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Hi all,

It’s been a very long time since I’ve posted any continuity guides! But I wanted to let you all know about a new thing I made.

WhoViewOrder is basically one big interactive continuity guide! It lets you specify what you want to see and what you don’t want to see, it lets you mark episodes as watched or add them to a list of what you plan on watching, and most importantly, I just added a bunch of Big Finish content and I plan on adding a bunch more very soon!

Please give it a look and tell me what you think. I’m sure there are errors and bugs, especially since I’m very much a rookie web developer, but I think this is gonna be very helpful to the sort of people who used to like my storyline guides.

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This blog is long since dormant, but I just had to wake it up for this.

Big Finish main range releases 51-125 are available at a discount this week. This is one of Big Finish's best sales ever, and combined with the existing deep discount on releases 1-50 it offers a great opportunity to get near-complete runs for certain storylines, including Charley Pollard, Evelyn, and a decent chunk of Hex.

I'll be posting a simple guide to what's what from Main Range 1-125 later today or tomorrow.

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The ENTIRETY of the Eighth Doctor Adventures from Big Finish are on sale for THREE BUCKS EACH (23 dollars for bundles of either the first, second, or third season, and 28 dollars for the fourth season bundle), plus the first Dark Eyes boxset.

THIS IS AN ABSOLUTE STEAL. These audios are so fucking good, if you have any interest in Doctor Who in the slightest or used to but have qualms about Doctor Who now, I highly recommend these. They’re the perfect starting place in Big Finish and they’re cheap as hell.

http://www.bigfinish.com/ranges/released_reverse/eighth-doctor-adventures

If you want to buy the seasons in bulk, go to the right and click “bundles.” You can also save an extra 2 dollars by buying all four seasons at once. It’s like 35-ish hours of content. Super highly recommended.

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Well, seems that Big Finish’s Stargate, Highlander, Robin Hood, and Sapphire & Steel ranges are now permanently gone. I never did get around to any of them, so that’s a shame.

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In honor of Sheridan Smith being awarded an OBE, Blood of the Daleks Part One and Blood of the Daleks part two are on sale. These two audios are in my opinion the best starting point for new Big Finish listeners.

Also, as a reminder, Big Finish's "12 Days" sale is still ongoing--right now you can get a good deal on Love and War, the perfect introduction to the character Bernice Summerfield. And from the Lost Stories range, The Queen of Time is also on sale.

And of course the Humble Bundle is still available, with new titles to be added to it later today.

In any case, happy new year, and congrats to Sheridan Smith!

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Big Finish Holiday Bargains

By now this may be old news, but just in case anyone hasn't heard, there are a couple of can't-miss Big Finish bargains going on right now:

Humble Bundle

Big Finish have partnered with Humble Bundle to make a frankly absurd number of audios available at next to nothing. Take note that these downloads are through the Humble site and don't get added to your Big Finish account, but don't let that stop you, because these deals are a steal. It's pay what you want and you can designate a portion of your purchase to charity.

Included:

Dalek Empire series 1 and series 2

A Doctor Who Legacy code which unlocks some characters, including the Sixth and Eighth Doctors

If you pay $15 or more you get the whole first season of Lost Stories with Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant

If you pay more than the average (currently $13.04) you get Dalek Empire series 3

More audios will be added to the bundle soon (and you will receive them even if you buy now)

12 Days of Big Finish-mass

All of the following offers are download-only and only last 48 hours.

Day 1: The Confessions of Dorian Gray 1.01 - This World Our Hell available for free. Pounce on this immediately, it ends in just hours.

Day 2: Doctor Who: The Fourth Doctor Adventures - The Auntie Matter for 2.99. Still available for another day.

And more to come!

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The two colour you've chosen for companion chronicles and special releases are very difficult to differentiate as a red/green colour blind person. Just a heads up!

Thank you for calling this to my attention. I'm somewhat ashamed to admit that I hadn't even considered accessibility issues when putting together these guides. I'll look into alternatives and attempt to implement them for future guides. 

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Not strictly Big Finish related, but i'm reblogging because fans of the Eighth Doctor should be aware of this!

The Book Depository (an excellent site for non-UK customers to buy UK books with free delivery) seems to have "End Game" in stock and that one's been quite hard to find for the past few years.

