The Big Finish Short Trips volumes are produced in a slightly different manner from their BBC predecessors: instead of being centrally produced, Big Finish commissions editors for the volumes, who in turn commission stories from writers for the themed collections. Because of this, each volume is produced depending on the working methods of its editor – some editors commission stories on invitation from writers, whilst others welcome unsolicited submission of stories. How the Doctor Changed My Life featured stories all written by previously unpublished authors. This was as a result of a competition, run by Big Finish in 2007, to seek out new talent.2
Each collection is conceived around a single theme, with the individual stories exploring that theme:
The collections have mixed established Doctor Who writers from the television series, such as Ben Aaronovitch, Ian Briggs, Andrew Cartmel, Terrance Dicks, Glen McCoy, James Moran, Marc Platt, Helen Raynor and Eric Saward with writers who made their name in other Doctor Who spin-off ranges, such as Paul Cornell, Joseph Lidster, Kate Orman, Lance Parkin, Philip Purser-Hallard, Gareth Roberts, Gary Russell and Robert Shearman, and writers from other literary spheres, including Dan Abnett, Lou Anders, Scott Andrews, Jonathan Clements, Peter David, Richard Dinnick, Keith R.A. DeCandido, Brian Dooley, Diane Duane, Nev Fountain, Lizzie Hopley, Todd McCaffrey, Juliet E. McKenna, Paul Magrs, James Moran, Gary Owen, Stel Pavlou, Steven Savile, James Swallow and Matthew Sweet.
On 31 December 2009, Big Finish lost their license to produce or sell their short story anthology book series Short Trips. On 10 February 2010 Big Finish announced that the range would be relaunched as double CD audiobooks featuring eight new short stories each. The stories were to be read by popular Doctor Who actors. Also on this day Big Finish asked for short story submissions, from anyone who hadn't written for them before, for possible inclusion on the CDs. Soon after the closing date it was announced that they had received 500 entries and that Colin Baker would be among the actors reading the stories, as well as writing the Sixth Doctor story for Volume 1. After four volumes, this series was discontinued, but the range was relaunched yet again as a monthly download-only series in 2015. The person in brackets in the "Featuring" column is who the story is read by.
The releases listed below were single releases made available by Big Finish as subscriber and magazine exclusives and podcasts. Starting from September 2016, Big Finish is releasing these exclusives to general customers under the banner, Short Trips Rarities. There will be at least a two-year delay between a story's subscriber exclusive release and its wider general release, in order to still keep these an incentive to subscribers of the main range.
The annual Paul Spragg Memorial Short Trip will continue to be released individually.
Main article: Short Trips – Volume 1
Main article: Short Trips – Volume 2
Main article: Short Trips – Volume 3
Main article: Short Trips – Volume 4
In November 2020, it was announced that the Short Trips range would return to the audio anthology format. It consists of 6 episodes.5
"Errors – Big Finish". www.bigfinish.com. Retrieved 4 April 2017. http://www.bigfinish.com/news/Short-Trips-Announcement ↩
"Short Story Comp". BBC. 2007. Archived from the original on 6 September 2007. Retrieved 22 July 2008. https://web.archive.org/web/20070906000706/http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/news/cult/news/drwho/2007/06/19/46091.shtml ↩
"13X23. Doctor Who: Short Trips: The Hoxteth Time Capsule - Doctor Who - Short Trips - Big Finish". https://www.bigfinish.com/releases/v/doctor-who-short-trips-the-hoxteth-time-capsule-2970 ↩
"13X24. Doctor Who: Short Trips: War Stories - Doctor Who - Short Trips - Big Finish". https://www.bigfinish.com/releases/v/doctor-who-short-trips-war-stories-3169 ↩
"Doctor Who – Short Trips Volume 11 - Short Trips - Big Finish". www.bigfinish.com. Retrieved 17 June 2021. https://www.bigfinish.com/releases/v/doctor-who-short-trips-volume-11-2362 ↩
"Doctor Who – Short Trips Volume 12 - Short Trips - Big Finish". www.bigfinish.com. Retrieved 10 December 2022. https://www.bigfinish.com/releases/v/doctor-who-short-trips-volume-12-2541 ↩
"Doctor Who – Short Trips Volume 13 - Short Trips - Big Finish". www.bigfinish.com. Retrieved 28 February 2025. https://www.bigfinish.com/releases/v/doctor-who-short-trips-volume-13-tales-from-the-vortex-2999 ↩