Eighth Doctor Listening Order

The Eighth Doctor’s audio adventures are one of the best places to start with Doctor Who audio dramas. But where exactly should you start?

The Eighth Doctor stories can be divided into 3 “eras”, and the start of each era is a good point to jump in.

As with the full listening order, dramas with a little tardis symbol next to them are my favourites:

Additionally, at the bottom of this page, you’ll find a collection of assorted releases that don’t really fit in to the standard listening order. These aren’t a great place to start, but they’re still worth listening to. Click here to see them.

The first starting point is with the 8th Doctor Monthly Adventures. This is a good place to start because it’s the very beginning of the 8th doctor stories on audio.

But it can also be a difficult place to start, as the style of these adventures is much more like Classic Doctor Who, and the episodes are mixed in with unrelated episodes with other doctors.

Arc 1: Introducing Charley

The first arc of adventures introduces new companion Charlotte Pollard (Charley for short).

The only essential story in this arc is the first one, Storm Warning

Arc 2: Anti-time

The second arc of adventures deals with the problem of Anti-time, and the consequences of the Doctor’s actions in Storm Warning.

Invaders From Mars
Featuring: the 8th Doctor, Charley

Standalone: Yes

Note: This drama includes potentially upsetting use of a homophobic slur

The Chimes of Midnight
Featuring: the 8th Doctor, Charley

Standalone: No
(first listen to: Storm Warning)

Essential
(plotline: Anti-time)

Note: This drama includes graphic and potentially upsetting depictions of death, suicide, and self-harm

Seasons of Fear
Featuring: the 8th Doctor, Charley

Standalone: No
(listen to the Anti-time plotline in order)

Essential
(plotline: Anti-time)

Embrace the Darkness
Featuring: the 8th Doctor, Charley

Standalone: Yes

Essential
(plotline: Anti-time)

Note: This drama includes graphic and potentially upsetting body horror involving eyes

The Time of the Daleks
Featuring: the 8th Doctor, Charley, Daleks

Standalone: No
(listen to the Anti-time plotline in order)

Essential
(plotlines: Anti-time, Dalek Empire)

Neverland
Featuring: the 8th Doctor, Charley, Romana, Time Lords

Standalone: No
(listen to the Anti-time plotline in order)

Essential
(plotline: Anti-time)

Zagreus
Featuring: the 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th Doctors

Standalone: No
(first listen to: Neverland)

Essential
(plotline: Anti-time)

Interlude (optional)

The next release is a short audio drama, set at some point before Neverland:

Arc 3: The Divergent Universe

The Doctor and Charley travel to a Divergent Universe, where they meet C’rizz.

Scherzo
Featuring: the 8th Doctor, Charley

Standalone: No
(first listen to: Zagreus)

Essential
(plotline: The Divergent Universe)

Note: This drama includes graphic and potentially upsetting depictions of body horror

The Creed of the Kromon
Featuring: the 8th Doctor, Charley, C'rizz, Kro'ka

Standalone: No

Essential
(plotline: The Divergent Universe)

Note: This drama includes graphic and potentially upsetting depictions of body horror, sexual assault, sexism, suicide, and torture.

The Natural History of Fear
Featuring: the 8th Doctor, Charley, C'rizz

Standalone: Yes

Note: This drama includes graphic and potentially upsetting depictions of suicide, animal cruelty, and torture

The Twilight Kingdom
Featuring: the 8th Doctor, Charley, C'rizz, Kro'ka

Standalone: No

Essential
(plotline: The Divergent Universe)

Faith Stealer
Featuring: the 8th Doctor, Charley, C'rizz, Kro'ka

Standalone: No

Essential
(plotline: The Divergent Universe)

Note: This drama includes a reprise of a scene from The Creed of the Kromon involving suicide.

The Last
Featuring: the 8th Doctor, Charley, C'rizz, Kro'ka

Standalone: No

Essential
(plotline: The Divergent Universe)

Caerdroia
Featuring: the 8th Doctor, Charley, C'rizz, Kro'ka

Standalone: No

Essential
(plotline: The Divergent Universe)

The Next Life
Featuring: the 8th Doctor, Charley, C'rizz, Kro'ka, Rassilon

Standalone: No

Essential
(plotline: The Divergent Universe)

Note: This drama includes depictions of colonialism, suicide, and some very sexist writing.

Arc 4: Return to the Normal Universe

The Doctor, Charley and C’rizz continue their adventures, now back in the regular universe.

