Howling:Do you count the 8th Doctor audio series as Canon?

Do you count the 8th Doctor audio adventures by Big Finish as canon, and why? Sabovia ☎  17:22, August 11, 2013 (UTC)

Quite simply, there is no canon. Gallifrey102 ☎  20:02, August 11, 2013 (UTC)
 * It sounds like Sabovia is asking about personal canon, that is, do you count it? I have quite a few stories that I don't count as canon. As for the Eighth Doctor audios, I haven't heard any yet. So far I'm working on prose, and there is a lot to go before I get to audio stories. Shambala108 ☎  02:06, August 12, 2013 (UTC)

Since Audio+Prose+Comics makes up about 99.9% of all narrative material relating to the Eighth Doctor, not counting a third of it as canon would drastically reduce the number of known events in his life, and I don't see any reason why I'd want to do that. Admittedly, I've only ever read the majority of 8's wiki page's bio section to know that a portion of his non-telemovie adventures tell at least two long stories that don't seem to have a clear first-second order so I'm almost not going to try ruling anything out at this point. I say he lived through all of it, but after it all, he himself can't quite keep straight in his mind exactly what happened, potentially a side effect of losing his memory several times, including once for about a century. 11 said in Good Night that your memories are right, it's the past that's wrong, so what happened to 8 must've been crazy timey-wimey to be so confusing even to him. And then after all that, he took part in the Last Great Time War, which may or may not have been the same as the Second War of Heaven in which Gallifrey was also destroyed but that also may or may not have even happened in the first place after the fact, only making things even more confusing. —BioniclesaurKing4t2 - "Hello, I'm the Doctor. Basically, . . . run." 03:16, August 13, 2013 (UTC)

Well, looks like The Night of the Doctor has cleared this up. 87.102.91.126talk to me 21:37, November 28, 2013 (UTC)
 * Well, it placed the audios in continuity, yeah. That's not the same as canon... which doesn't exist for this franchise.

Also, while he did recall all five of his regular companions from the aforementioned Big Finish stories(Charley Pollard, C’rizz, Lucie Miller, Tamsin Drew and Molly O’Sullivan) establishing them as canon, the various companions featured in the novels and comic strips starring the 8th Doctor, don’t get a look-in, leaving their canonicity uncertain. (Unsigned)

I know this seems dreadfully pedantic but what The Night of the Doctor did was to affirm the named companions as part of the TV show's continuity & that (aside from giving the Eighth Doctor a long-overdue 2nd TV appearance) is all it did. The status of any specific story is still as "iffy" as ever. There are many stories involving televised companions that may/may not be part of the TV show's continuity. The "nod" to the audios & the reappearance of the Eighth Doctor are very welcome (to me, at least) but what was done was fairly limited -- if only because there was no screen time to do more. To end on a more hopeful note: That should perhaps read "there hasn't yet been screen time to do more". McGann still looks in pretty good shape, so doing more remains possible. --89.243.204.145talk to me 20:53, January 24, 2014 (UTC)

I guess what you're saying is technically correct but the logic you're using does raise some questions. For instance, since the Doctor mentioned Charley, can we therefore assume that he's referring to Charlotte Elspeth Pollard whom he met on the R101? Or can we only say for sure that he once had a companion named Charley whom we know nothing about? It gets murkier when you consider that a number of Eighth Doctor audios confirm that he travelled with Mary Shelley and the story in which he meets her references companions from the novels and comics. Other audios refer to Big Finish stories involving previous Doctors. Are they in continuity as well? It all depends how far down the rabbit hole you want to go. Slughorn42 ☎  21:48, January 24, 2014 (UTC)


 * There are a few Big Finish stories that I do not count in my personal canon. These include the stories that suggest Ainley did not come just before Eric Roberts, and those that offend me (that one where they bring Adric back so they can joke about how bad he was). 8's adventures don't seem to do this. :) OS25 (talk to me, baby.) 00:33, January 25, 2014 (UTC)