History of the Eighth Doctor - Part 2

This is continued from Part 1 of the History of the Eighth Doctor. It is part of my collection of essays on the In-Depth History of Doctor Who.

PLEASE NOTE: This section contains spoilers concerning the events of the Eighth Doctor's adventures in the comic strips and in the audio plays. If you want to enjoy these adventures for yourself and only want to know in what order you should read/listen to them, then go on to my List of the Eighth Doctor's Adventures in Chronological Order.

THE COMIC STRIPS

Another thing that continued the Eighth Doctor's career were the comic strips printed in Doctor Who Magazine and Radio Times. The RT strips featured the Doctor with a girl named Stacy Townsend and an Ice Warrior named Ssard. These were not read by many and have never been referenced since.

Later, the DW Magazine Eighth Doctor strips started. In the first adventures, the Eighth Doctor fought against the Celestial Toymaker, an enemy he'd faced on TV when he was still in his first life.

During this story, the Doctor was joined by a young woman Izzy. "Izzy" was actually Isabelle Sinclair. She was a sci-fi fangirl who desperately wanted to find adventure like those she's read about and seen on TV. As an orphan who felt out of place, she was guided not only by a sense of adventure, but by a desire to find where she belonged.

Symbolizing her desire to find her true parents and identity, she never called herself Izzy Sinclair but rather "Izzy S.", as in "Izzy Somebody."

Izzy joined the Doctor for many adventures and was intended to basically answer the question "what if a Doctor Who (or general sci-fi fan) joined the Doctor on his adventures?" In exploring the wonders of the universe, she often made references to when things were similar to Star Trek or Star Wars and the like. She was a fun-loving adventuress and also quite progressive when readers realized that she was gay.

And it wasn't too long after learning this that readers later realized that, somehow, the Master had returned, with a new plan to conquer all reality. Once again, the Master inhabited a human body. And for the first time, it was a black man, making him the only Time Lord we've seen who's apparently switched skin pigmentation and racial features (unless you also count Don Warrington as Rassilon in the Big Finish audio plays).

 

The Doctor had very strange company indeed during his comic strip adventures. There was Kroton, a Cyberman who had retained his humanity. There was the artificial life form Shayde, who had first appeared during the Fifth Doctor comic strip adventures, a tool of the Time Lords. And there was Fey Truscott-Sade, an undercover agent of the Crown who later became very connected to Shayde.

In terms of enemies, the Eighth Doctor fought Daleks, vampires, Daleks from another universe who looked like weird spiders, the Celestial Toymaker, an Egyptian hippo goddess, the famous Spring-Heeled Jack, and the Threshold, beings whom he had sworn vengeance against during the Seventh Doctor comic strips. He also made some new enemies, such as Jodafra, a cat-man who was bloodthirsty, cunning and charismatic con-artist.

After Izzy left, the Doctor went on his own for a while and eventually was joined by a girl named Destrii, niece of Jodafra. Like Izzy, Destrii had also watched a lot of TV. But she had two problems. One, TV had been her only means of learning about Earth. Two, Destrii was an upper class member of an alien society who saw themselves as the center of the universe. This led to her often not only trying the Doctor's patience but also that of everyone around her. She unknowingly insulted people left and right due to her assumptions that things would simply be done for her without question and also due to the fact that some of the old shows she based her knowledge on had involved characters that were written around racial stereotypes.

But despite her demeanor, the Doctor was convinced that Destrii was a good, well-meaning person underneath the skin and was determined to help her realize that and fulfill her potential. She would not just be a companion, but a student who would learn from him how to become a better person (although the Doctor often found himself losing patience with Destrii, not just because she was stubborn but also because she kept hitting on him).

Because Destrii chose the Doctor over her uncle, the cat-man Jodafra had very strong feelings of hatred against the Doctor. He was, in fact, created to be a new arch-enemy and a replacement for the Master. Writer Scott Gray felt that the Master's flaw was that, since we didn't know much of his or the Doctor's past, we didn't have a clear understanding of what began his rivalry with our hero. Jodafra, on the other hand, was a con-artist with a time ship and a very definite moment of when he came to hate the Doctor.

Sadly, Jodafra and Destrii were not able to be used to their full potential. Around the time that Destrii officially joined the TARDIS crew, it was officially announced that the BBC would indeed begin a new live-action TV program of Doctor Who, continuing sometime after the Fox television movie had left off. That meant that once the show started airing, Doctor Who Magazine would need to stop doing Eighth Doctor comic strips and start doing stories with the Ninth Doctor instead, in order to stay current.

THE ALMOST REGENERATION

Russell T. Davies, headwriter and executive producer of the new series, was a big fan of the DWM comic strips and didn't see any reason not to consider them canon. So he rang them up and asked editor Clatyon Hickman if he wanted to do the official Eighth Doctor death and regeneration into the Ninth within the pages of DWM.

Hickman was ecstatic for this opportunity and discussed it with the writers. But after a while, they came across a problem. Russell T. Davies had made it very clear that the Ninth Doctor's first real adventure would also be the first episode of the new series (entitled "Rose"). He would not have room for any adventures before that and certainly not be hanging out with any companions before the introduction of the new one to be introduced, Rose Tyler (played by actress and former pop singer Billie Piper). So, Destrii would have to leave the Doctor or simply die before our hero regenerated into his ninth incarnation.

This posed a problem. The writers didn't want to simply get rid of her. She'd only just joined the TARDIS and her whole purpose was to see the Doctor really take on a mentor/father role with a companion, so that readers could watch her grow up and change. To have her leave the TARDIS or get killed before that arc could come to fruition seemed like a cheat. She deserved better.

Two endings were written. In the story "The Flood", the Doctor faced off against some old foes again and wound up defeating them by tapping into the energies of the space/time vortex. In one ending, this would prove to be too much for his body and he would regenerate afterwards.

In the other ending, the Doctor would be able to separate himself from the energies and would go off again with Destrii, with the understanding that they would have many adventures together and that the next comic strip adventure of DWM, starring the Ninth Doctor, would take place some time later, leaving Destrii's final fate in the catergory of "untold stories" and the like.

Hickman decided to go with this latter option, thus allowing the possibility that one day perhaps they could return to Destrii and give her a proper character arc and send-off rather than just shoving her aside due to scheduling. Many months later, Russell T. Davies actually used a few elements of this last story in his new episode "The Parting of the Ways."

If you enjoy some good adventures involving humor and far-out concepts, you should check out the DWM Eighth Doctor comic strips, all of which have been collected in four volumes. They are also written in such a way that they can fit into either the book or audio play continuity or can be seen as stand-alone. The main creative forces behind the comic strip were writer Scott Gray and editors Alan Barnes and Clayton Hickman (Barnes would also do a lot of work with the Big Finish audio plays).

These collections also have some really hilarious short stories involving the first eight Doctors getting together for a deadly birthday party and an adventure where the Eighth Doctor winds up in a parallel universe and unknowingly gets some help from an actor named Tom Baker.

