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Doctor Who mythology: Does a single line from this regeneration story make Big Finish canon?

By James Aggas

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Big Finish have given us many great Doctor Who adventures over the years. But are they canon to the TV series?

(Photo credit: Doctor Who/Big Finish Productions.

Image obtained from: Big Finish Productions.)

Big Finish: is it canon to Doctor Who, or at least, to the TV series? A single line in a minisode may have already given us an answer…

Canonicity can be very debatable in any fandom. This is especially true in Doctor Who. Now, I think that we can accept that most of the TV series is canon, at least. With the exception of the occasional comedy special, such as The Curse of Fatal Death, most of it on-screen can be thought of as canon.

But what of the expanded media? The books or the comics, for example? How well do they fit into canon? That’s where it definitely gets debatable. Especially when you consider that episodes of the TV series have directly contradicted stories from expanded media.

But perhaps the most fascinating area of expanded media has to be Big Finish and their countless audios. In many ways, they come across as the closest form of media to the TV series. Many of the original actors have performed their old characters from television on audio, for example.

They’re also very close in structure to their original eras – for example, audios based on Classic Who are typically told over four half-hour episodes. New Who based audios, on the other hand, are told in something closer to one hour episodes.

Still, that doesn’t prove anything. After all, while the audios have been very respectful of the TV series, there’s nothing in the TV show that actually acknowledges those stories.

Is there?

The Night of the Doctor

The Eighth Doctor’s final chronological story, The Night of the Doctor, was a major minisode for several reasons. We’ve covered before why it’s so important, particularly for giving Paul McGann’s Doctor a long overdue regeneration story. But there’s one moment that’s incredibly crucial for fans of Big Finish.

During the Eighth Doctor’s final moments, right before he’s about to drink from a cup that will help him regenerate into John Hurt’s War Doctor, he salutes some very old friends.

"Charley, C’Rizz, Lucie, Tamzin, Molly… Friends, companions I’ve known, I salute you!"

Every single one of those companions featured in Eight’s audio adventures. It was a very direct acknowledgement of Big Finish, perhaps the most direct in the entire history of Doctor Who. It’s not all of his companions, mostly because Big Finish have created several companions for Eight since then. But it is, at the very least, a very strong acknowledgement from Steven Moffat.

So did this single line confirm Big Finish’s audios to be canon? Perhaps, but then again, perhaps not. One common theory people have made against the idea is that it didn’t confirm Big Finish to be canon at all. Just that the Eighth Doctor traveled with a few friends who shared the same names as his audio companions.

He had a short run on television, but the Eighth Doctor’s audio adventures have given him the rich era he truly deserved.

(Photo credit: Doctor Who/Big Finish Productions.

Image obtained from: Big Finish Productions.)

Acknowledging Big Finish

If you think that this sounds like a weak excuse…well, honestly, you’d be right. It really is.

Sure, that argument could be made, but at the same time, you could also argue that Sarah Jane appearing in the New Series doesn’t make her adventures canon. After all, Eccleston’s series was named “Series One”, not “Season Twenty-Seven”. So it could be argued that the Classic Series isn’t canon to New Who, they just happen to share companions, monsters, history etc.

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Maybe not all of Big Finish is canon. But the single line from The Night of the Doctor certainly implies that the Eighth Doctor’s audio adventures are. And that’s something that I have absolutely no problem with.

It’s not just because I’ve been following the Eighth Doctor’s audio adventures for a long time. It’s also because, with so little on television, McGann’s Doctor deserves his own era, one that deserves to be acknowledged on television. So, after giving us so many years of excellent audio adventures, including Dark Eyes, Doom Coalition, and more recently The Time War, it’s nice to see that era get some recognition on screen.

As such, it’s very clear that Moffat’s intention was to make Eight’s audio stories canon, as well as paying respect to Big Finish. I think that’s as good a reason as any to acknowledge them as canonical adventures to the TV series.

Next. UNIT’s suspension – a move too far?. dark

What do you think? Should the Eighth Doctor’s many audios be acknowledged as canon? Or do you prefer to think of just the TV series as canon to Doctor Who? Let us know in the comments below.

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