Series One begins with the Doctor’s first encounter with Robin Moon (Suranne Jones), at Christmas. Robin is still reeling from the events of two years earlier, when she lost her husband, Harry, and her son, Tommy, in a brutal car accident just before Christmas. The Doctor teaches her to love Christmas again, and more importantly to embrace her life, after taking her back in time to see her son one last time. He invites her aboard the TARDIS.
They travel together for a while, but their adventures are soon cut short, when the Doctor’s carelessness inadvertently causes the death of one of Robin’s best friends at the hands of the Cybermen. Robin is furious at the Doctor, and storms out of the TARDIS, turning back to alcohol. But they are soon reunited, when an alien invasion brings them back together. Robin decides not to continue travelling with him, but does forgive him for what happened, and they part on peaceful terms.
During the same invasion, the Doctor meets Autumn Rivers (Natalie Dormer). Autumn has disguised herself as a generic alien prisoner, in what appears to be a prison ship, floating through space – but this is not really the case. After many adventures together, Autumn reveals herself to the Doctor: she is his judge, jury, and executioner.
Series One introduces us to the Planet Makers. The Planet Makers are a corporation run by a man called Staligon on the great ship Epicurus, who create planets for commercial purposes, in the Eighth Great and Bountiful Human Empire. During this period of human history, the Krynoid have evolved to become known as the Plant – a carnivorous plant species capable of infecting and wiping out whole planets, as well as spreading from planet to planet. In a desperate bid to end their conquest, the Planet Makers sanction the destruction of a number of their own planets – a move which is approved, reluctantly by the Doctor. Autumn Rivers is the lone survivor of one of the planets destroyed by the Planet Makers. When the Plant infested her world, she was forced to kill her mother to stop her becoming a Krynoid, and drugged her father to forget her. As a forensic psychologist, she was hired to go back in time and track down the members of the Planet Makers’ committee and neutralise them, to stop them from passing the vote to wipe out their planet. The time machine misfired, sending Autumn forwards rather than backwards, and her planet was destroyed.
Autumn tracked down the Doctor and became his companion, blackmailing him anonymously to “Repent”.
The Doctor does not, and refuses to discuss anything with Autumn, so she makes a deal with the Daleks. She will be allowed to keep the TARDIS, if she in return hands over the Doctor. She does this, and the Doctor spends four years in a Dalek Prison Camp, from which he incurs severe post-traumatic stress disorder.
After the Doctor manages to escape, in fury at the Daleks he bombs their parliament, destroying any semblance of order in a hope to wipe them out once and for all. However, he still believes that he was wrong to vote for the Planet Makers’ genocide, and seeks to make amends with Autumn.
The TARDIS turns against Autumn, and sends her to the end of its timeline. She steps out onto Trenzalore. The Doctor, with only a vortex manipulator, asks Robin to join him in finding and saving Autumn. She accepts.
Notable stories: Miracle on Oxford Street - the Doctor meets Robin for the first time Peacepoint - Robin leaves the TARDIS after the death of her friend Earthstop/Sunset Forever – the Doctor meets Autumn for the first time, and makes peace with Robin Bigger on the Inside – Autumn’s backstory is revealed, and she takes control of the TARDIS Extermination of the Daleks – the Doctor’s time in the Dalek prison camp and his bombing of the parliament
The 2015 Specials
The 2015 Specials are a mostly isolated set of stories.
Shattered Time is an anniversary special for a variety of different fan-fiction series’, and sees the Doctor reunited with Autumn. With Robin, he arrives on Trenzalore, and stops Autumn killing his future self by showing her, through a psychic interface, the truth about her homeworld. The Doctor was not directly responsible for the genocide, but instead voted on behalf of his companion, Valerie (an android he created after he stopped risking humans by his side). After the vote, the Doctor stopped creating androids, realising he had made a terrible mistake.
Autumn appears to accept this, and agrees to travel with the Doctor again. Robin is returned home. But Autumn is not as sincere as she seems – she returns to her benefactor, Lord Dalta, and explains that she plans to crush the Doctor once and for all…
Run is an isolated story, a monologue by the Doctor about his recovery from PTSD, which addresses the events of the Series One finale from his perspective. Rebirth is a one-off special featuring the Brigadier and the Master.
The Doctor Dyad is a one-off special set later in the Eighth Doctor’s timeline.
