WARNING! Spoilers for many Big Finish audio dramas below!

The Eighth Doctor, a romantic, Byronic gentleman of time and space, began life in a morgue, an appropriate starting point for a man who would go on to have a life full of paradoxes and tragedies. This was the 1996 Doctor Who TV Movie, and Paul McGann’s Doctor, soon after coming to life, nicked a fancy dress costume, snogged a cardiologist, claimed to be half-human (but it’s best not to worry about that), and sent the Master flying into the Eye of Harmony. 

You’d be forgiven for forgetting what happened to him after that (indeed, he himself forgets parts of his life surprisingly often). After the release of the TV Movie, the Doctor’s adventures continued across comic books – in both Doctor Who Magazine and the Radio Times, and later in a series published by Titan Comics – and novels. Each new medium established their own new timeline for the Eighth Doctor. 

And in 2001, the Eighth Doctor made his audio debut at Big Finish Productions, with Paul McGann returning to the role in several full-cast adventures as part of the Doctor Who Monthly Range, alongside India Fisher as new companion Charley Pollard, who he definitely hadn’t met before. 

Aboard the airship R101 in 1930, the Doctor saved Charley from her pre-destined death, causing a rift into the universe of anti-time (we don’t have space to explain what that is, but it’s not good). The time travellers eventually managed to tidy up this paradoxical puzzle, only for the Doctor to become possessed by the anti-time energies known as Zagreus. Around this time, he also discovered alternative versions of himself having different adventures in different timelines, which would be the Eighth Doctors of the novels and comics (though later stories would acknowledge that the Doctor remembered his companions from these different continuities... again, it’s best not to worry about it). 

After this, the Doctor and Charley were temporarily exiled to the Divergent Universe, where they met C’rizz (Conrad Westmaas). This Eutermesan former priest joined them on board the TARDIS when they returned to their main universe. But C’rizz was killed in a terrible tragedy, which affected Charley to the point that she decided to leave, only to become stranded in the far future and end up travelling with the Sixth Doctor. 

In a later series of Monthly Range stories, the Doctor met Mary Shelley (Julie Cox), and had an adventure with her at Villa Diodati, which inspired her to write Frankenstein, while deftly avoiding any other incarnations of himself who were also having an adventure with Mary Shelley and inspiring Frankenstein at the same time. He then invited her on board the TARDIS for a series of adventures, including an encounter with the Cybermen, who Mary definitely hadn’t met before and who may also have inspired Frankenstein. (Oh, and these adventures with Mary actually took place before his travels with Charley, and in between his adventures with Samson (Lee Ingleby) and Gemma (Lizzie Hopley), a brother and sister companion pairing who the Doctor had forgotten about, because of Davros (Terry Molloy). Gemma later died in a terrible tragedy.) 

It was also around this time, pre-travelling with Charley, that the Doctor, along with Romana (Lalla Ward) and K9 (John Leeson), attempted to visit his old friend Professor Chronotis (James Fox), leading to an adventure that took them to the Time Lord prison planet Shada... once again deftly avoiding any other incarnations of himself having the same adventure. 

Going back into the Eighth Doctor’s future, in 2007, he diverged from the Monthly Range and got his own audio series, the Eighth Doctor Adventures. Debuting on BBC Radio 7, this paired the Doctor with plucky northern lass Lucie Miller (Sheridan Smith). Over four series of time-travelling adventures, the Doctor and Lucie fought all sorts of horrifying villains, including Zygons, Krynoids, Wirrn, and Karen. The series culminated with the Doctor reuniting with his granddaughter Susan (Carole Ann Ford) and meeting his new great-grandson Alex (Sonny McGann), followed by a terrible tragedy, as both Lucie and Alex died in a devastating battle against the Daleks. 

After this, the Eighth Doctor’s life took a darker turn, increasingly shadowed by grim events on the horizon, as tensions between the Time Lords and Daleks escalated. As the Doctor finally ditched his fancy dress costume in favour of a blue leather jacket, the Eighth Doctor Adventures took a new format, telling epic story arcs – Dark Eyes, Doom Coalition, Ravenous, and Stranded each consist of 16 episodes across four box sets. He was joined in Dark Eyes by World War One-era nurse Molly O’Sullivan (Ruth Bradley), who then died in a terrible tragedy involving the Daleks. Along with med-tech Liv Chenka (Nicola Walker) and 1960s linguist Helen Sinclair (Hattie Morahan), the Doctor then dealt with a Gallifreyan conspiracy, vicious creatures who feed on Time Lords, and – worst of all – having to live in London. 

After his travels with Liv and Helen had ended (we don’t yet know how but let’s hope it’s not a terrible tragedy), the Doctor spent the later years of his life running away from the escalating Time War, but increasingly getting dragged into the fight, as explored in the series The Eighth Doctor: Time War. Here, the Doctor was initially joined by the war orphan Bliss (Rakhee Thakrar), until a terrible tragedy erased her from time and the Doctor’s memory. He then started travelling with starship pilot Cass Fermazzi (Emma Campbell-Jones) and his great-grandson Alex (Sonny McGann)... who did not die (well, this version of him didn’t). 

The Eighth Doctor’s life came to an end in 2013 TV minisode The Night of the Doctor. On board a crashing starship, he met pilot Cass Fermazzi, who he’d definitely never met before. After failing to save her life, and becoming gravely injured himself, he decided he’d faced one terrible tragedy too many. It was finally time to stop running, and to fight, and with the help of the Sisterhood of Karn, he regenerated into the War Doctor. 

Now, as we mark 25 years since the Eighth Doctor first appeared on a Big Finish audio drama, three separate eras of this Doctor’s life are being developed in our current releases. The recent Eighth Doctor Adventures box sets are alternately set near the start of his life, as he travels with Charley and Lady Audacity Montague (Jaye Griffiths), and later on as, post-Stranded, he continues to journey with long-standing companions Liv and Helen. There’s also the Time War Uncharted range, as his adventures with Alex and Cass take them to unexplored territory. 

But that is not the end of the story. Far from it. There are plans afoot for something new, coming soon...

Understood? If you’re still struggling to place when in the Eighth Doctor’s life a particular story is set, just look at the cover artwork; the shorter his hair is, the older he is. It grows backwards – just one of the many paradoxes of this Doctor’s long life.