Terror Firma
Featuring: the 8th Doctor, Charley, C'rizz, Daleks, Davros

Standalone: No

Essential
(plotline: The Divergent Universe)

Scaredy Cat
Featuring: the 8th Doctor, Charley, C'rizz

Standalone: Yes

Other Lives
Featuring: the 8th Doctor, Charley, C'rizz

Standalone: Yes

Time Works
Featuring: the 8th Doctor, Charley, C'rizz

Standalone: Yes

Something Inside
Featuring: the 8th Doctor, Charley, C'rizz

Standalone: Yes

Memory Lane
Featuring: the 8th Doctor, Charley, C'rizz

Standalone: Yes

Note: This drama includes some occasional sexist and ableist dialogue, as well as the use of a slur against Romani people.

Arc 5: The End

The finale of the Doctor’s travels with Charley and C’rizz..

Absolution
Featuring: the 8th Doctor, Charley, C'rizz

Standalone: No

Essential
(plotline: The Divergent Universe)

Note: This drama contains body horror and religious references.

The Girl Who Never Was
Featuring: the 8th Doctor, Charley, Cybermen

Standalone: No

Essential
(plotline: Charley)

Note: This drama includes some anti-asian dialogue.

What happened to Charley? (Optional)

If you want to know what happened to Charley after The Girl Who Never Was, then open this spoiler section:

Spoilers for the finale of The Girl Who Never Was

Charley is rescued by the Doctor… but by the 6th Doctor!

She travels with him in these adventures:

The Condemned
Featuring: the 6th Doctor, Charley, DI Menzies

Standalone: No

Essential
(plotline: Charley)

The Doomwood Curse
Featuring: the 6th Doctor, Charley

Brotherhood of the Daleks
Featuring: the 6th Doctor, Charley, Daleks, Thals

The Raincloud Man
Featuring: the 6th Doctor, Charley, DI Menzies

Return of the Krotons
Featuring: the 6th Doctor, Charley, Krotons

Patient Zero
Featuring: the 6th Doctor, Charley, Daleks, Viyrans

Paper Cuts
Featuring: the 6th Doctor, Mila, Draconians

Blue Forgotten Planet
Featuring: the 6th Doctor, Mila, Charley, Viyrans

Episodes with Charley and the 6th Doctor are also featured in two Special Releases:

The Last Adventure

• The End of the Line
• The Red House
• Stage Fright
• The Brink of Death

Featuring: the 6th Doctor, Constance, Charley, Flip, Jago, Litefoot, Mel, the Valeyard

Standalone: No
Watch Trial of a Timelord first

The Legacy of Time

• Lies in Ruins
• The Split Infinitive
• The Sacrifice of Jo Grant
• Relative Time
• The Avenues of Possibility
• Collision Course

Featuring: the 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th Doctors, Benny, River Song, the Counter-Measures group, Ace, UNIT, Kate Stewart, Jo Jones, Osgood, Jenny (the Doctor's Daughter), the Nine, DI Patricia Menzies, Charley, Romana, Leela

Standalone: Yes

After leaving the 6th Doctor, she goes on to have her own series:

Charlotte Pollard Series 1

• The Lamentation Cipher
• The Shadow at the Edge of the World
• The Fall of the House of Pollard
• The Viyran Solution

Featuring: Charley

Charlotte Pollard Series 2

• Embankment Station
• Ruffling
• Seed of Chaos
• The Destructive Quality of Life

Featuring: Charley, Robert, Viyrans

And that’s the end of the 8th Doctor’s adventures with Charley! Now continue on to The Eighth Doctor Adventures Series 1…

In 2007, Big Finish started a brand new series for the 8th Doctor, simply titled “The Eighth Doctor Adventures”. It was created with newcomers in mind - you don’t need to know anything about the previous stories in order to start here.

Series 1

Series 1 introduces new companion Lucie Miller.

Blood of the Daleks
Featuring: the 8th Doctor, Lucie, Daleks

Standalone: Yes

Essential

Horror of Glam Rock
Featuring: the 8th Doctor, Lucie

Standalone: Yes

Essential

Note: This drama includes graphic and potentially upsetting violence.

Immortal Beloved
Featuring: the 8th Doctor, Lucie

Standalone: Yes

Note: This drama includes references to suicide

Phobos
Featuring: the 8th Doctor, Lucie

Standalone: Yes

No More Lies
Featuring: the 8th Doctor, Lucie

Standalone: Yes

Human Resources
Featuring: the 8th Doctor, Lucie, Cybermen

Standalone: No

Essential

Series 2

A second series of adventures with Lucie Miller.

