Eighth Doctor Continuinty

[NightJim]

I know Doctor Who and Continuity are almost foreign concepts to each other, but I've found out that the Eighth Doctor takes this to a whole new level. Since he's the only one we only see his very start and very end on TV his adventures have been created across nearly every other medium.

However, after listening to Zagreus and reading about it, I found out that Big Finish outright make the Virgin Books a separate timeline. And the BBC books don't follow on from them either. Then there's the comics...

How many timelines does the Eighth Doctor have?
Just how incompatible are they?

 

[Ithekro]

The Eighth Doctor could have been around for ages since the Doctor is lying about his age since the Time War. All we know from observation is that Time Lords do age, eventually. The Fourth Doctor and First Doctor were aged unnaturally at points, and teh Eleventh and War Doctors aged over centuries to millenia. I've come to assume that the Doctor restarted his age from his regeneration into the War Doctor and lived 800 - 900 years in that incarnation (the Time War). It would fit with what we saw happen to the Eleventh Doctor on Trenzalor. He stayed more or less the same from the time he regenerated into the Eleventh to three centuries on Threzalor, having stated to age then, after around 600 years as the young looking Doctor. Then roughly 600 years later he is a very old looking man who was probably "wearing a bit thin" a century or two ago. Though it also might be the stress over time aging him, or accumulated time weaponry. The Second Doctor seemed to think a Time Lord could basically live forever (1,000 years per incarnation would only give then a lifespan of 13,000 years.)

The Eighth Doctor therefore has, in some respects, all the time in the universe (or more than that even) to have his adventures.

 

[DrFrankhamstien]

As with most Who, there tends to be at least four different continuities - or timelines. All of which spin-off from the TV. Often times these continuities reference each other, or rather certain events, which suggests that these timelines echo each other, although events do not necessarily happen in the same context in each timeline.

Many people seem to enjoy trying to tie things together, but usually to do requires a lot of creative thinking and ignoring certain continuity points to make it all fit. I used to be one of those, but these days I just take it as read that the Doctor is a multi-dimensional being who exists concurrently in more than one reality and can sometimes be aware of his various timelines, even though we only see him experience one 'prime' reality. For example; the Doctor on TV is aware of the events of Big Finish audios, even though its extremely hard to make certain audios fit with TV continuity. And the Seventh Doctor of the New Adventures is aware of certain comic adventures, even though he never experienced them.

So, the timelines can probably be counted as; TV, Novels (1991-2005), Novels (2005-present), Big Finish Audios (various timelines seem to exist there), Radio Adventures (transmitted on BBC Radio, like Paradise of Death), Comics (various timelines exist there, from the TV21 Comics to Doctor Who Magazine Comics, and Titan Comics, etc) and, coming soon, the Lethbridge-Stewart novels. All of which spin-off from the prime reality of the TV series.

 

[Guy Gardener]

River said that "they" can age backwards if they want to.

But that sounds like reverse at normal speed rather than fast rewind.

If that's true, 11 wanted to grow old and die.

A devious plan?

His death would bring about a transformative revolution to the Trenzalor Problem even if it meant that all the Dickensian children got cut up for spare parts by Cybermen.

 

[Emperor-Tiberius]

There's the books.

There's the comics

And there's Big Finish.


Now, there is one Big Finish audio story that has one 25 minute episode for a different continuity companion. That same story also attempts to say that all three continuties could occue for the Eighth Doctor.

Personally, I just take the Big Finish continuity and run with it. Its really the bridge between OldWho and NuWho, chronologically - the old Doctors on Big Finish still follow the old format, and kind of storytelling, whereas the Eighth gets to play on both tables. His New Adventures are essentially NuWho on BF.

Love those stories.

 

[Andrew_Kearley]

However, after listening to Zagreus and reading about it, I found out that Big Finish outright make the Virgin Books a separate timeline.

