Eighth Doctor Adventures: Difference between revisions

{{quote|''Break, damn you! Break! You've never had a [[Spanner in the Works|spanner like this thrown in you]]! Chew on me till your teeth crack. Grind me up till your gears lock. I'm the nail in your tyre, the potato jammed in your exhaust pipe, the treacle poured in your petrol tank. I'm the banana peel beneath your foot, the joker that ruins your straight flush, the coin that always comes up heads and the gun you didn't know was loaded. I am the '''Doctor'''!''|'''The Eighth Doctor''', ''Camera Obscura''}}

 

 

Running from 1997 to 2005, a series of 74 novels revolving around the exploits of the Eighth Doctor and his companions. These books, commonly referred to as the EDAs, were notable for fleshing out the character of the Eighth Doctor after his short run in the television movie, for having several interconnected [[Story Arc|Story Arcs]], for having been [[What Do You Mean It Wasn't Made on Drugs?|seemingly written on drugs]], and having a very compelling cast of characters.

As with the Virgin Books, a companion range featuring the previous Doctors (i.e. One through Seven) was published alongside the Eighth Doctor novels, doing much the same thing. This line was called the slightly-more-clunky "[[Past Doctor Adventures]]" (as opposed to the "[[Virgin Missing Adventures|Missing Adventures]]" that Virgin had called their similar line).

 

 

[[Eighth Doctor Adventures/Characters|Has a character page.]] Please keep most of the character-specific tropes there.

 

* [[Absurdly Youthful Mother|Absurdly Youthful Father]]: {{spoiler|The Doctor is reunited with his daughter Miranda when she's caught up to his [[Really Seven Hundred Years Old|apparent age]] and seems to have more grey hair than he does.}}

* [[Adaptational Sexuality]]: This series marked the first time that the Doctor was not portrayed as straight, which very much carried over to ''[[Scream of the Shalka]]'' and, shortly afterwards, to the television series proper.

** In "Frontier Worlds," Compassion says that she and Fitz are like the Doctor's pets. She compares herself to a cat, which thinks "My owner loves me and feeds me and takes care of me so I must be god." Fitz, she says, is a dog, thinking "My owner loves me and feeds me and takes care of me, so he must be god."

** In "Fear Itself," Fitz and the Doctor are asked what animals they think they are most like. Fitz says he is a dog, "probably a golden retriever," while the Doctor thinks of himself as a unicorn.

* [[Ascended Fanfic]]: Portia da Costa's erotic fiction novel The Stranger sees her heroine having lots and lots of sex with an amnesiac hero who's a blatant [[Expy]] of the Eighth Doctor (or just Paul McGann himself, given the flashback with the [[Withnail and I]] slash) - the last EDA [[Shout-Out|namechecks this book's main character]] in a list of the Doctor's offscreen 'companions'.

* [[Asleep for Days]]: In ''The Adventuress of Henrietta Street'', the Doctor sleeps for a week after losing one of his hearts.

* [[Bloodier and Gorier]]: Quite a lot. The Doctor is injured in probably a majority of the books, sometimes in ways that would [[Good Thing You Can Heal|kill a normal person]].

* [[Bride and Switch]]: In ''The Book of the Still'', [[Ho Yay|between Fitz and the Doctor]]. {{spoiler|Well, it never really happened; it's actually a virtual reality world where the Doctor is a [[Card-Carrying Villain]] trying to [[And Now You Must Marry Me|force some poor girl into marriage]], but gets a [[Disguised in Drag]] Fitz instead. It's a sort of [[Lotus Eater Machine]] for Fitz, since he gets to be a swashbuckling hero... wearing a [[Fairytale Wedding Dress]] and marrying the Doctor isn't actually stated to be part of the appeal for him, but one never knows.}}

* [[Canon Immigrant]]: [[The Brigadier]]'s American counterpart, General Kramer, who appears in ''Vampire Science'' by Jonathan Blum and Kate Orman, originated in one of Blum's fanworks.

* [[Cartwright Curse]]: Fitz, the poor dope. The Doctor tends toward this with the few love interests he has, but {{spoiler|it was subverted in ''The Adventuress of Henrietta Street'': Scarlette [[Faking the Dead|faked her death]] just because [[Love Cannot Overcome|she knew he should leave]]}}.

* [[Can't Live with Them Can't Live Without Them]]: Anji, toward Fitz. She once fantasized about [[Armor-Piercing Slap|hitting him with a chair]], and is often annoyed by his [[Fish Out of Temporal Water|old-fashioned opinions and mannerisms]]. However, he's sort of her [[The Not Love Interest|Not Love Interest]], whom she cares about just as much as she would about a love interest<ref>they don't have much [[UST]], and it's all on his part</ref>; she's just as grief-stricken, if not ''more'', over his apparent impending [[Doomy Dooms of Doom|doom]] as she was about the death of her boyfriend of five years. His opinion of her, however, seems to be less conflicted.

* [[The Chick]]: Notable because in most team set-ups, this role falls upon [[Gender Flip|Fitz]] and ''not'' the female companions.

* [[Children Raise You]]: Where do all these little [[Hair of Gold|blond]] Time Moppets come from, anyway? {{spoiler|The Doctor seems to be too [[Oblivious to Love]] for the matchmaking element of the trope to really work out. In Anji's case, Chloe seems to [[Genre Savvy|actually realize]] that as the adopted daughter of a slightly lonely and troubled businesswoman, she's supposed to help her find a love interest, so she wanders off and gets escorted home by an eligible bachelor who Anji ends up engaged to.}}

* [[Depending on the Writer]]: The major details are maintained, but some fluctuate wildly depending on who the author is. For example, Stephen Cole and Orman-Blum disagree ''severely'' on Fitz's height, Lance Parkin has [[Alternative Character Interpretation|Alternative Character Interpretations]] of everyone, Sabbath's portrayal and stature<ref>His height is sometimes described as unremarkable. Sometimes he's taller than the Doctor. It was once implied that the Doctor is taller than Fitz. They are all sometimes described as tall. The Doctor is 5'8". It's confusing.</ref> shift from book to book, and everything gets [[Ho Yay|gayer]] when Paul Magrs is writing.

* [[Denser and Wackier]]: In relation to the TV series: more [[Talking Animal|Talking Animals]], more breaches of the laws of physics for cheap tricks, more [[McDonald's|McDonaldses]] in [[Ancient Egypt]], more [[Badass Normal|Badass Normals]] who do things that seem like they [[A Wizard Did It|should involve a wizard somewhere]], more [[Rule of Funny]], and far, far more [[Meta Fiction]]. Yet it still manages to be ''at least'' as serious, in other ways, as the TV series, especially relative to the TV series that preceded it rather than the new one. Sure, the Doctor coming across as manic-depressive is nothing new these days, but the EDAs did it first!

* [[Dreaming the Truth]]: The Obverse!Doctor. [[Mind Screw|Or maybe not.]]

* [[Easily Forgiven]]: {{spoiler|Karl Sadeghi at the end of ''The Year of Intelligent Tigers''. A week after committing mass murder on their fellows, Karl is fielding requests from tigers to join his orchestra. The Doctor's reaction, on the other hand, seems totally proportionate.}}

* [[Expendable Clone]]: Particularly evident in ''The Last Resort'', where {{spoiler|almost everyone gets [[Immortal Life Is Cheap|extremely prone to dying]], just because almost everyone suddenly has all these doppelgangers. Or else can teleport and therefore safely make fun of everyone else's mortality rate.}}

* [[Eye Scream]]: ''Seeing I''. The ordinary implants needed to use INC technology are bad enough, but in OBFSC prison an invasive contact lens becomes the stuff of nightmares -- especially for {{spoiler|the Doctor}}.

* [[Failure Is the Only Option]]: For a while, it seemed like there are three constants in the EDAs: Fitz will [[Off the Wagon|always smoke]], the Doctor will always have [[Trauma-Induced Amnesia|amnesia]], and Anji will [[You Can't Go Home Again|never get back home]]. {{spoiler|But eventually the Doctor gets Anji home. And then she comes back, mostly for [[Not Love Interest|Fitz]]. And then the Doctor gets her home again. And in ''The Gallifrey Chronicles'', the Doctor seems to be regaining his memories. But Fitz will always smoke.}}

* [[Fate Worse Than Death]]: Becoming TARDIS breeding stock, being vaporized into the Time Vortex, turning into a monster with a clock for a face, madness-inducing brain slugs... etc., etc., and so forth.

* [[Historical Domain Character]]: Surprisingly rare; they all seem to be concentrated between two adjacent books; ''The Turing Test'' and ''Endgame''. The latter seems to mostly use it as an excuse for gratuitous [[Info Dump]]. Oh, and ''The Domino Effect'' reintroduces an [[Alternate Universe]] version of a previously seen [[Historical Domain Character]], to fairly sad and touching effect, and then {{spoiler|more or less [[Shoot the Shaggy Dog|Shoots The Shaggy Dog]] at the end}}.

* [[Hotter and Sexier]]: A bit.

* [[Hyperspace Arsenal]]: Actually justified in ''Time Zero''. [[Bag of Holding|Clothes that are bigger on the inside]] are useful for more than just super-effective Spanx. Although they are [[Mundane Utility|useful]] for that, too.

* [[Incredibly Lame Pun]]: Fitz and the Doctor are both occasionally guilty of these, and, probably unsurprisingly, Fitz's name makes him a bit of a [[Phrase Catcher]] for bad puns. He even mentions a [[Stealth Pun|reasonably subtle]] one his mum made once in ''Frontier Worlds''.

* [[It Makes Sense in Context]]: For many stories, the authors seemed to have taken a twisted glee in just honestly summarising the premise of each novel in the blurb. This being ''[[Doctor Who]]'', the results are...[[Mind Screw|unique]]. For example, ''The Year of Intelligent Tigers'' starts with:

* [[It Runs in The Family]]: There's a reason Fitz's family is like this. But that's not a reason for why he's sometimes a bit of a [[Cloudcuckoolander]].