 

Now, in my head, and several friends agree with me, the comic strips and the Big Finish audio plays work just fine with each other. So let's continue forward to see what happened to the Doctor next, some indeterminate amount of time later after he and Destrii had parted ways.

THE BIG FINISH REVIVAL

In 1999, Big Finish Productions got the license to produce new audio plays direct to CD that would feature brand new stories starring the Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Doctors, adding to their careers and plugging up holes in continuity. After the first few releases, Big Finish began producing all-new adventures featuring the Eighth Doctor as well, picking up an indeterminate amount of time after the end of the TV-movie. Paul McGann was happy to step back into the role for the new audio plays, saying, "You can't play the Doctor only once!"

Whereas the audio plays featuring the Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Doctors could occasionally jump to different points of continuity, depending on what kind of story the writer wanted to do or which companion he/she wanter to use, the Eighth Doctors adventures were presented as a continuing series, with each adventure following the previous one.It began with the audio play Storm Warning, taking place an unrevealed amount of time after the events of the TV-movie. This play also introduced the new companion Charley Pollard.

THE TRUE EIGHTH DOCTOR

Since some time had passed since his regeneration, the Eighth Doctor was now quite comfortable in his new body. Thus, McGann was able to cement his own spin on how the Doctor would behave in this new life.

Like the movie, Eight was fun-loving and enjoyed the small joys of life. He was a bit scatterbrained, distracted by anything remotely interesting. No longer having to deal with being an amnesiac, McGann was able to infuse more confidence into the Doctor. This incarnation was now full of vigor and energized by a sense that things would work out all right in the end, given a little effort and improvisation.

Like a few previous incarnations, Eight had a habit of speaking his thoughts aloud and enjoyed name-dropping and talking about random adventures he'd had in his travels. He was also very quick to mock his enemies and openly criticize things that were supposed to intimidate him. In the later audio play Time of the Daleks, when he encountered a Dalek device called a "Temporal Extinction Device", his first reaction was to remark that it was hard to take a doomsday weapon seriously when its acronym was "TED."

After the first several adventures featuring the Eighth Doctor and Charley, Big Finish decided to throw in an extra adventure that took place before the events of Storm Warning. It was an audio adaptation of "Shada" (Douglas Adams' fabled unfinished Doctor Who adventure). Although it was originally intended for Tom Baker, he said he wasn't interested in returning for any audio plays, and so the work was adapted slightly for the Eighth Doctor.

Because the story had originally been intended to feature K-9 and Romana as well, Big Finish also got Lalla Ward and John Leeson to return to lend their voices and a new introduction was written to explain away how the Eighth Doctor was traveling with these two old friends again.

The BBC made flash animation for the adventure and posted it up on their web-site, so if you have a chance, you should check it out and enjoy. And when you check it out, look closely when you see Romana's Presidential Office. There are lead gears on the walls and gears painted on the floor. Apparently, Romana had her place decorated as a nod to how the Fourth Doctor had adorned the place when he assumed the mantle of presidency back in the story "The Invasion of Time."

But what of the Eighth Doctor's main adventures? And who exactly was this new companion I speak of? Well, read on...

THE EDWARDIAN ADVENTURESS

Storm Warning began with the Doctor looking for the TARDIS manual (we weren't told why) and becoming distracted when he found a copy of Agatha Christie's The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. He then found Frankenstein and read over the introduction, implying that he had been there on the same night Mary Shelley and Lord Byron had decided to tell ghost stories and that there was some truth behind the famous horror novel.

Suddenly, the TARDIS was attacked by vortisaurs, creatures that were said to inhabit the space-time vortex (and which could be related to the chronovores seen in the Third Doctor TV adventure "The Time Monster"). Forced to get out of danger, the Eighth Doctor wound up landing the TARDIS on the British Airship R101 in October 1930. Walking around, he found a group of military men ready to have a secret meeting with an alien visitor and a stowaway who fancied herself to be an "Edwardian adventuress." Her name was Charlotte Elsbeth Pollard, but she preferred to be called "Charley."

Charley had been hitching a ride to Singapore and had no idea that she would wind up fighting aliens alongside a man who claimed he traveled in time. When all was said and done, Charley insisted on joined the Doctor on board the TARDIS moments before the R101 crashed.

The Doctor knew that Charley was supposed to have died along with the other passengers, but he couldn't take her back to the airship just so she could die, not in good conscience. Deciding that history was old enough to take care of itself and that Charley's life couldn't possibly alter the web of time that much, considering the kind of person she was, he figured things would work out and kept her around.

Charley was brought to life by actress India Fisher, who had played a role in a previous Fifth Doctor audio caleld Winter for the Adept. Her flair and personality had so impressed the Big Finish team that they wrote Charlie specifically with her in mind.

Fisher's natural chemistry with Paul McGann and feisty spirit made her a very popular companion. She was not just a sidekick, she was the Doctor's friend and the two shared an occasional flirtation. Charlie was always quick to mock the Doctor's arrogance or annoying habit for name-dropping and would challenge his choices when she felt they were against her own code of ethics.

In their travels, the Doctor and Charley fought Cybermen and witnessed the sinking of the city of Venice in the future. They fought aliens alongside Orson Welles in the hysterical story Invaders From Mars and they teamed up with retired Brigadier Alastair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart to fight cultists and demons in the terrifying Minuet in Hell, which I recommend for any Whovians who enjoy stories with a horror/terror feel to them.

One of their most terrifying adventures was The Chimes of Midnight, quickly regarded as one of the very best plays Big Finish ever produced. During this story, Charley was faced with the fact that she should've died on the R101 and that her survival may have had unforeseen consequences. Further stories began to increase audience suspicion that Charley's continued existence was having unforeseen consequences.

NEVERLAND

Eventually, the Doctor found that the situation with Charley was more serious than he imagined. In Neverland, battle-TARDISes surrounded his ship and he and Charley were brought to Gallifrey. The Doctor woke up to see his old rival Vansell, Coordinator of the Celestial Intervention Agency, and Madame President Romana. They explained to the Doctor that, by herself, Charley's survival was not a big change to the web of time and shouldn't have really affected anything. But something outside of the known universe had used her existence as a time anomaly to act as a conduit for their own entry into this reality. As a result, Charley had become dangerous.

It was Romana's belief that these creatures were from a reality of "anti-time" and that their coming would bring destruction across the universe. A universe of anti-time would have no true evolution, no true passage of events and history. Rather, a set series of events would tend to repeat itself in limited cycles, making time itself meaningless in the long run. Just as anti-matter was the opposite of positive matter, this was the opposite number to the time-space vortex of our universe. And worst of all, it seemed that anti-time was now leaking into the vortex. Already, the great Matrix on Gallifrey was behaving chaotically, screaming that it couldn't remember certain events of the past and future. Unless the anti-time infection was stopped, all would be lost.

The Doctor refused to sacrifice his friend, convinced there had to be another way to save reality and prevent further infection without killing Charley in the process. The matter became more complicated when Vansell and Romana stated their belief that the body of Rassilon was in the realm of the anti-time people. They recalled the poem of Zagreus, written thousands of years before, based on a mythical villain.

