versa.^[3]

The cancelled story was originally slated for release in May 2021.^[4] In January 2022, it was announced that The Black Knight ^[+]Error: Code 2 - no data stored in variables, cache or SMW., featuring Samuel Barnett as Norton Folgate, would be replacing Absent Friends as number 50X in the range, with Big Finish reiterating they have no plans to release Absent Friends at this time.^[5]

Publisher's summary[]

On a dark and stormy night in Cardiff, the city is in danger, and the Doctor’s put himself in charge of Torchwood in order to save it. In a sealed recording studio, the voices of the dead have been playing for 17 years. Was it the project of a madman, or is this the site of something terrible? Torchwood has been hunting for the Doctor since 1879. And now they’ve found him. They may regret it.

Cast[]

• Jack Harkness - John Barrowman
• Ianto Jones - Gareth David-Lloyd
• Tenth Doctor - David Tennant
• Mishka - Ayesha Antoine
• Devin - Colin McFarlane

Notes[]

• Had this story been released, it would have marked the first in-person appearance of the Doctor in an instalment of Torchwood.
  • As such, it is subsequently the only cancelled DWU-related story to feature a canon incarnation of the Doctor.
• On 10 February 2024, an eBay listing claiming to be a script of the story went for auction with a starting price of £500. The item was marked as unavailable less than twelve hours after it first appeared, with no indication if it was sold privately or if the seller had withdrawn the auction. The item listing included photos of 26 pages from the script, as well as the cover page, revealing roughly one-third of the story.^[6]
• In July 2024, a temporary glitch when Big Finish was transitioning to a new mobile app briefly put Absent Friends in the list of available purchases for some users, where it was marked as "indefinitely postponed". However, none of these users were successfully able to download the audio file.^[7]

Footnotes[]