* [[It's Been Done]]: The fandom takes much glee in pointing these out.

** {{spoiler|[[Where I Was Born and Razed|The Doctor being forced to destroy Gallifrey?]]}} ''Ancestor Cell''.

* [[Jewish Mother]]: The Doctor's mother in ''The Blue Angel'' comes across as a little [[My Beloved Smother|controlling]], and has a thick [[The Old Country|Eastern European]] accent, creating an impression of [[Ambiguously Jewish|Ambiguous Judaism]]. She also fusses a lot over his health, although since he's [[Ambiguously Human|technically human]] but has two hearts, you can't blame her.

* [[Lady Drunk]]: The Doctor's mum, again. She also [[Disco Dan|never really left the 1920s]]. She's basically a [[Shout-Out]] to [[Bette Midler]]'s Delores Delago, so she's implicitly a [[White Dwarf Starlet]]. Oh, and she's a mermaid.

* [[No Celebrities Were Harmed]]: In ''The Tomorrow Windows'', Prubert Gastridge is a large, bearded, bellowing actor best known for playing Vargo, the King of the Buzzardmen. [[Brian Blessed|Ring any bells?]]

* [[No Equal-Opportunity Time Travel]]: Anji has clearly had it up to here with people who want to know about [[Sim Sim Salabim|the wonders of the mysterious Orient]]. In [[Victorian Britain]], conforming to social expectations by wearing a sari seems to help, but she has some hangups about her heritage and doesn't like it. And Fitz's lower-middle-class accent is also a bit of a problem.

* [[Oblivious Adoption]]: Inverted with Miranda. Everyone who sees her and the Doctor think they look [[Strong Family Resemblance|very, very similar]], and they're the only two of their species around, but she's just his adopted daughter and as they see it that's all there is to it. She's implied to be his [[Kid From the Future]].

* [[The Omniscient Council of Vagueness]]: In ''Sometime Never...'', and a paragon of vagueness and sitting-aroundness. They also [[Not-So-Omniscient Council of Bickering|bicker a bit]].

* [[Pop-Cultured Badass]]: Almost everyone. Fitz has been known to reference [[H.P. Lovecraft]], [[James Bond]], ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'', and ''[[Star Trek]]'', and he's very into music, particularly from [[The Fifties]] and [[The Sixties]]. He also has a [[Cut Song]] (yes, you didn't think that happened in books) that just listed a bunch of [[It Was His Sled]] moments, designed to [[Take That, Audience!|irritate people who skipped to the end of the last book]]. The Doctor apparently likes ''[[X-Men]]'' and ''[[Transformers]]'', not to mention a scene where he [[Waxing Lyrical|starts quoting "All Along the Watchtower"]]. Anji makes some odd reference in almost every book, and seems to have given up on caring whether some [[Fish Out of Temporal Water]] gets it. And even Sabbath makes a [[Not So Above It All|rather hilarious]] reference to ''[[The Wizard of Oz (film)|The Wizard of Oz]]'' in ''The Infinity Race''.

* [[Politically-Incorrect Villain]]: At least two villains have made disparaging remarks about the Doctor's apparent sexuality (he's [[The Dandy|rather dandyish]], and whether this has anything to do with [[Bi the Way|his sexuality]] is his own affair). He always handles it with complete savoir-faire: in one book, a villain shouts "Queer!" at him and then beats him up for good measure, and he shags the guy's wife, which was almost certainly not intended as a [[Take That]] but would have been a pretty awesome one if it was. He endeavored to convince a [[Mook]] who'd called him a "poof" [[Clipboard of Authority|that he was a cop and would write him up for discrimination]], and [[Cutting the Knot|when that didn't work]] he poked him in the ear with his pencil and shoved him off a boat. So, homophobes take warning: the Doctor bashes back.

* [[Pragmatic Adaptation]]: In the audio play ''The Company of Friends (Fitz's Story)'', the only story to date from another medium to take place within EDA continuity, Anji spends the whole adventure sleeping off a strong drink in the TARDIS so the story can focus on the Doctor/Fitz team.

* [[Pungeon Master]]: Fitz, the Doctor, and everyone who's introduced to Fitz.

* [[The Slow Path]]: Both Father Kreiner and the Earth Arc. ''The Sleep of Reason'' contains a rather sensible and convenient solution to this.

* [[Something Only They Would Say]]: In book two of ''Interference''. Kode asks, ‘[[Surrounded by Idiots|Why are you people all so]] ''[[Surrounded by Idiots|stupid]]''?’, and the Doctor realizes who Kode actually is because it's very similar to the first thing he ever heard {{spoiler|Fitz}} say.

* [[Starving Artist]]: Averted in ''The Year of Intelligent Tigers''; Hitchemus has a system in place whereby all musicians get enough money to get by. It's not very much, but starving isn't an issue.

* [[Story Arc]]: Apart from the series-long character arcs, the series can be divided up as:

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Science Fiction Literature]]