Big Finish have announced the next series of the Eighth Doctor Adventures, to be released from the 7th of March. In a new move for the company, they will be available for download in weekly episodes, with the CD of each adventure being released after the story’s conclusion at the end of each month. Big Finish have also announced plans to release a 9th episode of this season for Christmas 2009.

Click below to read some early story synopses and listen to the trailer. Warning may contain spoilers.

The season begins with Orbis by Alan Barnes and Nicholas Briggs, which 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 Colour 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 fo