Zagreus sits inside your head. Zagreus lives among the dead.
Zagreus sees you in your bed … And eats you when you're sleeping.
Zagreus at the end of days. Zagreus lies all other ways.
Zagreus comes when time's a maze … And all of history's weeping.
Zagreus taking time apart, Zagreus fears the hero’s heart.
Zagreus seeks the final part, the reward that he is reaping.
Zagreus sings when all is lost. Zagreus takes all those he’s crossed.
Zagreus wins and all it cost, the hero’s hearts, he’s keeping.
Zagrues seeks the hero’s ship. Zagreus needs the web to rip.
Zagreus sups time at a drip and life aside is sweeping.

Another version had this verse as well.

Zagreus waits at the end of the world. For Zagreus is the end of the world.
His time is the end of time. And his moment, time's undoing.

This poem had been heard by audio play fans a few times before. The Sixth Doctor sang it aloud in Project: Twilight. The girl Jade referenced it in the Seventh Doctor adventure Master. The Eighth Doctor mentioned that he'd heard it in Singapore during Seasons of Fear. The Fifth Doctor visited a historical re-enactment ship in Omega where one of the holographic tour guides was based on Zagreus.

Stories of Zagreus existed on many worlds (in Greek mythology, he was called "Dionysus"). The details were different, but the gist was the same. And many of them spoke of a hero who journeyed to the realm of Zagreus, a place where "decay is the only constant", to fight him. This hero was called Azilon, Ra or Razlon and some stories said he had two hearts.

Journeying into the anti-time universe, the Doctor and Romana discovered a race of beings who they called the Never-People. After speaking with them for a while, they realized the truth of these anti-time beings. Deep in Gallifrey, there was a device known as the Oubliette of Eternity which was used when a Time Lord had committed a heinous crime that could endanger their whole society. When a Time Lord was subjected to it, the Oubliette wiped them out from space and time entirely. The universe wouldn't even remember they had existed at all, save for a document listing them that was held in a zero room, outside of time.

But it turns out they weren't disintegrated. These people had actually been transported to this realm of anti-time, becoming formless Never-People. And they had been plotting revenge. The stories of Zagreus were their creation, meant to lure Time Lords to them so that they could unleash a weapon of raw anti-time energy back into the main universe.

Realizing she had inadvertently helped the Never-People in their plans, acting as their conduit into the universe, Charley decided she had to sacrifice herself to preserve the universe and begged the Doctor to let her go, saying that she loved him and was doing this for him too. The Doctor told Charley that she was his best friend and he loved her too and wouldn't let her go. He had a plan, but he knew it was risky.

And then time seemed to stop and Rassilon appeared before the Doctor. Although long dead, his mind had survived in the Matrix, like most Time Lords who die. So powerful was Rassilon's mind and force of will that he was now a ghost of sorts, acting independently of the Matrix program. He and the Doctor spoke of everything that had led the Doctor to this moment.

RASSILON: "I have watched you these many long years. I have seen you in ALL of your adventures. Seen the many things you have done in the service of your beliefs. Some I can hardly be seen to approve of."
THE DOCTOR: "Ah, well, you know, sometimes things don't work out quite the way you plan them."
RASSILON: "Indeed. But for the most part, Doctor, you have made me proud. You have enriched the lives of more people and more worlds than I suspect you will ever know. You have made a difference. And I have come here simply to tell you that, before everything is ended. Before it is too late."
THE DOCTOR: "My lord, you honor me."
RASSILON: "No, Doctor. You have honored me. Farewell."

He then vanished and the Doctor went back to work. Meanwhile, aboard a time station, the energies of the anti-time weapon were beginning to reach critical mass. Sentris, leader of the Never-People, was elated to realize her revenge was finally about to reach fruition. And then, the Doctor’s TARDIS actually materialized around the entire time station.

THE DOCTOR: "Yes, it's terribly tricky and no, it's really not a good idea and yes, she's bursting at the seams, but you didn't leave me any choice ... This TARDIS is tough as old boots. She'll contain the material inside your casket, at least long enough for the Time Lords to deal with it. And Charley, well, when she restabilizes, she should be safe too. So you see, there's only ME to consider. And if dying's the price I pay to save all of history, to save my FRIEND … well, I've had fun all my lives, I can't complain … THIS is how it ends."

The anti-time energy erupted, contained in the TARDIS. Romana saw the Matrix, healed and restored. All was well. The threat was over and Charley Pollard was no longer a danger, having now been purged of anti-time energies. Romana mourned the Doctor, knowing he was surely dead from that last act. Little did she know ...

Charley found herself on the Doctor's TARDIS. The Doctor was huddled in the darkness and the Console Room was wrecked. When she tried to help her friend up, the Doctor threw her aside. He spoke in a dark and biting tone, saying that all the anti-time that had entered their universe was now held "in here." When Charley asked if he meant inside the TARDIS, the Doctor chuckled, his body crackled with energy. "No, no," he said slyly. "In HERE!"

CHARLEY: "You're scaring me now! Stop it, Doctor, please."
THE DOCTOR: "Doctor? 'Doctor'?… I hold the last vestiges of the most awesome power ever imagined. IMAGINED … yes … How much better if I should take my title from a work of imagination, a creature willed to power by the undying anger of an unreal race!"

Charley said that the Doctor needed help. But when she approached him, the Doctor hit her across the face rather than listen, shouting her down.

THE DOCTOR: "I told you, girl! I am NOT the Doctor! I have become he who sits inside your head, he who lives among the dead. He who sits beside your bed and EATS you when you're sleeping. I am become … ZAGREUS!”

THE RISE AND FALL OF ZAGREUS

"Four Doctors ... One Destiny ..."

To celebrate the 40th anniversary of Doctor Who, the boys and girls at Big Finish brought about just about everyone they could grab from the radio plays they'd produced, many of whom had also been in the television show.

The story opened up some months after the end of Neverland. The Doctor and Charley had been rendered unconscious and locked in the TARDIS, which was kept in a secure location on Gallifrey. Romana believed the Doctor dead and was keeping the TARDIS sealed to prevent anti-time infection from leaking out. Aboard the TARDIS, the Doctor awoke and found himself lost and confused. At one moment, he was the Doctor again, his mind scrambled, trying to get a hold of his sanity. The next moment, the anti-time energies took over and he was Zagreus once more, looking for a way out, ready to destroy the Time Lords and all of reality itself.

The TARDIS itself seemed to be trying to reach out to the Doctor and help him. At times, the TARDIS spoke to the Doctor in the voice of his third incarnation (which was accomplished by using old, unused recordings of Jon Pertwee's voice). At other times, the TARDIS created an avatar of itself in the guise of the Chesire Cat. The Chesire Cat told the Doctor that he was now both himself and Zagreus and warned him that if he left the TARDIS, only one identity would remain. The TARDIS also provided a ball of pure time energy, which allowed the Doctor to gain some momentary respite. During this respite, the Doctor was able to contront with his new Zagreus personality.