Got several more eBay alerts yesterday and today about the out-of-print Eighth Doctor comics being available again. I’m not an internet psychic or anything, but it looks like there’s been a reprint! :D

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This weekend, Big Finish is offering a discount on every release in the "Eighth Doctor Adventures" series, as well as the first Dark Eyes box set.

If you're new to the Big Finish audios and you're looking for the perfect place to start, make no mistake--this is the place. The "Eighth Doctor Adventures" series featuring Lucie Miller is, in this blogger's humble opinion, the single best "starting point" for listeners who are new to the Big Finish audios, and this is the best price you're likely to see them for.

For more info on these series, check out the Lucie Miller guide and Dark Eyes guide on this blog. But more importantly, pounce on this sale before it disappears Monday morning.

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A Big Finish statistic.

In 2014, women writers were attached to six separate Doctor Who-related stories, either as sole author (Jacqueline Rayner - Starborn, Una McCormack - Goodnight Sweet Ladies), co-author (Emma Beeby - Tomb Ship, LM Myles and Una McCormack - Breaking Bubbles and Other Stories, Louise Jameson - The Abandoned), or adapter (Jacqueline Rayner - The Highest Science).

In 2014, Matt Fitton’s name was attached to fourteen separate Doctor Who-related stories, either as sole author (Luna Romana, Time’s Horizon, Eyes of the Master, Changing of the Guard, Signs and Wonders, The Death of Hope, The Reviled, Masterplan, Rule of the Eminence, and An Ordinary Life) or co-author (The Lamentation Cipher, The Shadow at the Edge of the World, The Fall of the House of Pollard, and The Viyran Solution)

(Please note, this is by no means an attack on Matt Fitton or his writing; he’s just an example to compare and contrast.)

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Not irritating at all, but it we're going to hypothesize that Ace lives through the Hex storyline, into her twenties, has he mind wiped at the beginning of Timewyrm: Genesys, thinks she's a teenager again, goes through the Virgin books while mentally aging into her twenties again, goes through the New Adventures of Bernice box set(s), has her mind wiped again in The Prisoner's Dilemma... I mean, in Ground Zero are we dealing with a thirty-five year old woman who thinks she's a seventeen year old girl? It seems a stretch. And moreover I just don't like it. But I mean, if that's how you want to construct Ace's life story in her head, obviously that's fine.

Hello! I want to thank you for all your guides they've been very helpful. Could you please do an Ace guide next? I'm very confused about her stories.

It’s completely understandable that you’re confused by her stories. Her timeline is very confusing.

Unfortunately I’m taking a bit of a break from making guides and even when I do this won’t be one of the next ones I tackle since it’s gonna take so much work.

But a couple of general notes:

"Assassination Games" apparently takes place between seasons 25 and 26 of the TV show.

The “Lost Stories” releases with Ace and Raine take place soon after the TV show wraps up.

Then, some other stuff happens.

Finally, Ace begins living on Gallifrey, as chronicled in “UNIT: Dominion,” “The New Adventures of Bernice Summerfield,” and “Gallifrey: Intervention Earth.”

The troublesome bit is the “other stuff happens” right there in the middle. This stems from the fact that there are two completely different Ace storylines:

The “Big Finish” storyline, which is the one where she travels with the Doctor a while (“The Fearmonger”, etc.) and then meets Hex (“The Harvest”, etc.)

The “New Adventures” storyline, the one seen in the New Adventures novels, which several BF audios (“The Shadow of the Scourge”, the whole Benny series, etc.) seem to fit into.

It’s very difficult to fit these two storylines together in a way that makes sense—many fans think that Ace’s character development in either storyline is too significant for it to reasonably take place before the other one. So, some fans like to consider these as two different alternate timelines, and I think this is the way that most of the Big Finish writers have chosen to think of it throughout most of the time they have been writing the character.

But this presents problems of its own. For one thing, “The Genocide Machine” and “Dust Breeding” sure seem like they have to take place in the Big Finish timeline, but they feature a character who crosses over into the Benny audios, which must take place in the New Adventures timeline. For another thing, if there are two timelines, then you have to wrap your head around the notion that Ace winds up on Gallifrey in both, which is bizarre.

Making this whole “timeline split” question even more complicated is the character of Irving Braxiatel, who is in both “Gallifrey” (which absolutely has to be the Big Finish timeline) and the Benny series (which absolutely has to be the New Adventures timeline) and it’s written to be deliberately vague about whether it’s the same Braxiatel at different points in his life, or two completely different Braxiatels. Arhghghg!