The Infestation sees Robin return to the Doctor for a Christmas in the TARDIS. At the end, the Doctor discovers Autumn’s secret, and vows to take revenge on her: this time, he’s had enough. She leaves using the vortex manipulator, and begins her plan.
On Air is the final special, which sees Autumn’s plan come to fruition. It transpires that, in fact, she was on the Doctor’s side ever since Trenzalore, and was instead plotting against Lord Dalta – who, she discovered from the psychic episode, was there when her planet was destroyed, and only helped her to kill the other members of the committee to cover up his own involvement. She exposes Lord Dalta live on stage, and explains to the Doctor why it was that she had to keep this a secret. They embrace, and agree to start anew.
Notable stories: Shattered Time – the anniversary special Rebirth – the Master’s first (and corniest) appearance in The Eighth Doctor Adventures On Air – the Doctor and Autumn are reunited at last
Series Two
Series Two sees the introduction of new companion Tommy (who happens to share a first name with Robin’s late son) Lindsay (Andrew Garfield). Tommy is a Classics student from King’s College London. He is kind, compassionate, and unashamedly political, always one to stick up for the underdog. After a very amicable break-up with his girlfriend, Natalie, he joins the Doctor and Autumn on-board the TARDIS, after it deliberately, for reasons unknown, draws him in. Things have changed since the first series. Robin is now engaged to Chris McKnight (Douglas Henshall), head-teacher of the school she works at (as a pastoral support worker) – Coal Hill!
In the first episode of the series, the Master returns, carrying a code which, according to the people who are after it, is the most advanced piece of programming in the universe. Autumn, in an act of revenge, forces him to swallow the code on its memory stick and leaves him stranded on an alien planet. Autumn has made a copy of the code, however, and the Doctor spends the series attempting to decipher it.
Robin decides to begin travelling with the Doctor again (and unbeknownst to him, she is pregnant), joined by her husband, alongside Tommy and Autumn. These adventures are cut short when, whilst caught up in a dangerous incident in a future civilisation, Robin is severely beaten and loses her unborn child. Heartbroken, she decides to stop travelling with the Doctor, but does not hold it against him. She takes him on one last trip, this time with her, to Barcelona, where they say goodbye. They still plan to see each other, but never to travel together again.
The Doctor tragically and unexpectedly loses Autumn when she is tricked into consuming a poisonous alien fuel by a mad old woman. This was because she thought she was being offered immortality. Still terrified of death, Autumn flees, and discovers the Destiny Institute, a place in the Eighth Great and Bountiful Human Empire dedicated to researching immortality. She manages to preserve her body in ice, whilst continuing to dream of a life she never lived.
By this time, the Master has had his body ripped open so that other races can retrieve the code. In an act of retribution against Autumn, he finds her body and kills her, ruining any chance she ever had of living forever. He falls down dead next to her, and is killed once and for all, entering the Matrix with other dead Time Lords.
It is now, searching desperately for meaning in a cruel and meaningless universe, that the Doctor finally meets God (Richard Attenborough), and discovers that the code was a machine code advanced enough to create human life.
God was a creation of the Eighth Great and Bountiful Human Empire. At risk of becoming extinct during the worst terror crisis in history, government officials decided to use their advanced programming technology to create a real-life God to convert all people to the same religion and unify beliefs. But this went more than a little wrong when their God became omnipotent, and ended up being responsible for the universe’s creation anyway, after hijacking the Prime Mover, a kind of spiritual matter at the heart of the universe.
God is, sadly, not the loving creator the Doctor hoped for. He agrees, benevolently, to save Autumn by allowing her to reincarnate into another being. But after the Doctor critiques his abuse of power, God becomes stubborn and obstinate. He refuses to tell the Doctor who Autumn was reincarnated into, and decides to “embrace free will”, to the extent of doing nothing with his powers at all, which includes an adamant refusal to share any knowledge with the Doctor. Angry, aware that he is unable to fight an omnipotent being, and bitter at human civilisation for leading to his creation, the Doctor silently watches Robin’s wedding, drops Tommy off at home, and retreats to the depths of his TARDIS.
Notable stories: The Magic Box – Tommy Lindsay is introduced and the Master returns A Shop For Limbs/Material Values – the new TARDIS team is formed The Cloud Beneath The Sea – Robin’s miscarriage Wish You Were Here – Robin decides to stop travelling with the Doctor A Castle Deep in the Woods/In Slumber Repose – Autumn becomes terminally ill and leaves the TARDIS Under Ice – the Master kills Autumn Waking the Witch – short one-hander – the Master dies The Morning Fog – Autumn is reincarnated and the Doctor meets God The Dying Detective – spin-off series; prequel to Under Ice and prelude to Series Three
Series Three
Series Three is the only series of The Eighth Doctor Adventures to be fully serialised, and is five episodes long.
This series sees the introduction and exit of new companion Sasha Ramachandran (Priyanka Chopra), the brief introduction of new companion Jasmine Sparks (Emily Blunt), and the temporary return of both Robin McKnight and Tommy Lindsay.
It has been three years since the Doctor’s friends last saw him, and they still puzzle over the strange events which led to their departures. Tommy is now completing a politics degree, having had a change of heart about his career plans, whilst Robin is struggling with depression after coming to terms with her infertility (after the damage caused to her during the miscarriage) and being denied the right to adopt after her psychological history and alcoholic tendencies are reviewed.
Robin is given a mysterious package through her door, called a GENIE box. She leaves it in the dining room. Whilst chatting with her husband, she says she wishes she could have a baby (without being aware of the box’s presence). The next morning she discovers, impossibly, that she is pregnant.
The Doctor returns to Earth after encountering Sasha Ramachandran in a shared dream, where they were tested on in the Destiny Institute. This is all part of warped and convoluted plan by the Master (now Daisy Ridley), who is the new chairwoman of the institute.
The Master is dead, but is able to move through the world of dreams from within the Matrix. She has taken on a female form, as, in a virtual landscape, she has free choice over her appearance. Throughout the series, she taunts the Doctor about the truth of Autumn Rivers, lying to him on numerous occasions and claiming that Autumn’s reincarnated form died in the womb.
The Doctor also lies, pretending not to care about Robin so as to save her from the Master’s wicked plans. Robin only realises this when Sasha tells her, but by then it is too late: the Doctor has sacrificed himself by alerting the Time Lords of the Master’s activities, and is dead. A shrine is made for him on Primrose Hill, Robin’s home and the place they first met.
Thankfully, Sasha is able to save him, by returning to him in a dream state and in the process confronting her own childhood insecurities. The Doctor thanks her, and moves on. He is now no longer angry at the people of Earth, and does not hold them responsible for the creation of God in the future – this is, to his mind, hypocritical, as it is the same thing he has accused God of (holding the son responsible for the sins of the father). He returns to Robin, who has now given birth to her son, Gabriel. She wishes that he will be happy and loved for the rest of his life.
The Doctor becomes aware of the presence of the GENIE box in the room, and examines it curiously. He is unsure of whether or not it works, but tells Robin to make a third wish. He says it’s okay – she can wish for her son, Tommy Moon, to return from the dead, as she has more than earned that right. Instead, as an act of thanks, she wishes that the Doctor be reunited with Autumn Rivers.
The Doctor is called, in that exact moment, by Jasmine Sparks, who claims to be Autumn’s reincarnation. The Doctor promises to find her.
[All five episodes are part of the same wider story, and therefore must be read together. No one is more notable than the rest, though The Final Wish of Robin Moon, the finale, can be read in isolation if required.]