THE DOCTOR: "What do you suggest [we do]?"
ZAGREUS: "Destruction. Total annihilation of the cosmos ... We have the power."
THE DOCTOR: "Yes, but what is the point? You destroy the universe and wake up twenty minutes later and think, bother, I forgot to go and see the cubist exhibition of Patrellis Major or check up on the oracle on KS-59 or nip back and find out who really killed JFK. Someone once blamed me, you know that? But I'm fairly certain all of me were elsewhere. Destroying universes is so passé ... and you always regret it."

As they argued, Zagreus used his power to show the Doctor alternate timelines and realities. The events he referenced in these alternate realities were things that had occurred in the Eighth Doctor novels. He saw the removal of one of his hearts that happened in the novel The Adventuress of Henrietta Street and the crystal time station that appeared in Sometimes Never. He also mentioned a reality in which the Time Lords had terrible mind powers, which seemed to be a reference to the non-canon Seventh Doctor audio play Death Comes to Time.

This reference to the various continuities also went along with the short story "Repercussions" by Gary Russell, which said that some of the people the Doctor had once been partnered with had since been wiped out of the timeline for one reason or another. It referenced Grant Markham (who had been a companion in a few 6th Doctor novels) being seen in the presence of a girl who greatly resembled Samantha Jones from the novels. So, if you want, you can also believe that once Samantha Jones, Fritz and Trix were indeed part of the 8th Doctor's life but that they and the adventures they had were removed from history soon before his audio adventures began.

The Doctor also mentioned that he saw himself on the planet Oblivion, fighting the Horde. That event happened in the Doctor Who Magazine comic strips. However, the Doctor does not mention this specifically as a parallel timeline, as he does when he mentions the other things he sees. What's more, he mentions that some of what he sees might be part of his "real" past but that's it's hard to tell because his mind is so confused at that moment. With that in mind, and remembering that Russell T. Davies have given much credence to the DWM comic strips, I see no major reason to not still include those comic strip adventures with Izzy and Destrii as part of the canon of the audio adventures since they still seem to fit.

Back to the story. While the Doctor was wandering about, Charley investigating the nature of Zagreus and its connection to something known as the "Divergents." Using the TARDIS memory banks and hologram projectors, she saw three different people who had each witnessed the presence of these strange other-dimensional beings called the Divergents.

The first who witnessed their presence was the vampire Lord Tepesh, who found the Divergents locked away in Rassilon's lab on ancient Gallifrey, mere days after the elite classes had adopter their new titles of "Lords of Time." Lord Tepesh also discovered other secrets of Rassilon, such as his development of a process he called "regeneration" and the fact that he had influenced the evolution of several species across the universe. To the shock of many fans, Tepesh learned from Rassilon's computers that the founder of Time Lord society had created a virus that he’d released on many worlds as life was just developing there. Those who were infected and survived would evolve into humanoid life forms, which Rassilon believed was the proper form of evolution. Any race infected who could not mutate would be killed off by the virus.

Though it had occasionally seemed that Rassilon was perhaps not the nicest of people, this put him into the same category as some of the Doctor's enemies, such as Davros and the Daleks who believed that inferior races were impure and needed to be swept aside.

The next person to learn of the Divergents was Reverend Matthew Townsend, who participated in a 1950s experiment on Earth called "the Dionysus Project" (remember, Dionysus was the Greek name for Zagreus). The project involved opening up a wormhole into another dimension. Before the portal generators blew the whole base up to kingdom come, Townsend saw creatures on the other side of the portal who were screaming for freedom.

The final person to accidentally learn of the Divergents was Walton Winkle (or Uncle Walt), who was re-awakened from cryo-sleep just minutes before the end of the universe. As the animatronic creations of his Wonderland amusement park went to war with each other, Uncle Walton saw a portal tear open and realized that a race of incredible beings were finally re-entering our reality after a long exile.

On ancient Gallifrey, Tepesh had been investigating Rassilon's lap alongside someone called the Great Mother of the Sisterhood. It was clear that this was the same Sisterhood of Karn that the Fourth Doctor had encountered in "The Brain of Morbius," who disguised a unique form of science as magic. It was also said that the Sisterhood had originally lived on Gallifrey and been exiled by Rassilon, who refuted their magical ways. This went along with the novel Virgin novel Time’s Crucible, which had explained that the Sisterhood of Karn had originally been a separate society of Gallifreyan magic-users that Rassilon had distrusted and outlawed.

Together, Tepesh and the Great Mother found that Rassilon had feared that one day his people would fall to a much more powerful race he had found and called the Divergents. To protect the Time Lords, Rassilon had removed the Divergents from history, exiling them into a separate reality he'd created. What's more, much of the technology that Rassilon had seemingly invented was actually stolen from the Divergents, who now would never develop them since they were removed from history.

During this same scene, Lord Tepesh claimed that the Time Lord accounts of their war against the great vampires were wrong. Vampires had not been monsters who fed on the innocent and needed to be stopped. According to Tepesh, they had only fed on livestock that they had bred for themselves and it was only after Rassilon declared war on them that they were forced to feed on sentient beings when their resources ran out. Whether or not Tepesh spoke the truth or was simply speaking from a biased point of view wasn't clarified.

Meanwhile, the Matrix ghost of Rassilon made contact with Leela, who had been living on Gallifrey ever since the Fourth Doctor had left her long ago (it was later revealed that the environment of Gallifrey blessed her with longer life). She approached Romana, a woman with him she had nothing in common save for a companionship with the Fourth Doctor. The two teamed-up, entering the Matrix as they tried to save their old friend.

Charley then found herself in a recreation of the Death Zone on Gallifrey. Along with her was Lord Tepesh, Reverend Townsend and Uncle Winkle. But these were not merely recreations of dead figures. The TARDIS had created these three from its history records and gave them the form of three of the Doctor’s past incarnations. Lord Tepesh of the Vampire Council of Three was actually wearing the form of the Sixth Doctor (and played by Colin Baker). Reverend Matthew Townsend wore the form of the Fifth Doctor (played by Peter Davison). And the whimsical amusement park owner Uncle Walton Winkle was recreated in the guise of the Seventh Doctor (played by Sylvester McCoy). Thus, three Doctors were teaming-up again, but not in the way fans were used to seeing. Same actors, different characters, although eventually these historical recreations became aware that they were somehow connected to the Doctor.

The three recreations found the Eighth Doctor and Rassilon and confronted them with the truth of why the Eye of Harmony had been created, the truth of Rassilon’s intentions behind Zagreus and what the Divergents were.