But I’m digressing a bit.

Anyway, all of this may be kind of moot now. I’m not caught up on the Hex storyline but from what I gather, one of the installments in the recent trilogy strongly hints that for Ace, the New Adventures are still in her personal future. As I mentioned before, this is hard to square away with naive teen Ace in the early New Adventures novels, but there is a way to make it work. By a lucky coincidence, the first New Adventures novel, “Timewyrm: Genesys” actually begins with Ace losing all her memories. She gets them back but there’s a suggestion that everything didn’t get put back quite right. It’s possible that all memories of her adventures during this period could have been removed from her head intentionally. So her timeline might go something like this:

TV series

"Lost Stories" with Raine

Pre-Hex main range audios

Hex storyline

(mind wipe)

New Adventures (with some audios mixed in)

Ace on Gallifrey

But frankly it’s all kind of uncertain.

I hope that helps clear some things up for you… or at any rate I hope I didn’t manage to confuse you further. I’m not even going to try to reconcile all this with the comic in which a teenage Ace is seen to die. :)

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The cover and details for Dark Eyes 4 are out!

I won't post the image because IMO it's something of a spoiler for Dark Eyes 3.... but as long as you've finished Dark Eyes 3, take a look!

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About Ace ending up on Gallifrey in both the New Adventures and Big Finish continuities: Can't Death Comes to Time be read as the end of her arc in the NA continuity, if you want to keep both continuities seperate? Though of course DCtT heavily and inherently contradicts everything from the TV film onwards.

I’ll admit to not having been able to sit through Death Comes to Time (from what I’ve been able to see of it, it’s not very good). Nor have I really read that many New Adventures novels, to be honest. So whether DCtT makes sense as the endpoint of New Adventures Ace is not something I’m prepared to weigh in on. But it’s worth pointing out that the New Adventures timeline explicitly includes the McGann Doctor, which means it runs afoul of the apparent contradictions that you mentioned. Which is not to say you shouldn’t feel free to incorporate Death Comes to Time into your personal view of the Doctor’s life story, or indeed Ace’s… it’s entirely up to you.

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This is an updated version of the previous Eighth Doctor Adventures guide. In the course of updating it, I decided to split it into two guides, one covering the Lucie Miller storyline (the proper "Eighth Doctor Adventures" series), and the other covering Dark Eyes. I think this makes more logical sense and makes the guides clearer! So without further ado...

Dark Eyes Guide

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"Dark Eyes" is the name of a series of four box sets featuring the Eighth Doctor. "Dark Eyes" also happens to be the nickname of Molly O'Sullivan, the main companion featured in this series of box sets.

The adventures in Dark Eyes follow on directly on from the conclusion of the Lucie Miller storyline, so knowledge of that storyline will enhance your enjoyment of this one, but it is not strictly required. "Dark Eyes" is presented in such a way that you can understand and appreciate the story on its own without hearing any previous release.

Previous appearances of Straxus and the Dalek Time Controller are not required listening for Dark Eyes, but may be of interest. Listeners who have already heard the Lucie Miller storyline will already be familiar with these characters, but they do also have appearances beyond those storylines.

Dark Eyes 2 features the return of Liv Chenka from "Robophobia", which is itself a sequel to the TV Serial "The Robots of Death. It also features the Viyrans, the Eminence, and the Alex MacQueen version of the Master, first introduced in "UNIT: Dominion" (which is part of the Elizabeth Klein story arc). Again, none of these are strictly required but they may be of interest, and Liv Chenka's background from Robophobia is particularly recommended.

Dark Eyes 3 (which as of this writing has yet to be released) also features Narvin, a character established in Big Finish's "Gallifrey" spin-off. A fourth Dark Eyes box set is also forthcoming.

Related Guides:

Lucie Miller

Straxus

Dalek Time Controller

Eminence

Viyrans

Elizabeth Klein

Gallifrey (Guide forthcoming)

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This is an updated version of the previous Eighth Doctor Adventures guide. In the course of updating it, I decided to split it into two guides, one covering the Lucie Miller storyline (the proper "Eighth Doctor Adventures" series), and the other covering Dark Eyes. I think this makes more logical sense and makes the guides clearer! So without further ado...