Series Four
[It is recommended that you read this series in full if at all possible.] At the start of the series, the Doctor is missing. Again, things have changed back on Earth. After the large-scale devastation across London during the Master’s plan, the city is in the process of being rebuilt, and is in a time of economic hardship. Robin is still working at Coal Hill, but now as a stand-in English teacher, in the absence of a full staffing team. After the deaths of the majority of the members of parliament, Tommy has become a left-wing political activist, whose campaign is rallying some support. The Doctor has, it turns out, returned to Gallifrey, leaving Earth in the lurch. On Gallifrey, events are not going well. The Doctor’s destruction of the Dalek parliament ended up worsening the Dalek threat, and now it seems a war is inevitable. The President asks the Doctor for help when a highly-advanced artificial intelligence, Eris, infiltrates the Matrix. The Doctor enters the Matrix with Jasmine (who he now appears to be travelling with), and meets the Time Lady prophet Kassandra, his memory being wiped several times along the way to protect the data inside the Matrix. Kassandra anticipates the Time War, and fears that the people of the Matrix will be revived to fight in it. It turns out that the whole thing was a trap – the President was tricked into summoning the Doctor here so that Eris kills him inside the Matrix. The President is assassinated, and the Doctor manages to leave, returning to London. He knows he destroyed Eris, but he cannot remember how. Back on Galllifrey, Rassilon becomes the new president, and the Time War begins. Back on Earth, a future incarnation of the Doctor (Keeley Hawes) stepped in and saved them from the threat at hand by committing genocide against the alien invaders. Her friends are shocked and appalled, but cannot tell the Doctor (Paul McGann) when he returns as he must not know of this future incarnation. There are some concerns about Robin’s health, after the invaders do not attempt to take her after she fails a health test and is declared useless to them, but she pushes these aside, saying they are irrelevant. Jasmine invites Tommy to join them again, and taking to her instantly, agrees. The Doctor, plagued by anxiety about the Time War, God, and his own place in the universe, makes a number of terrible mistakes. He creates a whole universe by accident, and goes a step further, also setting up an organised religion which ends up taking thousands of lives. Tommy berates him for this, but ends up forgiving him. He decides to leave the TARDIS anyway, and pursue his political career. He realises that he has fallen in love with Jasmine, just as he did with Autumn, and they share a kiss. The Doctor reveals to Jasmine the reason the TARDIS was attracted to Tommy in the first place: he has a massive historical influence, and is going to become the Prime Minister of Great Britain, in an age of prosperity and equality. Jasmine continues to travel with the Doctor. Jasmine’s backstory is revealed. She is a teenager from Croydon, raised by her adoptive grandmother, Sheila who became aware that she was a reincarnation of Autumn Rivers in 2010, when recognising a piece of music from her previous life. Jasmine is a much softer character than Autumn – she still has the occasional tendency to lie and manipulate, but only to soothe trauma and help others. She is very wise for her age, the effect of living two lives, but struggles with her personal identity. She believes that she is a vessel for Autumn’s memories but, crucially, that she is not Autumn Rivers – she is her own person, and, she believes, Autumn is dead. Before Jasmine met the Doctor, she was told of the death of her biological father, who worked for a UNIT scientific research project in an observatory in Hawaii. He killed himself and the rest of his crew. Jasmine joined the team, keen to discover why this happened, and spent a number of months with them. Their findings were inconclusive. She learnt of the Doctor’s survival, and had a watch placed on Robin’s house. This was how she was able to call him; she was informed when he returned to Primrose Hill, and called Robin’s home phone while she had the opportunity. The Doctor and Jasmine return to Gallifrey, in a fight to the death against the Master. Jasmine finds herself battered and bruised, and is forced to kill to survive. The Master (who refers to Jasmine as ‘Autumn’) acknowledges that Jasmine won this battle, but that she will see her in Hell, as it is where Autumn was always destined to go. The Doctor drops a furious Jasmine off at home, telling her that he owes it to her – there are, he tells her, “no monsters on Earth”. The Doctor continues his adventures, and following a battle with the Cybermen, he meets God again, who tells him that he is “ready” to see “the truth”, and takes him to Heaven Back on Earth, Jasmine reunites with Tommy, and they begin their romance proper. However, it is brought to a tragic end when Tommy is stabbed and murdered in the street. In their grief, the Doctor arrives back on Earth to see Jasmine, and decides that they must bring Tommy back. He takes her to Heaven, the ‘truth’ that God promised to show the Doctor, a dimension where the dead live forever happy through Nanogenes keeping them at optimum health. However, the Time Lords, in one of the earliest acts of the Time War, allow for other worlds to be plundered for the good of the war, causing the Daleks to lead an assault upon Heaven. God, absorbed in fury, declares his superiority over the universe, condemning a Time Lord soldier to Hell, the one remaining afterlife. Meanwhile, in another world, where we all live different lives, Jasmine Sparks is