TOWNSEND: "Let's speculate for a moment. Imagine, million of years past, that the king of an ancient civilization developed time travel."
UNCLE WINKLE: "Imagine this involved tapping the power of a black hole to create a single, unchangeable history."
LORD TEPESH: "Imagine this king now governed time itself, governed its use, its roadways. His was the past and the present. The future, too."
UNCLE WINKLE: "And that’s the interesting bit! What would have happened if this king had not woven his web of time?"
TOWNSEND: "Well, his empire would have fallen, they always do. A matter of simple evolution, you know. Made extinct by the next dominant species. Happens all the time."
LORD TEPESH: "Oh, but the king had prevented all this from happening. His Eye of Harmony ensured that things might 'never flux nor whither nor change their state' in any way."
UNCLE WINKLE: "But what should have happened next before the Eye made it impossible? What species would have risen but couldn't?"
TOWNSEND: "At least not until the universe itself had reached the end of it's life …"

Rassilon admitted he feared the existence of these Divergents, knowing they would one day supplant his people, his new Lords of Time. So he trapped them all in a pocket universe, never to be released until the end of the universe, where they would only be free in time to die. But he'd grown afraid that they might break out sooner, that they would seek vengeance against him even if he were not the true physical Rassilon but only a ghost of his consciousness living within the Matrix. Thus, he had manipulated the Doctor into becoming Zagreus, stepping in when the anti-time explosion had occurred and ensuring that the Doctor absorbed the energy rather than be killed outright. With his anti-time abilities, Zagreus could destroy the billions of Divergents and thus ensure Rassilon's "children" were never threatened and that he would never be the victim of their vengeance.

Battles ensued. Rassilon tried to convince Zagreus to join his side, but Romana argued that the timeline was not theirs to direct and control, only to guard.

ROMANA: "Our duty is to the inevitability of events. Sometimes the hardest thing is not to act, to watch the things you love whither and waste and die. But if history decrees that our time is up, if evolution demands we go extinct, then so be it! You can fight the future all right, and may the best reality win, but you can't FIX the competition!"

Eventually, the Doctor turned on Rassilon, sending him into the same pocket universe that housed the Divergents, leaving him to their vengeance. He was in control again, his personality in command. But anti-time still infected his body. If he left the TARDIS and stepped out into the universe, he would threaten it. The only place he could go to be safe was the anti-time universe, a place where time travel could not be achieved because there was no true evolution, just a repetition of basic events. To go there would be to be in a universe where his time-senses couldn’t operate. It would be akin to losing one’s hearing or sight. But he knew there was no choice. Once, he had been exiled from the Time Lords. Now, he was exiling himself to protect reality.

The Doctor left in the TARDIS, sad and empty, feeling bitter that he had been betrayed by Rassilon, yet another boyhood hero like Omega and Morbius, another apparent friend like Borusa and Azmael, who had turned evil. He wondered how long it would be until Romana turned on him one day too.

The Doctor then took off into the timeless universe, convinced he would be alone for the rest of his days, never again to visit places he enjoyed, never again to see Earth or Gallifrey or any old friends. But then again, Romana had been lost in a pocket universe before and had returned. So, perhaps one day …

As the Doctor left, Leela and Romana mused about their friend. As they walked off, fans knew they would be able to follow the adventures of Leela and Romana in the new audio series Gallifrey.

ROMANA: "... Leela, after today, I think this could be the start of a beautiful friendship … Don't you?"

Meanwhile, aboard the TARDIS, watched over by his past incarnations, the Eighth Doctor picked up a copy of “Frankenstein.” As he began to read the preface (just as he’d done in Storm Warning), he tried to remember when he had last tried reading this book. Hadn’t he been interrupted?

As he read, he was unaware of Charley nearby, having stowed away on board the TARDIS thanks to the “back door” Leela knew about (perhaps the entrance to the other control room which she and the Fourth Doctor had used for several adventures?). No matter what, Charley refused to let her friend go off alone. It would be her and the Doctor and the TARDIS as a team, always.

Several people criticized Zagreus as not living up to their expectations. After Neverland had ended, they expected a big war between Zagreus and the Time Lords and instead got an adventure that primarily took place within the TARDIS and the Matrix, with lots of exposition and time-hopping and tons of self-referential dialog. Others thought it was an interesting adventure, as well a being a very informative and revealing look at some Time Lord history. While some criticized how it had portrayed Rassilon as a villain, others pointed out that the implications of such a personality had already been set up in "The Five Doctors" when audiences had seen his Death Zone and all the traps that laid about his tomb.

The Cast of Zagreus

The cast of Zagreus was one of the more remarkable things about it. We had, of course, Paul McGann as the Doctor (and as the Zagreus entity that was now vying for control) and India Fisher as Charley. And Lalla Ward returned as Romana, with John Leeson at her side, once again playing the voice of K-9.

Rassilon was voiced by Don Warrington, who also played him in Seasons of Fear, Time of the Daleks and Neverland. For fans who were very finicky about continuity and wondered why Rassilon’s ghost was a white bearded Caucasian in “The Five Doctors” but a black man with a different voice in the audio plays, you can just assume that this was a different regeneration of Rassilon’s that was making itself known.

Recently, Don Warrington played the President of Great Britain on a parallel Earth in the TV episode "Rise of the Cybermen."

As for the other parts of Zagreus, here was the fun cast they put together:

Louise Jameson, returning to her role of Leela, now older but no less deadly
Nicholas Courtney, playing a hologram of the Brigadier (whom he played on the old show)
Anneke Wills (formerly Polly) playing the character of Lady Louisa Pollard
Elisabeth Sladen (formerly Sarah Jane Smith) playing the character Miss Lime
Sarah Sutton (formerly Nyssa) playing the character of Miss Foster
Mark Strickson (formerly Turlough) playing Captain McDonnell
Nicola Bryant (formerly Peri Brown) playing the character of Dr. Stone and the vampire Lady Oida
Caroline Morris (formerly Erimem) playing the character of Mary Elson
Maggie Stables (formerly Evelyn Smythe) playing the Great Mother of the Sisterhood
Robert Jezek (formerly Frobisher the Penguin) playing The Recorder
Bonnie Langford (formerly Mel Bush) playing the character of Goldilocks
Sophie Aldred (formerly Dorothe "Ace" McShane) playing the character of Captain Duck
Lisa Bowerman (formerly Bernice Summerfield) playing the character of Sgt. Gazelle

Conrad Westmass played the Chesire Cat. In future adventures, he would play the character C’rizz. Stephen Fewell, who played the role of “Jason Kane” in many Bernice Summerfield adventures, came in as the character Corporal Heron. And Stephen Perring, who voicedSebastian Grayle in Season of Fear, played the part of the receptionist.

Miles Richardson had played Charles Darwin in the Sixth Doctor audio adventure Bloodtide. In Zagreus, he portrayed Braxiatel, a Time Lord mentioned in the TV and audio shows but not seen before (although he was seen in several Bernice Summerfield stories). Richardson would later go on playing Braxiatel in the Gallifrey audio series, as well as several of Benny's audio adventures.

And now, as to what happened to the Doctor and Charley next ...

A UNIVERSE WITHOUT TIME

The adventure was called Scherzo. The Doctor and Charley found themselves in the new reality and things were not going well. Charley saw the Doctor on the floor of the TARDIS, looking weary and detached. He explained that being thrown into a universe “without time” was quite traumatic for a man of a race of time-sensitive people. The TARDIS wasn’t doing much better, entire sections were vanishing, corrupted by this new reality.

