Recap / Big Finish Doctor Who 123 The Company Of Friends

Each medium featuring the Eighth Doctor collides. It's gonna take ages to sort out the canon now.

Four one-parters starring several companions and associates of the Eighth Doctor from various different mediums^note Specifically Bernice Summerfield from the New Adventures novel "The Dying Days", Fitz Kreiner from the Eighth Doctor Adventures novels, Izzy Sinclair from the Doctor Who Magazine comics, and Mary Shelly - who will go on to travel with him in later Big Finish Doctor Who works; to give them A Day in the Limelight.

Benny's Story

Professor Bernice Summerfield has been hired to excavate a deserted coal mine on a distant planet. She finds a TARDIS key. Guess whose? Yes, the Eighth Doctor turns up—but he's not the one Benny's sponsor is after.

• Aristocrats Are Evil: The Countess, though she thinks she is helping the TARDIS.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking:
  The Doctor: Why should I help you? You nearly wrecked my TARDIS, you unleashed a carnivorous interdimensional... You've done a lot of bad stuff. I'm not even sure I like you very much.
• Call a Smeerp a "Rabbit": The Doctor warns Bernice for a Lion, though he then says "Sort of" and describes it's green and has more fangs.
• Call-Back: Benny gives us an Exposition Dump how she met the Seventh Doctor, the planet Heaven, met his regeneration and how she met Ice Warriors.
• Continuity Nod: IMC Mining Robots are used from Colony in Space.
• Eldritch Abomination: There is a 5th dimensional being coming through cracks in the universe due to a device attached to its console. And it wishes to devour all life (aside from the Doctor)
• Fountain of Youth: The TARDIS is slowly degrading, and parts of it (on the inside) have this effect.
• Invisible Monsters: The Doctor can't see the creature in the Tardis, but everybody else can.
• Killer Robot: The IMC Mining Robots double as these.
• Living Ship: Emphasis is put on how the TARDIS is alive. And a she.
• Noodle Incident:
  Benny: This isn't the first time I've been trapped in a slowly collapsing bubble of reality. Hell, it's not even been the second.
• Shout-Out: When they are drawn back in time, the Doctor says it is very The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
• Stable Time Loop: The Doctor getting sent into the past and dropping his TARDIS Key leads to it being found in the future and drawing him there.
• Tempting Fate:
  The Doctor: We're safe.
  Bernice: Hundreds of years old and he's never learned about tempting fate.
• Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth: The 5th Dimensional "Vortex Shark" spat the Doctor out and left the time bubble, in the end.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: The Countess really thinks she is helping the TARDIS in trying to separate its telepathic link with the Doctor.

Fitz's Story

Alien Defence Industries, Ltd., has a celebrity spokesperson: the Doctor. Or, rather, a poor simulacrum of the Doctor. Not amused, the Doctor turns up to put a stop to it. While he's being captured, Fitz convinces the media that he's the brains of the operation.

• Bumbling Sidekick: Fitz claims the Doctor was this to him and he was using Obfuscating Stupidity.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: Subverted. Hellan Femor first seems like this but turns out to be trying to help Entusso but couldn't contact the Doctor.
• Crazy-Prepared: The Doctor's plan for what Fitz has to do to free him, by the above trope.
• Fake Ultimate Hero: Fitz is set up as one at the end.
• Go-to Alias: Fitz claims the Doctor's "real name" is John Smith.
• Infomercial: The ADI advert the story starts out with. Presented by ... the Doctor?
• The Mole: Gastan.
• Monster Protection Racket: The Doctor and Fitz think the ADI is one of these.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: Gastan.
• Weaksauce Weakness: Carbolic substances are this to the natives of Skoraka Prime.
• Wink "Ding!": Fitz at the end.
• You No Take Candle: Gastan the cleaner.

Izzy's Story

Izzy persuades the Doctor to take her back to her childhood, so she can get a super-rare comic.

• Big "NO!": When The Man unmasks Courtmaster Cruel.
  • Izzy lets one out as well when she finds out that Samus Is a Girl.
• Dramatic Unmask: For Courtmaster Cruel at the end of Aggrotron #55, which would be revealed in #56.
• I'm Mr. [Future Pop Culture Reference]: Derek O'Dell has taken the persona of Courtmaster Cruel in the 51st century to impose justice.
• Kangaroo Court: Courtmaster Cruel has to do this with every criminal he judges, even kidnapping juries to try them.
• Large Ham: The Maaaaaaaaaaaaaan!"

