Big Finish have done it again and announced that Kate Stewart and her UNIT team from the Doctor Who TV series will be starring in a brand new series of audio dramas.

This comes after Big Finish secured a new licensing deal with BBC Worldwide.

Kate is the daughter of Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, and Head of Scientific Research at the Unified Intelligence Taskforce which investigates and confronts alien attacks on the planet Earth. The role is portrayed by Jemma Redgrave on television; and returns for the audio series.

“We’re thrilled that Jemma is on board for our brand new UNIT adventures,” says series producer David Richardson, “and we feel privileged to work within the universe of New Series Doctor Who for the first time. UNIT: Extinction will showcase all the excitement, drama and wit that viewers of Doctor Who love.”

“Having worked with the greatly missed Nicholas Courtney and his magnificent portrayal of the Brigadier since the early days of Big Finish, it is wonderful to see the return of UNIT under the Brig’s daughter,” says executive producer Jason Haigh-Ellery. “We are all very excited about bringing UNIT back to Big Finish with the next generation and look forward immensely to working with Jemma again”.

“I’m really excited to hear Jemma and her team battling to save the Earth,” says executive producer Nick Briggs. “They’ve been such an important part of the many exciting things to come out of the Doctor Who TV series in recent years.”

Additional cast members for the first box set, UNIT: Extinction, will be revealed later. This first box set release comprises four hours of adventure, in which Kate and her team confront an alien invasion by the Nestene Consciousness and its army of plastic Autons.

UNIT: Extinction will be released in November 2015, and is available for specially-priced pre-order, with all pre-orders getting a copy of Nicholas Courtney’s memoirs A Soldier in Time as a free download as Supplementary content in Big Finish accounts.

Three additional box sets will be available at six monthly intervals, with all four available for a Bundled pre-order.

This news comes less than a week after the announcement of the Sixth Doctor’s final adventure (and regeneration story) finally being released – check out the post here.