The Doctor and Charley finally went out to explore. They found themselves in a soundless environment where the light was so bright they couldn’t see where they were going. They were in some kind of glass corridor and decided to walk it. Things got worse when the TARDIS vanished, seemingly taken away by an unknown power. “No second chances in this universe,” the Doctor muttered.

They couldn’t see anything or smell anything. They were all each other had in this world.

The Eighth Doctor was not his usual fun-loving self. He was dark and somber and introverted. Charley tried to ask him what was wrong, concerned about the man she loved. She didn’t quite get the answers she’d hoped for.

THE DOCTOR: “…Sooner or later, we are going to perish in a world in which we have no meaning, where we are not mean to exist …”
CHARLEY: “Whatever happens, at least we’ll be together … So we can give each other meaning ... I came here for you. I came here to be with you.”
THE DOCTOR: “You silly, little girl. Do you think I want you here? If I’m going to die, I want to die ALONE. It was, I thought, the last decision I would ever make, that I could ever make, that it was my right to make. Charley, after all these years, I should have been allowed that at least, that small final dignity. But here you are … you betrayed that … even that has been taken from me.”
CHARLEY (whisper): “ … But I love you …”

The Doctor apologized for these remarks soon afterwards. Being in a universe where his senses were dulled and where he had no idea what to expect, he was more frightened than he’d ever been in all his lives and was not acting entirely rationally.

Eventually, Charley demanded a response to her proclamation of love for the Doctor, saying the Doctor had said he loved her too during the events of Neverland. The Doctor said that whatever part of him had thought he loved her then, it was now as dead as his missing senses. He also asked what good her love did him, what useful purpose it served, before abruptly changing the subject to focus on what they were discovering about this strange realm.

After a while, the Doctor realized they were walking around in circles and that a creature made of sound was keeping them alive for its own purposes. Charlie wondered if the Doctor was only imagining this, as she believed he needed an enemy to fight, and again the conversation turned to the subject of each other.

THE DOCTOR: “This shouldn’t be how it ends. I should have had the universe to explore. Or death. One or the other and it’s YOUR FAULT. If it weren’t for you, I’d be dead or alive, not this half-way point! If it weren’t for you – Why are you here, Charley?! What do you want with me?”
CHARLEY: “What do YOU want with ME? You were the one who rescued me in the first place …”
THE DOCTOR: “It’s a good question … You will have realized, of course, that you’re not the only human who has traveled with me in the TARDIS ... The Time Lords often wondered why I bothered … and they came up with a theory, do you want to know what it is?”
CHARLEY: “You must get lonely traveling the universe with no one to share it with.”
THE DOCTOR: “They thought you were all memento mori, reminders of death ... and Time Lords need to remember [mortality] all the more. I denied that that was the reason, of course, and as you said, friendship, companionship. But over the years, over my many lifetimes, as friends left me one by one, I began to wonder whether they really might have had a point after all. Especially when I found you, Charley, a companion who was already dead … I didn’t expect to care for you as much as I did ... When it came to it, having to make a choice between you and the universe, I’d say hang the Web of Time ... I sacrificed myself for you, to save your life. And I did it gladly ... Of course, I loved you! I killed myself for you, didn’t I? Of course, I loved you! ... Of course, I love you ... but you’re not safe, are you? You followed me in, so what was the point of my sacrifice? ... What was the point of that journey if I died for nothing? ... I killed myself for you so that you could live and yet here you are. You betrayed me … I’m not sure I could ever forgive you that.”
CHARLEY: “But if you love me, then you understand why I had to come with you?”
THE DOCTOR: “I shouldn’t have let you love me. I’ve killed you … What was the point of all that love? What was it for? I never wanted to see you again, you understand? Seeing you again would mean I’d failed … I gave everything … I’m not sure that I don’t wish I’d never met you at all … I’m not sure … I’m sorry …”

The two went on, leaving the matter at that.

After some interesting confrontations with the sound creature, the Doctor and Charley continued on and found a strange wall of energy. Believing this was a border of some kind, the Doctor insisted they push on it, believing that perhaps they could find the TARDIS on the other side. Forcing their way through, the two wound up in an “interzone”, a place between the different “zones” of this reality. This interzone was a crossroads between them all and the creature that seemed to run it was called the Kro’ka. The Kro’ka mentally scanned the Doctor and Charley and was quite interested in them, as well as why they were interested in finding their TARDIS, which he believed was a spaceship. The Kro’ka decided he learned all he could and allowed them to continue into the next zone. As the Doctor and Charley left through a portal, the Kro’ka remarked to an unseen superior that the new “experiment” had begun.

The Doctor and Charley were transported to a zone called Eutermeras and met a Eutermersan named C’Rizz, whose people were the slaves of the evil Kromon, nasty insect/slug-like creatures. The Doctor and Charley helped C’Rizz and his people but the victory was not without losses. C’Rizz’s lover L’Da was captured and transformed into a hybrid Kromon queen. Unwilling to let her live as such an abomination, C’Rizz killed her. At one point, when it seemed like Charley was going to suffer a similar fate, C’Rizz was willing to do the same thing for her but the Doctor refused this and was able to help his friend instead. After the adventure, the Doctor and Charley went to return to the interzone so they could try looking for the TARDIS somewhere else. Feeling he wanted to see what else was in the universe, C’Rizz joined them.

As a Eutermersan, C’Rizz was a lizard-like man who could change the hue of his skin like a chameleon. Later, it would be commented that his people had chameleon-like personalities as well. C’Rizz seemed ill at ease with the violence and adventure of the Doctor’s life, but slowly began to become an adventurer himself. At times, he seemed to show a very dark and sinister side of his personality and the Doctor wondered just how hard it might not have been for the man to kill his former lover. C’Rizz was played very nicely by the actor Conrad Westmass.

In the interzone, the Doctor felt the Kro’ka in his mind again. The Kro’ka commented on C’Rizz’s strange willingness to kill, saying he had been a monk beforehand. The Doctor said the Kroman certainly drove him to violence, but the Kro’ka said he didn’t engage in any violence until after meeting the Doctor. He then saw the Doctor on his way into the next zone, commenting under his breath that the experiment was over and the next was about to begin.

The Doctor, Charley and C’Rizz went on a few more adventures throughout this timeless reality. The Natural History of Fear is one of the better ones, written very imaginatively and with a surprising ending. In The Twilight Kingdom, the Doctor suspected that the zones were part of a crucible world, a large-scale laboratory involving many civilizations that were placed besides and sometimes against each other in order for purposes only its manipulators understood. Perhaps the Divergents were behind this. The Doctor was not randomly going from zone to zone, eithjer. A path had been set up for him and he was walking down it as those behind the experiments intended him to.

At one point, the Kro’ka asked the Doctor why he had really come to the timeless universe, knowing that self-sacrifice was not the only reason.

KRO’KA: “I thought you were on a mission, Time Lord. A quest. Tell me … what do you expect to find?””
THE DOCTOR: “ … RASSILON.”

The Doctor’s adventures continued and now listeners understood this wasn’t just a random exploration to find the TARDIS. The Doctor was seeking out Rassilon, whom he himself had exiled to this universe while he was still somewhat under the influence of the Zagreus personality. His quest continued through different zones.

Around this time, Big Finish decided it was time to put an end to the timeless universe story arc. Now that the new TV series was doing well, it was believed that having the radio version of the Doctor trapped in a timeless universe without a TARDIS would be too jarring for audience members who were introduced to the character from the television series and wanted to explore past "classic" Doctors with as little difficulty as possible.

And so, things came to a head in the audio play Caerdroia.

THE THREE-FOLD MAN

In Caerdroia, the three adventures were once again in the interzone. But this time, the Kro’ka was not the one in control. The Doctor had fallen asleep upon his arrival and now the Kro’ka was furious. Apparently, he couldn’t send the adventurers on their next adventure unless all three were conscious (or perhaps unless the Doctor specifically was conscious). Charley sneered that they wouldn’t be sent into the next rat maze just because the Kro’ka’s masters wanted them to move on.

The Doctor woke up and realized what was going on, commenting that if Kro’ka couldn’t force them into the next adventure soon, if he couldn’t do his job, perhaps his masters would engage in a little “downsizing.” He also commented that he was already learning secrets of this universe and that would certainly upset the Kro’ka’s superiors.

The Kro’ka attempted to enter the Doctor’s mind, but found resistance. The Doctor told him it would not be like when they first met, when the Doctor was vulnerable and new to this reality. At one point, the Kro’ka used a “mind-blast” device to enter the Doctor’s mind, satisfied that he would be victorious. But he’d fallen into a trap. Now that he was in the Doctor’s mind, he was in a reality that obeyed the Doctor’s will. It was all a ruse, the Doctor explained, remarking that the people of Gallifrey had once told him he should have been an actor.

The Doctor commented that he didn’t believe the Kro’ka was acting entirely under the authority of the Divergents, that he was taking liberties here and there that could get him in trouble. He then threatened and forced the Kro’ka to give him some information. He found that the Divergents had their main base on a world called Caerdroia. The Doctor was surprised, remarking that “Caerdroia” was a Welsh word that meant “the fortress of many turnings; a maze.” The Kro’ka said the Divergents borrowed many words from other cultures when they described a place or thing aptly. The Doctor also realized that the castle on Caerdroia, where the Divergents lived, sounded very akin to a castle in the legends of the Holy Grail.

The Kro’ka explained that the Divergents could track the Doctor due to his two-heartbeats and the time residue that surrounded his body. The Doctor said he was unafraid, that being in this universe without time was like having his arm cut off and nothing they could do would be worse. The remark of having his arm cut off is interesting in that in the BBC Eighth Doctor novels the character known as the Grandfather (the corrupted/older version of the 8th Doctor who founded Faction Paradox), had cut off his own arm.

The Doctor released the Kro’ka and returned to his friends. The Doctor felt a strange "time sickness" and deduced that what he was feeling must have been caused by time energies leaking into the interzone. Since the Divergents were the only creatures in this place who had originally been from a universe with time (except for Rassilon, of course), then the Doctor could sense their proximity. Using this nausea as a beacon, he tracked down the portal that led to Caerdroia and entered. But things went a bit wrong. Charley and C’Rizz entered Caerdroia just fine, but the Doctor had suffered a side-effect. He had been split into three. Not three Doctors, but three versions of the Eighth Doctor.

One Doctor seemed calm and rational, the second was gruff and short-tempered and the third was effervescent and completely scatter-brained. The reasonable one was just called “Doctor”, while Charley decided to refer to the gruff, angry version as “Eeyore” and the scatter-brained version as “Tigger (nods to characters in the Winnie the Pooh adventures).

The three Doctors all went about the adventure from three different angles and at times it was advantageous. Free of sympathy, the gruff “Eeyore” Doctor was perfectly capable of using his whole telepathic might to invade the Kro’ka’s mind, causing the creature incredible pain, making him scream in agony as the Time Lord ripped through his brain. Such an act would not been have done by the true Doctor, but this aspect had no such moral qualms. As he explained, “I’m the nasty one!”

The three Doctors realized that the TARDIS had caused them to split in order to help the Doctor understand the message better. Each Doctor had explored a different part of Caerdroia and picked up a different piece of the puzzle. Now they joined minds and put the pieces of the message together, finally finding the old time-ship that had not been seen since it had been left behind at the beginning of Scherzo. As soon as they walked through its doors, they merged into the proper Eighth Doctor who was finally reunited with his “old girl.”

Armed again with the TARDIS, the Doctor now set off to travel under his own steam, avoiding the manipulations of the Divergents until he was ready to fight them on his own terms.

In The Next Life, The Doctor and his companions were met again by Rassilon and the Kro’ka. The adventure involved dream realities and various revealed truths. Rassilon told the Doctor that the anti-time energies were gone from his body now, that Zagreus had been exercised from his mind. The Doctor confirmed that this universe had no “time” in the true sense of the world because everything that occurred in it repeated in an endless cycle, with the exception of those visitors from the universe of time.

It was revealed that when Rassilon had been sent here at the end of Zagreus, he was able to convince the Divergents to spare his life by giving them knowledge, allowing them to create their own life form that could understand time. Now interested in evolution, the Divergents were glad when the Doctor’s arrived soon afterward and so they'd decided to put him through several experiments in different zones, observing his reactions and effects on those around him. The Divergents created two beings with their new knowledge, one called Keep and the other, his wife, Perfection. They were to be an Adam and Eve, as Perfection explained it.

Satisfied that he'd outsmarted his enemies and found a way to survive once more, Rassilon tried to open the door between universes to get back to his native reality. But then Keep revealed to him the horrible truth that he’d done this 84 times now, each time failing and then being forced to repeat the events, without any memory of having done so before. Rassilon had become trapped in the timeless universe’s awful cycle without even realizing it. He tried once more to escape, but he and Kro’ka were caught by Keep who sent them to restart the cycle of their events yet again, only this time they would have their memories intact.

Meanwhile, the Doctor realized he had another enemy to deal with. It was revealed that the real Perfection had killed herself some time ago to escape her brutal husband. And since then, her body had been inhabited by an imposter, an energy being that had its own personality and had needed a host after leaving the Doctor’s body. The woman calling herself Perfection was actually Zagreus.

Zagreus bonded with Keep, the two merging into a new entity with two personalities which had to co-exist. Rather than stick around and see how things turned out, the Doctor grabbed Charley and C’Rizz and got back onto the TARDIS, getting away from his enemies as quickly as possible.

And so the adventures in the timeless universe ended. Rassilon and Kro’ka were forced to live through the same events the Doctor and Charley had lived through in Scherzo, both of them slowly losing their identities. Zagreus and Keep hoped that by working together they could soon become a formidable force and in several years they would perhaps have another chance to escape their limited reality. And the Doctor had returned home.

HOME AT LAST

In Terror Firma, the Eighth Doctor was back in full form. No longer the sullen, somber man who hated being exiled to a universe without time, he was once again the swashbuckling scientist/adventurer who loved to name-drop and go into humorous tangents while explaining to his enemies why he was about to foil their plans. Even a confrontation with the Daleks couldn’t bring his spirits down, as their presence was proof to him that he was back in his home universe.

He was definitely hardened by his experiences, however. He was more cynical now about what his final fate would be and unapologetically blunt when speaking with Davros. When the evil scientist spoke of his desire to leave the Daleks and begin a new life, the Doctor flatly told him that this was a dream,  that he was a Dalek in spirit and had been for a long time and thus was not to be trusted. He could not have a peaceful life because he was evil. And yet, the Doctor conceded that he understood the frustration of trying to escape one's final fate.

THE DOCTOR: “I’m a Time Lord. There’s nothing I can do to change that no matter what I do or where I go … Half of my lot are crazy or corrupt and the other half, well, they’re duller than you could possibly imagine.”
DAVROS: “And you fear that is your destiny.”
THE DOCTOR: “Not while I’ve got my friends. But one day they’ll be gone and the chances are that one day … I’ll be old and alone. And I’ll find myself heading back to Gallifrey to collect dust with the rest of them. And it’s just the same for you. Your destiny has always been to become just another Dalek."
DAVROS: “At least you will have a home to return to, Doctor … You feel no guilt or shame of the atrocity you committed?”
THE DOCTOR: “You mean destroying Skaro? You reckon I should be wallowing in angst or something? 'Did I have the right?' Yadda, yadda, yadda. I had the right! I’ve seen what the Daleks are capable of! I had the right to destroy them!"
DAVROS: “But you didn’t … did you?”

Davros then revealed to the Doctor the recent atrocities he'd committed on Earth and how he had tortured and corrupted the siblings Samson and Gemma Griffin. Both of these people had been companions to the Doctor, sometime after he'd left San Fancisco and before he'd picked up Charley. They had shared many adventures, but then Davros had found them and not only used them for his own purposes, he'd taken away the Doctor's memory that he'd even known them, leaving him none the wiser as he searched absent-mindedly for his TARDIS manual (which is where we found him at the beginning of Storm Warning). The only hint beforehand was during Minuet in Hell, when the confused Doctor had seemed to recall traveling with someone named "Sam" (though this was initially meant to imply Sam Jones from the novels, it now was retconned to be Samson Griffin, since the novels and audio plays were now clearly separate continuities).

The Doctor flew into a fury as Davros gloated over him.

DAVROS: “I hate you, Doctor! Your very existence acts as salt on my wound! I have destroyed your friends! I have destroyed Earth! I have destroyed YOU! This, Doctor, is our FINAL BATTLE! This is the end! ... Welcome home, Doctor … Can you hear the human race as it cries out to you?”
THE DOCTOR: “Davros … I’m going to kill you.”

In the end, the Doctor was reunited with Samson, Charley and C’Rizz. The Doctor was able to save Samson, though his sister Gemma was not so lucky. The Doctor later confronted Davros but chose to let him live, leaving him to the Daleks, who wished to warp him into their full Dalek Emperor and whom the Doctor had forced to agree to leave Earth alone for the time being.

As the army of several million Daleks flew off into space, the Doctor once again felt that although he had won this battle, his war with the Daleks was not nearing the end.

The Doctor, Charley and C’Rizz then left to continue their adventures and Samson returned to his normal life. But things weren’t completely wrapped up. Listeners realized that in his mind, C’Rizz still heard the voices of all those he’d killed. His mother, Gemma, a Dalek, others. He spoke to the voices, saying how strange it was that in this universe the dead “slept”, that people here forgot about their dead. The voices asked if C’Rizz would forget them. He said he wouldn’t, that all these voices, the echoes of those he’d killed, were a part of him because he had “saved” them. And one day, he’d probably have to “save” the Doctor and Charley as well. And with that, he asked the voices to be silent as he went to sleep.

Afterwards, the Doctor, Charley and C’Rizz continued having audio adventures back in the home universe. Although they have been a good team, C’Rizz seemed to be having more and more problems with the Doctor’s code of ethics and morality, seeing no reason why time travel shouldn’t be used to cure the universe’s ills.

Eventually, C'Rizz left the Doctor's company in the audio play Absolution and Charley left the Eighth Doctor's side in the following adventure The Girl Who Never Was. What happened in those stories? Sorry, I'm not going to tell you. You should really enjoy them for yourselves. If you really must know, just look them up on wikipedia.org and it will tell you what became of them.

BBC7 AND LUCIE MILLER

Starting in 2008, Big Finish no longer put new Eighth Doctor adventures directly to CD (with the exception of Absolution and The Girl Who Never Was). Instead, a new licensing agreement arranged it so that the new Eighth Doctor adventures would air on the digital radio station BBC7. Only afterwards would these adventures be released on CD. This meant that every week for months at a time, audiences could listen to the Eighth Doctor's adventures in the same manner that they followed the adventures of the new Doctor whose adventures were being broadcast on television.

To give these audiences a fresh start and prevent them from feeling that they needed to go back and buy all of the previous audio plays to understand what was going on, it was decided that this would be a fresh slate. So the Doctor was alone and somewhat more gruff than fans were used to, before he was suddenly given a new companion, Lucie Miller. It would be months before Big Finish audio fans finally got the plays Absolution and The Girl Who Never Was so that they would know just what had happened to Charley and C'Rizz.

The Eighth Doctor had apparently continued his travels after the departures of C'Rizz and Charley (as we knew he would, of course). Charley's absence left a particular hole in his heart and he became noticeably more sarcastic and shorter-tempered. So when a human teenager named Lucie Miller randomly materialized inside his TARDIS, his first reaction was to interrogate her and then get rid of her as quickly as he could. But to his great annoyance, something had altered in his ship and now it wouldn't function unless Lucie was there as well. Despite his insistence that he did not want another companion, the Doctor decided he had no choice but to bring Lucie along until he could solve the mystery of just why she was there.

In spite of himself, the Doctor found that he enjoyed Lucie's company, though he was still put off by her occasional sarcasm and the fact that she didn't always trust what he said at face value. They made for an interesting team, challenging each other almost as often as they worked together.

Eventually, the Doctor discovered that Lucie had been placed aboard his ship by the Time Lords as part of a "witness protection program." They believed that there was something about Lucie which needed to be protected and so had dropped her off on the Doctor. In the audio play Human Resources, this matter was resolved and the Doctor was no longer forced to bring Ms. Miller along on his adventures.

And yet, the Eighth Doctor had grown fond of Lucie's spirit and the young woman also enjoyed his company, even if she did get annoyed with him occasionally for being what she considered to be arrogant and pompous. The two decided to continue traveling together and their adventures continue to be broadcast on BBC7.

Lucie Miller's final fate is unknown. All we know is that eventually, the Eighth Doctor became involved in the Last Great Time War, even fighting on the front lines. There, he was killed, regenerating afterwards into his ninth incarnation and journeying to Earth once more in his old antiquated TARDIS.

And that wraps it up for now. Hope you enjoyed this. Until next time, cheers!