  The Man: I shall RETUUUUUUUUUUUUrrrrrrrrrn!

• Lighter and Softer: The Doctor is employed by Izzy to go get her a mint edition of "Courtmaster Cruel" which had been retracted a week after it came out, so she can find out what the Cliffhanger resolves. They're beset upon by mindwiping suits, which they trace to a real life Courtmaster Cruel, which turns out to NOT be a real life Courtmaster Cruel but rather a Your Mind Makes It Real Reality Warper writer who hated his plot twist.
• Loony Fan: Izzy and Derek O'Dell who adopts Cruel's persona.
• The Men in Black: "The suits" that barge into the comicbook store.
• The Reveal: Courtmaster Cruel is a girl.
• Shout-Out: Izzy's opening monologue is a direct parody of Trainspotting, in which she pokes fun at the TARDIS for not having a holodeck.
  • Courtmaster Cruel is a parody version of Judge Dredd.
• There Was a Door: What the Doctor tells the Suits when they smash the newsagent's window.
• Viewer Gender Confusion/Samus Is a Girl: Invoked by Izzy when she discovers that Courtmaster Cruel is a girl.

Mary's Story

On a summer night in 1816, Mary Shelley meets the Doctor.

• Because Destiny Says So: Mary says she should travel with the Doctor because of this but he says she still has a choice.
• Came Back Wrong: The future Doctor.
• Captain Obvious: The Doctor saying Byron's clothes look Byronic.
• Call-Back: This entire segment is one to "Terror Firma" where the Doctor mentioned he travelled with Mary Shelley. Samson and Gemma are mentioned as well.
• Call-Forward: The TARDIS being regenerated from a small green crystal will again happen in "Rise of the Cybermen".
• Continuity Porn: When the Doctor is rambling inside of the TARDIS he mentions Charley, Destrii, and Compassion - that's companions from Big Finish, Doctor Who Magazine and the Eighth Doctor Adventures respectively. This is also the only story to directly mention all three Eighth Doctor continuities.
• Continuity Snarl:
  • More than a decade after this story was released, the TV series produced "The Haunting of Villa Diodati", which featured Mary meeting the Thirteenth Doctor, apparently for the first time. That story takes place on the same night as this one and, for bonus points in the Big Finish Mary Shelley stakes, also features her encountering a Cyberman.
    • A line cut from the Lost Stories audio Return of the Cybermen had the Time Lord emissary tell the Fourth Doctor that Mary Shelley eventually traveling with him was undone by the Last Great Time War, to reconcile her Big Finish appearances with the Thirteenth Doctor era. Ironically, the dialogue about all the changes made by the Time War was cut because the writer felt it was too much Continuity Porn.
• Great Offscreen War: It is implied the future Eighth Doctor is from the Time War.
• Have We Met Yet?: The future Eighth Doctor knows who Mary Shelley is, having travelled with her for years. She is then met by the past Eighth Doctor, from his perspective his first meeting with her.
• Help Yourself in the Future: The future Eighth Doctor sends a distress signal which the earlier Eighth Doctor picks up, enabling him to heal his future self and TARDIS.
• Historical Domain Character: It's Mary Shelley.
• Historical In-Joke: The Doctor's entire bout of madness seems to be an inspiration for Frankenstein the novel.
• I Am Not Shazam: Invoked and mocked when the Doctor says Frankenstein is the name of the Monster, not the Doctor, as his mutated future self calls himself Frankenstein.
• I Hate Past Me/Other Me Annoys Me: To say the two Eighth Doctors don't get along is understating it.
• Lightning Can Do Anything: It is used to bring the future Doctor back to life.
• Mythology Gag: The entire scene where the Doctor is brought back with lightning reads like a direct page from Frankenstein including a "HE'S ALIVE!" (Though that is just from the movies)
• Timey-Wimey Ball: As Mary Shelley tells the Doctor "You do lead the most extraordinary and contrary life." His reply-"I know, it's more fun that way!"
• Year Inside, Hour Outside: The Doctor says they could spend ages in another time and be back 5 seconds later.