Series 3

The Doctor’s adventures with Lucie Miller continue…

Series 4a - The Christmas Specials

The first story of Series 4 of the Eighth Doctor Adventures was released as a Christmas Special, several months before the rest of the series. Also included here is An Earthly Child. While it’s not technically part of the Eighth Doctor Adventures, it is essential to the plotline.

Series 4b

The final series in this era of the Eighth Doctor Adventures. This series features a brand new companion, Tasmin Drew.

After the end of The Eighth Doctor Adventures Series 4, continue on to Dark Eyes.

An important note: narratively, Dark Eyes follows on from the end of To the Death. However, it quickly moves into its own narrative arc, rather than dwelling on the specifics of the events of To the Death.

After the conclusion of Series 4 of the Eighth Doctor Adventures, Big Finish decided to change the format - instead of individual episodes, each series now consists of 4 boxsets, with 4 episodes in each boxset.

Dark Eyes is a good jumping on point for the most recent era of Eighth Doctor Adventures. Even though it follows directly on from the end of Series 4 of the Eighth Doctor Adventures, it’s a new era, with new problems and new companions.

Dark Eyes

The Dark Eyes series introduces two new companions, Molly O’Sullivan and Liv Chenka. It also features the Daleks, and the Master.

Liv Chenka was seen in a previous 7th Doctor story, Robophobia, but you don’t need to listen to that to enjoy Dark Eyes.

Doom Coalition

The Doom Coalition series follows on from Dark Eyes and introduces a new companion Helen Sinclair, as well as a new recurring villain, the Eleven.

Ravenous

Ravenous continues telling the stories of the 8th Doctor, Liv, Helen, and the Eleven.

This series focuses on the Ravenous, the only creature to strike fear into the hearts of a Time Lord.

After listening to Ravenous, you might be interested in listening to the spin-off series The Robots, which goes into detail about what Liv Chenka did during Escape from Kaldor.

Stranded, and the Future

The next series of 8th Doctor stories will be Stranded, with the Doctor, Liv, and Helen stranded on Earth. Stranded will be released in 2020-2021.

What do I do now???

If you’ve gotten to this point and want to hear more, there’s a few options!

• You can scroll down just a little bit to the “Assorted Extras” section, which has loads of other 8th doctor adventures you can listen to.
• If you skipped one of the starting points, you can jump back to a previous starting point and go from there (e.g. if you started with Dark Eyes, you can go back and listen to the Eighth Doctor Adventures, or the adventures with Charley and C’rizz).
• You can listen to something else - some common choices are The Fourth Doctor Adventures, Dalek Empire, Gallifrey, UNIT - The New Series, or really just whatever takes your fancy.

Given the 8th Doctor’s popularity, there have also been numerous bonus releases, which you might like to check out!

(Despite the words “Starting Point 4” at the top of this section, this is not actually a starting point.)

Adventures with Mary Shelley

The 8th Doctor travelled with Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein, at some point before meeting Charley.

During the Time War

The Eighth Doctor: The Time War is a prequel series to The War Doctor.

Multi-doctor Stories

The 8th Doctor has been in a handful of Multi-doctor stories:

The Four Doctors
Featuring: the 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th Doctors, Daleks

The Light at the End
Featuring: the 1st through 8th Doctors, Charley, Leela, Nyssa, Peri, Ace, the Master

Standalone: Yes

The Legacy of Time

• Lies in Ruins
• The Split Infinitive
• The Sacrifice of Jo Grant
• Relative Time
• The Avenues of Possibility
• Collision Course

Featuring: the 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th Doctors, Benny, River Song, the Counter-Measures group, Ace, UNIT, Kate Stewart, Jo Jones, Osgood, Jenny (the Doctor's Daughter), the Nine, DI Patricia Menzies, Charley, Romana, Leela

Standalone: Yes

Miscellaneous full-cast dramas

A boxset of extra adventures with Lucie Miller, set between Series 1 and Series 2 of the Eighth Doctor Adventures.

The 8th doctor was also in an adaption of the unfinished TV episode Shada:

Classic Doctors, New Monsters:

Narrated Stories

With Charley:

With Lucie:

With Molly and Liv:

With others:

Cameos

The 8th Doctor is also in the following stories, although not as the star. Aside from The Diary of River Song, you’ll need to listen to the rest of the series first.

From the Dalek Empire series:

Museum Peace
Featuring: the 8th Doctor, Kalendorf, Daleks

Standalone: No
(first listen to: Return of the Daleks)

From The Diary of River Song:

From The War Master: