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Big Finish reports that 2009 will feature new audio adventures of Doctor Who, starring Paul McGann, the eighth doctor. He will be joined by Sheridan Smith as Lucie, his companion in the weekly series.

“This time, though, the stories will be released for download every Saturday night in half-hour episodes, for 16 consecutive weeks from Saturday 7th March,” the company posted on their website. “Each complete two-part story will subsequently be available on CD as normal, with one a month being released from March. Plus, there will be a bonus ninth adventure which will be released as a Christmas special in December 2009.”

The site went on to outline the serials for the coming year:

Orbis by Alan Barnes and Nicholas Briggs, picks up from the previous season’s cliffhanger in The Vengeance of Morbius. Guest stars for this story include Andrew Sachs (Manuel in Fawlty Towers) as Crassostrea and Laura Solon (Ruddy Hell! It’s Harry and Paul) as Selta.

The Krynoids (The Seeds of Doom, 1976) return in Hothouse, a cautionary ecological tale by Jonathan Morris. Nigel Planer (The Young Ones, The Color of Magic) plays Alex Marlowe, while Lysette Anthony (Dark Shadows, Dracula: Dead and Loving It) is Hazel Bright.

There’s death and mystery in a small German town in the year 1827 in The Beast of Orlok by Barnaby Edwards. The impressive guest cast includes Miriam Margolyes (Being Julia, Happy Feet, the Harry Potter films) as Frau Tod and Samuel Barnett (The History Boys, Beautiful People) as Hans.

The Doctor and Lucie are then thrown into a war in deep space in Wirrn Dawn by Nicholas Briggs, which sees the return of the parasitic insect monsters from The Ark in Space (1975). Colin Salmon (Hex, Alien vs. Predator, Resident Evil, Die Another Day and Dr Moon in Doctor Who: Silence in the Library and Forest of the Dead) is trooper Salway, while Daniel Anthony (perhaps best known as Clyde in The Sarah Jane Adventures) is Delong.

Renowned comics writer and editor Pat Mills contributes the script for The Scapegoat, which is set in Nazi occupied France during World War II. The cast list includes Samantha Bond (Miss Moneypenny in the Pierce Brosnan Bond movies, Ms Wormwood in The Sarah Jane Adventures) as Mother, Clifford Rose (Secret Army, Doctor Who: Warrior’s Gate) as Major Treptow and Paul Rhys (The Cazalets, Hellraiser: Deader) as Max Paul.

Jonathan Morris contributes his second story of the season with The Cannibalists, which is set on a space station in the future. Phil Davies (Bleak House, The Curse of Steptoe, Lucius in Doctor Who: The Fires of Pompeii) plays Titus, Phill Jupitus (Rex the Runt, Never Mind the Buzzcocks) plays Servo while Nigel Lambert (Hardin in the 1980 Doctor Who story The Leisure Hive) is Diode.

The series comes to a climactic conclusion with the two-part The Eight Truths and Worldwide Web by Eddie Robson, in which the Doctor once again faces his Eight Leg adversaries from Planet of the Spiders (1975). Attempting to conquer their arachnophobia for this story are Stephen Moore (Brassed Off, Mersey Beat and Marvin the Paranoid Android in The Hitch-Hikers’ Guide to the Galaxy) as Clark Goodman, Sophie Winkleman (Peep Show) as Kelly Westwood and Sanjeev Bhaskar (The Kumars at No 42, Notting Hill) as Dr Avishka Sangakkara.