Well, they tried to at that time, although it's only one interpretation. And Big Finish themselves have pretty much backtracked and now do reference the novels. Some of the stories pick up on past continuity, and some don't. Some of the BBC books reference the audios and the Virgin novels, and some don't. Like everything, it depends on who's calling that shots that particular day - who's writing and who's producing. One of the recent Titan comics had a deliberate reference to the previous month's DWM strip.

How many timelines does the Eighth Doctor have?
Just how incompatible are they?

As many or as few as you want him to have. I think it's one.

 

[DrFrankhamstien]

As many or as few as you want him to have. I think it's one.

 

[NightJim]

How many timelines does the Eighth Doctor have?
Just how incompatible are they?

As many or as few as you want him to have. I think it's one.

Holy Crap you're him!

Your site has been incredibly handy trying to figure out what to watch and listen to as I go through Old Who. I even gave you a shout out in a recent blog post as I chart my progress.

It's your "it's all one timeline" then Philip Sandifer's pointing out that Big Finish go out of their way in "Zagreus" to contradict the other that led me to ask. I started to think that maybe I'd not bother with the books. Especially considering what I've heard about one of the book lines. The heart removal stuff just sounds weird, and it's never resolved?

 

[Guy Gardener]

Did The Doctor and Charlie stop ageing when they were in that other universe without time?

 

[DrFrankhamstien]

Did The Doctor and Charlie stop ageing when they were in that other universe without time?

The universe had time. Clearly time passed or there'd have been no sequential series of events.

 

[NightJim]

Just listened to the one that this sort of is addressed. Time passes, they all understand the concept of time passing, minutes seconds etc. But the word itself has no meaning. Not sure where that's going though.

 

[Emperor-Tiberius]

Really, only Sherzo dealt with the time factor of the anti-time universe. The rest of the time they really were in a regular pocket universe.

 

[Lance]

The comic strips got there first, both Doctor Who Magazine's as well as a mini-strip in the tv guide The Radio Times. Virgin Books' then followed, with their final novel in their Doctor Who New Adventures range featured the Eighth Doctor as main protagonist, and the BBC Books Eighth Doctor Adventures then simply picked up the gauntlet the following year. The audios then followed those a couple years after that (bringing actor Paul McGann back into the fold, quite a trump card at the time).

There was a fan theory, at one point, that any Eighth Doctor Adventures that take place in other media (comic books, audios) might somehow take place between the first two books, "The Eight Doctors" and "Vampire Science", as there is a sizable gap between the events of the two and a direct reference to the Doctor having left his companion Sam Jones at a concert only to return for her after many years of adventures of his own. But that theory got shot down later on (which isn't to say it's entirely invalidated... )

As a basic rule, we can only take the Big Finish audios as granted right now, because the roster of companions that the Eighth Doctor cites in the "Night Of The Doctor" mini-sode features companions exclusively featured in Big Finish. This makes some degree of sense, as the BBC actually bought and broadcast a number of these over digital radio.

The status of the books and comic strips remains open to interpretation, but only the audios have been explicitly confirmed within the body of the televised program itself.

 

[Lance]

^ Further to the above, the BBC Books did later offer other concessions/ideas, including multiple pocket universes featuring different versions of Eight (and indeed multiple Ninth Doctors as well ), and also a running theme of the rift that forms in San Fransisco after "Vampire Science" and results in an anti-Sam Jones overwriting our own Sam Jones for a while by the time we get to "Unnatural History". So, as with everything, you could offer a rational timeline that encompasses them all under a single umbrella... it'd be convoluted, but rational.

And the book range had an open ending, meaning that anything could have taken place after those books were done (they left it open on purpose, because they had intended following up with further occasional Eighth Doctor adventures as part of an ongoing 'Past Doctors' range, but when the new series sounded the death knell of the classic Who novel range entirely, this idea fell by the wayside; in practice only one further novel with the Eighth Doctor was written and it took place many years before chronologically in the EDA timeline).

