Doctor Who: The Mary Shelley problem (and how to explain it)

The Thirteenth Doctor meeting Mary Shelley created a bit of a continuity problem in Doctor Who. We look at several ways to resolve that problem.

In Sunday’s episode of Doctor Who, The Haunting of Villa Diodati, the Doctor met legendary author Mary Shelley, apparently for the first time. Or did she? As regular Big Finish listeners know, the Doctor had not only met Mary Shelley in their eighth incarnation, during the anthology audio The Company of Friends. But she was even a companion to him!

Now, the simplest explanation of course is that in terms of canon, the TV series takes priority. While we can enjoy stories with older Doctors in other media, for the TV series, the writers shouldn’t let anything hold them back other than the continuity of the TV show itself. Everything else should be treated as secondary, at best.

But not only is that too easy. It also ignores the many acknowledgements that the TV series has thrown at Big Finish over the years. Even when Steven Moffat was telling his own origin of the Cybermen in Series 10 finale World Enough and Time/The Doctor Falls, he made sure to include the fact that this was just one origin of several.

Far more than that: the Eighth Doctor named several of his companions directly in his regeneration story, The Night of the Doctor. So the TV series does feature strong ties to Big Finish. (Although admittedly, that was definitely clearer in Moffat’s era than in Chris Chibnall’s.)

The Time War provides a neat explanation for tackling continuity errors – even how the Eighth Doctor met Mary Shelley!

(Photo credit: Doctor Who/Big Finish Productions.

Image obtained from: Big Finish Productions.)

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Time can be re-written

So how do you reconcile Mary going from a companion to the Doctor to never having met them at all? Especially when you consider the fact that her adventure in The Company of Friends and The Haunting of Villa Diodati take place more or less during the same days?

A particularly simple explanation is that history has changed as a result of the Time War. This isn’t the first time that this has happened to the Doctor – in The Eighth Doctor: The Time War 1, the story begins with the Eighth Doctor on another regular adventure with his companion Sheena to finding himself on his own in the middle of the Time War. There’s a rather strong implication that he wasn’t even aware of the war at the start of the story, but time had changed so much – even his own personal history – that he’s suddenly found himself running from the war for a long time.

So time being re-written so that Mary was never the Doctor’s companion is certainly one possibility. In fact, the Time War isn’t the only way that could happen. One theory that Radio Times has presented is that history was re-written the moment the Lone Cyberman arrived. The Doctor made a big speech about how easily history can be changed, even stating that the night wasn’t supposed to happen the way it did in the episode. So history had changed in a big way, even if she did remember traveling with Mary in another lifetime.

Like I said, these are only theories to explain continuity that’s a little messy. And, at the end of the day, the show should prioritize itself over other media. So long as it handles its own continuity well, that’s all that matters.

So…who else wants to talk about the three times Atlantis was destroyed?

Do you think the Eighth Doctor’s adventures with Mary Shelley should be acknowledged? Or do you think the TV series should focus on its own continuity? Let us know in the comments below.