The Crimes of Thomas Brewster (audio story)

The Crimes of Thomas Brewster is a 2011 Big Finish Productions audio play and is the first in the 2011 Sixth Doctor audio trilogy.

It is notable for featuring the third appearance of DI Patricia Menzies, for turning the Fifth Doctor's former companion Thomas Brewster into a companion of the Sixth Doctor and for retconning Evelyn Smythe's personal timeline to show that there was a period of time where she shared the TARDIS with another companion.

Publisher's summary
''Sent down south to assist the Metropolitan Police in their efforts to investigate the gangland kingpin known only as 'the Doctor', Detective-Inspector Patricia Menzies finds herself up to her neck in laser-armed robot mosquitoes, gun-running criminal overlords, vanishing Tube trains... and not one, but two Doctors.''

Meanwhile the real Doctor, and his academic assistant Professor Evelyn Smythe, have become ensnared in the machinations of an old acquaintance – time-travelling Victorian guttersnipe Thomas Brewster. But what's Brewster's connection to the rapacious robot Terravores? And can anyone contain the gathering swarm?

Cast

 * The Doctor - Colin Baker
 * Evelyn Smythe - Maggie Stables
 * Thomas Brewster - John Pickard
 * DI Patricia Menzies - Anna Hope
 * Raymond Gallagher - David Troughton
 * Jared - Ashley Kumar
 * Phillipa Jackson - Lisa Greenwood
 * Sergeant Bradshaw - Duncan Wisbey
 * Terravore Queen - Helen Goldwyn
 * Ticket collector - Nicholas Briggs (uncredited)

Continuity

 * The Doctor and Evelyn were previously imprisoned the Tower of London in 1554 (BFA: The Marian Conspiray) as well as visiting it in an alternative 2003 (BFA: Jubilee).
 * The Doctor tells Evelyn that he once passed under the original London Bridge in a boat with King James II (CC: The Glorious Revolution) and that mudlarks used to scavenge for goods in the River Thames (BFA: The Haunting of Thomas Brewster).
 * This is the Doctor's first meeting with DI Menzies in his personal timeline. However, it is their third meeting in her personal timeline, following BFA: The Condemned and BFA: The Raincloud Man. Menzies elects not to inform the Doctor but he correctly guesses that this is the case. He promises to return the favour when they meet for the first time from her perspective.
 * DI Menzies refers to the Ackley House incident in Manchester in February 2008. (BFA: The Condemned)
 * Brewster once again poses as the Doctor, as he did while the TARDIS was in his possession. (BFA: Time Reef)
 * Menzies comments that the Doctor looks about five years younger than he did during her two previous encounters with him. (BFA: The Condemned, BFA: The Raincloud Man)
 * Menzies tells Evelyn of the time that Charley Pollard claimed to have met the Doctor out of order. (BFA: The Raincloud Man)
 * In BFA: The Raincloud Man, the Doctor politely refuses Menzies' request to travel with him, citing the growing mystery surrounding Charley's true identity, though he states that one day he may return and take her up on the offer. As his encounter with her in that instance takes place earlier in his personal timeline than that the events of this story, he would have been aware that Menzies did not or, from his perspective, would not become his companion in 2008. Consequently, granting her request on that occasion would have altered history and damaged the Web of Time. It is possible that the Doctor's grounds for refusal, namely the mystery surrounding Charley, may have simply been an excuse to avoid revealing to Menzies that he had already met her future self.
 * The Doctor recalls visiting the then newly opened Great Portland Street Tube in the company of Brewster and Nyssa in 1867 during his fifth incarnation. (BFA: The Haunting of Thomas Brewster)
 * Menzies compares Brewster to the Artful Dodger from Charles Dickens' novel Oliver Twist. Later in his sixth incarnation, the Doctor would meet a 23-year-old version of the Artful Dodger in the Land of Fiction (BFA: Legend of the Cybermen) whereas the Ninth Doctor and his companion Rose Tyler would later meet Dickens himself in Cardiff on 24 December 1869 (DW: The Unquiet Dead).
 * Captain Ruth Matheson would later tell Warrant Officer Charlie Sato about the 2010 Terravore incursion in the London Underground. (CC: Tales from the Vault)

For the Doctor and Evelyn

 * This story takes place after BFA: Assassin in the Limelight
 * This story takes place before BFA: The Feast of Axos

For Brewster

 * This story takes place two years after BFA: A Perfect World
 * This story takes place before BFA: The Feast of Axos

For Menzies

 * This story takes place after BFA: The Raincloud Man

For Flip and Jared

 * This story takes place one year before BFA: The Curse of Davros