Lucie Miller Guide

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Lucie Miller is the main companion appearing in the "Eighth Doctor Adventures" series of audio dramas (not to be confused with the "Eighth Doctor Adventures" novels published by BBC Books). At a later point in the storyline, the Doctor is joined by new companion Tamsin Drew, and also meets up with his granddaughter Susan (Foreman) Campbell and her son Alex Campbell.

These adventures occur some time after the Doctor's travels with Charlotte Pollard, but in no way rely on familiarity with those adventures or any other previous adventures (which is why they aren't listed on the above chart).

"An Earthly Child" is not technically part of the "Eighth Doctor Adventures" range. It is a standalone story featuring the Eighth Doctor and Susan that functions as a sequel to the 1964 TV serial "The Dalek Invasion of Earth." This story is, however, a vital prerequisite for the fourth series of The Eighth Doctor Adventures and it is strongly recommended that you listen to it before "Situation Vacant."

The Brain of Morbius is recommended for background on Morbius. The Planet of the Spiders is recommended for background on the Eight Legs. The Time Meddler and The Daleks' Master Plan are recommended for background on The Monk. The Dalek Time Controller appeared previously as well (see his guide). None of these appearances are strictly necessary but will provide context for these characters' respective appearances in the Eighth Doctor Adventures.

As an additional note, the "Dark Eyes" storyline picks up where this storyline leaves off. Also, the character Straxus, although introduced in this storyline, has made several other appearances (see his guide, linked below).

Related Guides:

Charlotte Pollard

Dalek Time Controller

Susan Foreman

Straxus

Dark Eyes

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Straxus Guide

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Straxus is a Time Lord appearing in a number of audio adventures, especially those featuring the Eighth Doctor. His storyline can primarily be followed through the Lucie Miller and Dark Eyes storylines.

He first appeared in "Human Resources" parts one and two, and then in the two-part story "Sisters of the Flame"/"Vengeance of Morbius". These are not standalone and are best heard in the context of the Lucie Miller storyline.

A different (possibly previous?) incarnation of Straxus appears in the Bernice Summerfield audio "The Adventure of the Diogenes Damsel" (which is not especially standalone and is part of the ongoing Bernice Summerfield storyline).

A later incarnation of Straxus is introduced in "Dark Eyes". Please see the Dark Eyes guide for more information on recommended listening for that release.

Finally, yet another incarnation (presumably the earliest version of Straxus) is featured in the multi-Doctor story The Light at the End.

Related Guides:

Lucie Miller

Dark Eyes

Bernice Summerfield (Guide forthcoming)

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Here's a guide to November 2014's new releases.

Doctor Who Related

Doctor Who: Main Range 193 - Masters of Earth: Part two of a trilogy featuring the Sixth Doctor and Peri, having joined up again after being separated during the events of Trial of a Time Lord. This one has Daleks. You'll probably want to be caught up on part one of this trilogy.

Doctor Who: The Early Adventures 1.3 - The Bounty of Ceres: This release features Maureen O'Brien as Vicki and Peter Purves as Steven in an adventure with the First Doctor. Shouldn't be too heavy on the continuity, but familiarity with the characters is assumed.

Doctor Who: Dark Eyes 3: The third box set in a series of four, chronicling the Eighth Doctor's adventures with Molly O'Sullivan. You'll want to be caught up on the first two box sets in the series, and see the Eighth Doctor Adventures Guide for details on that. However that guide's not up to date for Dark Eyes 3 (yet) so you also need to be aware that this box set will feature Narvin, a major character from Big Finish's Gallifrey spin-off.

Non Doctor Who Related

The Confessions of Dorian Gray - Series 03: A new box set featuring eight stories inspired by Oscar Wilde's classic novel, imagining a world where Dorian was real and continued to live on.

Blake's 7: The Classic Audio Adventures 2.1 - Scimitar: The latest in Big Finish's series of audio dramas featuring the full cast of Blake's 7.

Blake's 7: The Libertator Chronicles - Volume 10: Big Finish's tenth box set featuring dramatic readings by the stars of Blake's 7.

Blake's 7 Books 06 - Criminal Intent: A new original novel featuring the characters of Blake's 7.

Pathfinder Legends 1.5 - Rise of the Runelords: Sins of the Saviors: The latest in Big Finish’s under-the-radar series of audios based on the Pathfinder roleplaying game.