#like. c'rizz tamsin lucie alex molly

[mysticarcanum]

god, eight truly does have an astronomical companion death rate, huh

[beccaland]

Hello! Congratulations on your follower milestone! :D I was wondering if you could share your thoughts on the Eighth Doctor's Big Finish run, specifically which companions/stories are your favourites? I've finished Lucie Miller's series and am currently making my way through the Charley/C'rizz stories, but I know I still have lots to look forward to! :)

My main thought about the Eighth Doctor’s Big Finish run is basically incoherent squee-ing because Paul McGann is so good oh my gosh can you believe we almost only ever had one story where he played the Doctor????? Also, if you don’t listen to the Extras you really should, because he’s a giant dork who really likes the lunches. 

Which companions and stories are my favourites? Well, this should really come as no surprise to anybody at this point, but Doom Coalition is flipping amazing, and Liv and Helen, who are the companions for that sprawling 16-episode feast of awesomeness are the absolute best. I mean I love Eight and Charley, and C’rizz is a terrifying cinnamon roll, but the dynamic between Eight and Liv and Helen (and sometimes River) is on a whole other level. Let me explain.

So Eight’s characterization in both the books and audios is notoriously inconsistent, right? I choose to see this as actually a feature of his Doctor and not a bug in the writing (this is also the opinion endorsed in Caerdroia, which you may or may not have listened to yet). He is both a very cuddly butterfly-chasing Tigger and a sarcastic, snark-tastic Grump, and he is both one of the most human Doctors and one of the most alien (like he relates to sentient jellyfish just as much as, and possibly more than, he relates to his fellow bipeds from planet Earth). He oscillates between these extremes. With Charley and C’rizz, he mostly gets away with it, because they are both very much portrayed as ingénues, even after Charley has been traveling with the Doctor for quite a long time, and even though C’rizz has some quite extraordinary life experience before he even meets Team TARDIS. Charley and the Doctor are one of my favorite QPP (queerplatonic pairings) in Doctor Who, but good grief, it’s not even close to being a relationship of equals, and often veers right over into twee territory.

Lucie is more willing to call the Doctor out on his crap, and there is absolutely nothing twee about their dynamic. But Lucie is still very much a novice; she’s kind of a proto-Donna. And just like I initially didn’t like how combative the Doctor’s relationship with Donna was (in Runaway Bride), in the first series of the Lucie Miller audios, I really didn’t like how snarky Lucie and the Doctor were with each other. It made for some good banter, but it’s not my cuppa. The dynamic got better in the second, third, and fourth seasons with this team, and by the end I was really sad to see her go (like Donna level sads, and Donna is tied with Clara for my favorite new series companion). Lucie comes into her own with a bang in the end, but again, it’s never anywhere close to a relationship between equals.

Molly O’Sullivan gives as good as she gets in her interactions with the Doctor, but she’s largely wasted on a story arc that doesn’t know what to do with her beyond using her as a sort of sharp-tongued plot football. Tamsin Drew gets the same treatment, unfortunately. Mary Shelley was a great idea but I feel like those stories never quite worked as well as they ought to have done.

Liv Chenka, on the other hand, has seen some things. She’s a normal human, with a normal human lifespan, but by the time she meets the Doctor for the first time she’s also a seasoned MedTech. By the time she finally joins Team TARDIS on a full-time basis, she’s already had several opportunities to get the Doctor’s measure. He can’t really fool her about who he is the way he can with most companions. Helen Sinclair is more naive in the beginning, and very much in awe of both Liv and the Doctor, but she’s also had to hold her own in a very male-dominated field of academia in the 1960s, which puts her closer to an equal footing than most of her predecessors. Best of all from my POV, neither she nor Liv have any romantic interest in the Doctor at all (I tend to read the Doctor as being more toward the ace-side of the grey-asexual spectrum). These three people love each other and have learned to rely on each other completely, but as friends and as equals–or as equal as any non-Time Lord (or Time Lord equivalent) can be with the Doctor. Their skill sets and personalities complement each other, despite each character’s deep flaws and vulnerabilities. I honestly don’t think there’s ever been a TARDIS team this well-balanced before. Add River Song to the mix and you’ve got my favourite “four doctors” ever.

Within Doom Coalition, my favorite episodes are:

The Eleven, because it introduces a really interesting villain and kicks off the whole extravaganza of awesomeness

The Red Lady, because it introduces Helen and is super creepy and weird

Absent Friends, because it’s beautiful and sad

Ship in a Bottle, because it is a perfect example of its genre

Other favorite Eighth Doctor Audios:

Invaders from Mars (Eight/Charley), because it’s delightfully silly

The Chimes of Midnight (Eight/Charley), because a) it is beautifully atmospheric and creepy and b) it was the first time I really got a sense of what the brilliant folks at Big Finish could do with audio

Neverland/Zagreus/Scherzo (Eight/Charley), because this arc is peak Eight/Charley awesomeness. Also see above re: what Big Finish can do with audio–the scale of these stories would be utterly impossible for Doctor Who to do on television, even if it had a premium cable budget

The Natural History of Fear (Eight/Charley/C’rizz), because I feel like the writers were all sitting around one night and one of them turned to Alan Barnes and Gary Russel and said, “Zagreus was the most mind-bendingly bizarre story ever written for Big Finish,” and then Jim Mortimore was like “hold my beer!”

Caerdroia (Eight/Charley/C’rizz), because one Eighth Doctor is definitely not enough

Other Lives (Eight/Charley/C’rizz), because it’s a straight-up historical and a beautiful character piece, and those are both rare

Memory Lane (Eight/Charley/C’rizz), because LEGO, ice cream lollies, and the Eighth Doctor’s laughter

The Cannibalists (Eight/Lucie), because it’s hilarious and sweet

An Earthly Child (Eight, Susan, and Alex), because I am a sucker for the Doctor’s family

Relative Dimensions (Eight/Lucie, Susan, and Alex), see above

Lucie Miller/To the Death (Eight/Lucie, Susan, and Alex), see above I HATE YOU NICK BRIGGS YOU MONSTER

You’ll notice none of my faves come from Dark Eyes. That’s because, although it had a few moments of brilliance, the arc was kind of a mess, and also chock-full of misery and Daleks, which are not my favorite things. On the other hand, Dark Eyes was how I first encountered the Macqueen!Master, who is almost the only really fun thing in this batch of stories (and is also, unfortunately, and true to character, also the source of much of the other characters’ misery). But if you want to experience the Macqueen!Master and don’t particularly mind skipping over sixteen episodes of Eighth Doctor stories, I’d tell you to listen to And You Will Obey Me/Vampire of the Mind/The Two Masters instead, because they are better stories and you get to enjoy the Beevers!Master, too!