on holiday with her grandmother. On her way home, they are rolled back onto a later flight. However, in the airport, she meets a man called Tommy Lindsay, and perhaps they will fall in love. It is too late, though, when their plane takes off, and God appears on the plane, shooting Tommy. He reveals that their universe is a mirror universe, just one of an infinite number that he has created to observe all possible outcomes of every situation. Jasmine swears that in her true universe, she will stop God. God responds by crashing the plane… Back in the real universe, the Doctor and Jasmine debate as to whether they should pursue their final battle against God, who has sent a plague to Earth, wiping out a tenth of a population, and the number is increasing, encompassing old friends. God takes the decision to destroy the whole universe - however, the Doctor and Jasmine agree that this is a war they must fight. So they begin their journey to Hell… In Hell, suffering occurs forever, with Nanogenes keeping everyone on the edge of life, condemning all inhabitants to torture for all eternity. There, God leads the Doctor and Jasmine to a room containing a looking-glass, which contains God’s mirror universes. Not only this, but it is revealed Hell contains a core where other universes, containing more superior beings to God, are held, ensuring God’s omnipotence. It is here that God forces Noa, one of his ‘playthings’, to shoot Jasmine, killing her. All hope seems lost for the Doctor, until he stands at the edge of Hell, and suddenly, it begins to snow. Hell has frozen over. In God’s mirror universe, where a version of Jasmine Sparks met Tommy Lindsay at an airport, the crashing plane is saved. In the mirror universe, alternate versions of old friends, led by one of the Doctor’s oldest friends of all, Autumn Rivers, come together to create Eris, the AI who infiltrated the Matrix. Though the Doctor forgot what happened to Eris, it transpires he allowed Eris to infiltrate the Prime Mover, God’s source of energy. Soon, God’s omnipotence begins to fall apart, and eventually, Noa kills God. The final blow is dealt when Jasmine, on the edge of death, crawls to the looking-glass and destroys it, truly ending God’s reign. Jasmine wakes up in her flat, and she sees Autumn Rivers sat opposite her. They join hands, and head for the door, leaving life, and entering the next.
Notable stories: Home Truths/Bad Blood– the start of the Time War, and the introduction of the Hawes Doctor Pillars of Fire– Tommy leaves the TARDIS Hello Earth– Jasmine’s backstory is revealed Darksong/Dancers on a String– the Doctor forces Jasmine to leave the TARDIS The Next Life, Paradise Found, Departures, The Night We Died and The Day We Livedform a quintilogy detailing the Doctor and Jasmine’s battle against God, and so it is recommended the final five stories of the series are read together. The 2016 specials
In the aftermath of the battle, the Doctor is unwillingly taken to a Time Lord safe house in 1714 Barcelona to be protected from Time Lord and Dalek exploitation. He unwillingly stays after realising that he doesn’t have his TARDIS. On his first day, he meets Cioné, an eccentric woman with an obsession with the glowfly species. The two quickly become friends, and fall in love. When the Daleks infiltrate the safe house and kill all the residing Time Lords, the pair quickly escape and find themselves in 2016 Barcelona, where the Doctor reunites with Robin Moon and, to his surprise, his TARDIS! It had been in Robin’s garden for a while, and she knew that he would come looking eventually. Realising that she’s fallen for the Doctor, Cioné confesses that she was a spy of Rassilon, an exchange for the conscription that she never wanted. The Doctor confesses that he always knew about her ploy, and played along with the Time Lords’ games anyway. With the secrets behind them, the Doctor proposes to Cioné, who happily accepts. The pair marry in space with their friends surrounding them, but the happiness doesn’t last. The Doctor and Robin Moon mutually part ways for the final time, and Cioné decides to travel across the universe as her very own doctor and help the wounded left behind in warzones. The Doctor is happy for them both, but coupled with his previous losses, it saddens him as well. He spends one last moment with Robin, reliving their first meeting, and then his adventure begins again. Meanwhile, far in the future, when the Eighth Doctor is long dead, Jasmine Sparks finds herself alone on an empty desert planet, with only a house for shelter, a computer to keep her entertained and a food synthesiser to keep her fed. She spends decades of her life there until she is taken to Gallifrey to meet with the Time Lords. They employ her for a mission: stop the Hawes Doctor from rewriting the dying universe to her own desires. Jasmine initially accepts the mission, but after reuniting with her old friend, staunchly rejects it. She meets with her nan, Sheila, once more before joining the Doctor on her mission. They find the object of their mission - a quantum crystalliser, but it does not accept the Doctor as its holder. They realise the true bearer is Jasmine, who accepts and ascends to a higher plane of existence after one last goodbye. Notable Stories:
Till Death Us Do Part (Parts 1 and 2) - Introduction of Cioné, the Doctor’s wedding, and the final goodbye of Robin Moon.
It is also strongly reccomended that you read An Endless Sky of Honey and Ever After, because they form the final two stories of the Janine Rivers era of The Eighth Doctor Adventures and answer many unanswered questions. However, as they are set far after the Eighth Doctor's life, they have little bearing on following series and so are not essential.