 

[OmahaStar]

The status of the books and comic strips remains open to interpretation, but only the audios have been explicitly confirmed within the body of the televised program itself.

Then again, wasn't it in The Company of Friends, where they had several of the book companions show up in audio for the first time? That sort of ties them together.

 

[DrFrankhamstien]

Then again, wasn't it in The Company of Friends, where they had several of the book companions show up in audio for the first time? That sort of ties them together.

It doesn't really, since none of the companions in that collection interacted. Separate stories from separate continuities.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Really?

Becuase that felt like a bridge more than propping up walls.

 

[Lance]

It's very confusing.

Basically after seven years of no televised adventures, the 1996 American TV Movie was seen by nearly everybody as the springboard towards a fresh start, even if not on TV... but what that meant in practice was a whole bunch of competing parties all doing their own thing, even though they usually shared writers and ideas (book authors wrote for the strip and for audio, but still keep a strong sense of each 'brand' being seperate from the others).

I remember that around the time the 2005 series was broadcast, Doctor Who Magazine did a "round up" of the Eighth Doctor 'era' which basically presented all three alternate strands alongside each other, and wryly noted the similarities and differences accordingly. The overall assumption it came to was that the true Eighth Doctor era was all of them, in their own ways, despite the contradictions and continuity overlaps.

 

[Andrew_Kearley]

Holy Crap you're him!

I suppose I am. I don't normally get quite that reaction...

It's your "it's all one timeline" then Philip Sandifer's pointing out that Big Finish go out of their way in "Zagreus" to contradict the other that led me to ask. I started to think that maybe I'd not bother with the books. Especially considering what I've heard about one of the book lines. The heart removal stuff just sounds weird, and it's never resolved?

Yeah, it gets resolved. I won't tell you how though.

The way I look at it is that the Doctor is a complex space-time event, and his timeline intersects with multiple realities at once. So at different times, different parts of his past and future are visible from the observers' point of view. Sometimes the Doctor remembers things, and other times he doesn't, for that very reason. I really do think that all those events have happened to the Doctor, but at any one point in his timeline, only some of them might be relevant and remembered.

The DWM comics in the 90s, for instance, made an effort to tie in with the Virgin novels - then there was a change of editor and they didn't. As has been stated, Zagreus tries to split everything into separate realities - but other audios reference novels and comic strips, and later novels reference the audios. It all depends on the moment. (In the real world, it depends on the prejudices/preferences of the author or producer - within the fiction, it depends on the way the universe has unfolded around the Doctor at that moment.)

 

[Lance]

The way I look at it is that the Doctor is a complex space-time event, and his timeline intersects with multiple realities at once. So at different times, different parts of his past and future are visible from the observers' point of view. Sometimes the Doctor remembers things, and other times he doesn't, for that very reason. I really do think that all those events have happened to the Doctor, but at any one point in his timeline, only some of them might be relevant and remembered.

The DWM comics in the 90s, for instance, made an effort to tie in with the Virgin novels - then there was a change of editor and they didn't. As has been stated, Zagreus tries to split everything into separate realities - but other audios reference novels and comic strips, and later novels reference the audios. It all depends on the moment. (In the real world, it depends on the prejudices/preferences of the author or producer - within the fiction, it depends on the way the universe has unfolded around the Doctor at that moment.)

It makes for an interesting hypothesis.

The DWM strip always had a fluid approach to continuity before the new series basically brought it into line, though. In the fifth, sixth and seventh Doctor eras the comic basically did it's own thing, introduced it's own companions and made absolutely no attempt to even try and fit itself into the broader arc of the TV series at the time. Once the show was off the air, the strip continued on in it's own vein for a while, then it started to adopt the New Adventures as a tonal reference, before again as you say striking out with it's own sense of independent continuity. As I mentioned, 2005 was probably the first time the DWM strip ever actually tried to be an extension of the series itself rather than doing it's own thing.